Salty Seasonings for Today - A Digest

Self-conquest is the greatest of all victories." -Socrates

The power of self-conquest is in its greatest challenge, subjugating our own desires, passions, wants, and needs to something greater than ourselves.

When we can place things in their proper order, we can conquer any challenge.

When we have overcome self and self interest, we will have positioned ourselves for heroism should the need ever arise.

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"The scandalous part of grace is that it is big enough to include both the oppressed and the oppressors."-Shane Claiborne

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"... I will appoint Peace as your overseer and Righteousness as your taskmaster." Isaiah 60:17, NRSV

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In his musings, the psalmist wandered around the dusty trails of his own existence, traversing over his own struggles and victories, glancing upon the outgrowths of wickedness that tormented him and the grace that attended him.

 

He paused to pray a reflective prayer over his fleeting existence for perspective and resolve, assessing his own need of assessment.

 

" “O LORD, make me know my end

and what is the measure of my days;

let me know how fleeting I am!

Behold, you have made my days a few handbreadths,

and my lifetime is as nothing before you.

Surely all mankind stands as a mere breath! Selah

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"Any time we rejoice in death, we disgrace the cross of Jesus." - Shane Claiborne

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Born this day in 1944 – Alice Walker, American novelist, short story writer, and poet. Happy birthday!

"The animals of the world exist for their own reasons. They were not made for humans any more than black people were made for whites or women for men."

"The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don't have any."

"Activism is the rent I pay for living on the planet."

"The harm that you do to others is the harm that you do to yourself and you cannot think then that you can cause wars in other parts of the world and destroy people and drone them without this having a terrible impact on your own soul and your own consciousness."

"I think unless the people are given information about what is happening to them, they will die in ignorance. And I think that's the big sin. I mean if there is such a thing as a sin, that's it, to destroy people and not have them have a clue about how this is happening."

"I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don’t notice it."

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Born this day in 1847 – Hugh Price Hughes, Welsh-English clergyman and theologian (d. 1902)He was a religious reformer in the Methodist tradition and leader of the "Forward Movement" in Methodism. The movement sought to reshape the Methodist Church as the moral and social conscience of Britain. He expressed discontentment with the notion that evangelical tradition had become overly focused on individual salvation, and it was time for them to become churches in a fuller sense, taking on responsibility for the salvation of society.

He was a leader for temperance and for the repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts and was a strong advocate for public education and international peace as well as home rule.

"You cannot help being a politician. You cannot live for an hour without being a politician. But what a man generally means when he says that he is not a politician I am afraid is this--that he has been all his life enjoying his political privilege and grossly neglecting his political duties; and in that sense the observation is scarcely to his credit. As a matter of fact, politics, properly understood, is simply Science of Life--the doctrine of the way in which I am to do my duty to my neighbor, which is an essential part of true religion. It is nothing in the world except religion applied to human society; in fact, it is the practical recognition of the Second Table of the Law of God."

"Politics is the only serious subject that men think themselves qualified to act upon without any previous education or instruction whatever. If it happened to be astronomy, or botany, or medicine, or law, he would never be allowed to work in any of these arts, or to take a decisive part in the history of any one of these sciences without having, at least, acquired: the A B C of it; but the awful fact of politics is that we do not take the trouble seriously to understand the political situation."

"Free and just political institutions are absolutely essential to the progress and development both of the individual and of the race."

"What a man generally means when he says that he is not a politician I am afraid is this - that he has been all his life enjoying his political privileges and neglecting his political duties."

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Born this day in 1773 – The shortest-term President in our history at 31 days - William Henry Harrison, American general and politician, 9th President of the United States (d. 1841). A Virginian, he was the son of Founding Father Benjamin Harrison V and the paternal grandfather of Benjamin Harrison, the 23rd president of the United States.

 

He was also the last president born as a British subject in the Thirteen Colonies.

 

He was succeeded by another Virginian, John Tyler.

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If I am going to enjoy righteousness and the pursuit of holiness, I must also understand the pernicious power of the sin that does so easily beset me. I am not immune and you are not immune from The Great Distraction or its destructive persistence. There is a duality to our lives - an authentic self and a false self. I cannot speak of the wicked man without recognizing the phony me who walks around in and desires to rule my body and mind. I can own the reality and reject the rule, but it is a daily deed. As bad as any can be, so can I be! Yet, there is more.

 

"Transgression speaks to the wicked

deep in his heart;

there is no fear of God

before his eyes.

For he flatters himself in his own eyes

that his iniquity cannot be found out and hated.

The words of his mouth are trouble and deceit;

he has ceased to act wisely and do good.

He plots trouble while on his bed;

he sets himself in a way that is not good;

he does not reject evil."

(Psalm 36:1-4 ESV)

 

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Praying together ...

 

Sometimes, when we cannot find the words or place within our hearts, we pray together ...

Across miles and timelines ...

Across languages and any other barriers to find mutual encouragement and to ...

Meld our prayers with those of others who have so prayed or would have ...

Or might and may and shall .

And to know that we always have at least one strong and true prayer partner means that ...

if we cannot pray well, He knows the secrets of our hearts.

 

 

 

I just love to post this song periodically from different artists and I love Joe Stead. I have a strong eschatology, but it does not preclude a hope for the present and near future based upon the calling we always have to be blessed peacemakers. May we never allow our eschatology to suppress our ecclesiology or to excuse us from our missiology.