Notable Quotables
 

“After a while you learn the subtle difference between holding a hand and chaining a soul. And you learn that love doesn’t mean leaning. And company doesn’t always mean security. And you begin to learn that kisses aren’t contracts. And presents aren’t promises. And you begin to accept your defeats with your head up And your eyes ahead. With the grace of a woman, not the grief of a child. And you learn to build all your roads on today. Because tomorrow’s ground is too uncertain for plans And future has a way of falling apart in mid-flight. After a while you learn that even sunshine burns if you get too much. So you plant your own garden and decorate your own soul. Instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers. And you learn that you really can endure, that you really are strong And you really do have worth. And you learn, with every goodbye you learn…”
~Veronica A. Shoffstall

Pride calls me to the window, gluttony to the table, wantonness to the bed, laziness to the chimney-corner; ambition commands me to go upstairs, and covetousness to come down. Vices, I see, are as well contrary to themselves as to virtue. Free me, Lord, from this distracted case; fetch me from being sin’s servant to be Thine, whose “service is perfect freedom,” for Thou art but one, and ever the same.
... Thomas Fuller (1608-1661), Good Thoughts in Bad Times [1898]

"A leader, once convinced a particular course of action is the right one, must have the determination to stick with it and be undaunted when the going gets rough"                                                                                         

Ronald Reagan

Do not pray for easy lives; pray to be stronger men. Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers; pray for powers
equal to your tasks. Then the doing of your work shall be no miracle, but you yourself shall be a miracle.
Every day you shall wonder at yourself, at the richness of life which has come to you by the grace of God.
... Phillips Brooks (1835-1893)

"The times are dark, the spirits of ruin are abroad in all their power, and the mercy of God alone can save us."
-- President Abraham Lincoln, 1862

 Going to church doesn’t make you a Christian, any more than going to a garage makes you an automobile.
... Billy Sunday (1862-1935)

 And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year:  “Give me a light, that I may tread safely into the unknown.” And he replied: “Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God. That shall be to you better than light, and safer than a known way.”
... Minnie L. Haskins (1875-1957), “The Desert” (c.1908), Introduction

The traditional worship setting is both the inspiration for faith and fellowship, and the barrier to it. Due only to Word and Sacrament -- God’s ideas -- is there any faith to be shared or truth to articulate. However, the very setting in which this is received instills the fear of expressing it informally.
... Paul G. Johnson (1931- ), Buried Alive [1968]

"Every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle.
We have called by different names brethren of the same principle."
--Thomas Jefferson

All excess is ill, but drunkenness is of the worst sort. It spoils health, dismounts the mind, and
unmans men. It reveals secrets, is quarrelsome, lascivious, impudent, dangerous and bad. 
William Penn (1644 - 1718)