Sunday, April 11, 2010

Sunday Faith Blog

"Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall." Proverbs 16:18

"Better a little with righteousness than much gain with injustice." Proverbs 16:8

Have a good Sunday.........
Z

28 comments:

(((Thought Criminal))) said...

"Dont forget to love yourself." - Soren Kierkegaard

Z said...

Beamish...you equating that with PRIDE?

Always On Watch said...

Responding to Beamish and Z....

Jesus said: "Love thy neighbor as thyself."

One has to have some regard for self to love one's neighbor properly.

Always On Watch said...

As for the post, choice verses considering the present political climate.

I love those white tulips. A sea of them.

WomanHonorThyself said...

Blessed Sunday Z!

Z said...

what I'm trying to say is loving yourself has little to do with the kind of pride in the quotes...
I had the feeling that when Beamish wrote "don't forget to love yourself", that was the inference he was making. Maybe I was wrong?

Always, your comment about the political climate was some of what I was getting at...of course, it applies to us, too, but I think few of us have that kind of pride that God promises will be our destruction.

Anonymous said...

]""Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall." Proverbs 16:18"

I believe this means, placing oneself above all others.

Pris

Z said...

yes, Pris, a kind of pride that goes well beyond loving oneself in healthy, confident ways...

I always hope my Sunday Faith Blogs bring peace or something good to ponder...

Anonymous said...

"I always hope my Sunday Faith Blogs bring peace or something good to ponder..."

Yes Z, it does. It provides food for thought, and some calm amidst the storm.

Heaven knows we can all use that.

Thanks to you for knowing this.


Pris

(((Thought Criminal))) said...

Z,

Beamish...you equating that with PRIDE?

No, I'm saying the opposite of pride is not self-hatred.

We're on the same page, I'm just expressing it differently via a favorite quote.

Z said...

Pris..thanks so much :-)

Beamish, thank you...sorry I took it a bit differently and couldn't agree with you more. I think some parents raise kids to be so humble, "the teacher's always right" (well, those were the days), 'let the other person go first', etc etc., that we forget to love ourselves or misconstrue even those good things......THanks for your reminder.

Brooke said...

Amazing how the Bible is chock full of common sense good advice, huh?

Have a good one, Z!

Anonymous said...

I needed this reminder, not politically, but as a parent.

I tend to exasperate my kids. :(

Your Sunday posts are very encouraging and uplifting, Z.

And I do so admire Kierkegaard!!

Faith said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

Jen, if your kids are teenagers, don't be so hard on yourself. They tend to embrace exasperation, as in, "Mom you just don't understand!" Ha, Ha.

Pris

(((Thought Criminal))) said...

And I hate Kierkegaard.

Well, he loves you nonetheless.

Anonymous said...

Psalm 84: verse 10 KJV:

"... I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God, than to dwell in the tents of wickedness...."

The verses Z quoted from Proverbs reminded me of this. How does it relate?

It's better to live humbly, meekly and generously -- even poorly -- than to dwell selfishly in splendor with arrogance and insensitivity.

Didn't Christ Jesus ask: "What profiteth it a man, if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?

To me today's verses from Proverbs, the fragment from Psalm 84, and those few words from Jesus say basically the same thing.

And paraphrasing St Paul, "Nothing is worth anything at all unless it is motivated by Charity -- i.e. loving kindness, affection, a generous spirit that looks for no special reward for the virtue it exhibits."

The WHITE TULIPS are MAGNIFICENT. More in the spirit of Easter to me than the traditional lilies we usually associate with that event.

"... Be still and know that I am God ..."

What a world of calm and solace there is in these words.

~ FreeThinke

Z said...

Beamish:

"And I hate Kierkegaard.

Well, he loves you nonetheless."

Do you ever stop being totally brilliant? I'm still laughing!

FT, you absolutely need a blog...look at all the great stuff you want to post! DO IT!
I'm really hoping people address the two I posted and am hoping to get more good talk on it!
Really glad you liked the tulips...they remind you more of Easter than Easter lilies!>?

Anonymous said...

Jen, if your kids are teenagers, don't be so hard on yourself. They tend to embrace exasperation, as in, "Mom you just don't understand!" Ha, Ha.
-----------

No, the oldest one is 9, Pris.
I plan on moving to a small, quaint town in Ireland and hiring a mean nanny during their teen years.

;-)

Anonymous said...

We don't have to remember to love ourselves. Even when we hate ourselves we love ourselves or we wouldn't care enough to hate ourselves.
---------

Really? 'Cuz when I see teenagers cutting themselves and read statistics about addictions and suicides, the first thing that comes to mind isn't, "Wow! Those people REALLY love themselves!"

Z said...

Jen...I'm ALL over this for teens!!

"I plan on moving to a small, quaint town in Ireland and hiring a mean nanny during their teen years."

Sadly, YOU are going to have to be the mean nanny! :-) My mother was, and I still love her!!!

Z said...

By the way, Jen. Can I come, too? :-)

Faith said...

I wasn't thinking of outright self-destructive behavior but still, just technically speaking, if we didn't love ourselves we wouldn't get so unhappy about things going wrong that we'd kill ourselves, or take drugs to dull the unhappiness and so on -- that's the basic idea, but I don't want to push it in the context of severe behavior of the sort you listed.

Anonymous said...

"Sadly, YOU are going to have to be the mean nanny! :-) My mother was, and I still love her!!!"

Z, I don't call it mean I call it tough love. Someday, they will thank her for it. And when they have children of their own, they will understand, and even be grateful for it.


Jen, maybe 9 is the new 13! In any case, as parents we do the best we can. If they're exasperated, too bad. Better that, than no guidance from Mom and Dad.

Pris

Anonymous said...

Z,
I am THE mean mom on the block.
I truly do struggle between drill seargant parenting and moderation, trying to find the right fit for me and my kids.

And yes, you will the first guest in my Irish cottage!!

Anonymous said...

Jen, maybe 9 is the new 13! In any case, as parents we do the best we can. If they're exasperated, too bad. Better that, than no guidance from Mom and Dad.
---------

I truly believe this is the case, Pris. Adolescence now starts at 8, as opposed to 12 a few decades ago. Big Sis actually proclaimed, "You just don't get it!", just the other day.

I smiled and shook my head.

Anonymous said...

I wasn't thinking of outright self-destructive behavior but still...
-------

But Faith, when I forget to love myself, that's precisely when I want to numb myself. Loving myself is staying present, even in the pain of reality.

I think that we ultimately agree on this issue, but approach it differently.

Based on the fact that I read and admire Kierkegaard and you hate him, we might approach a lot of things from different angles. But interestingly, we can still come to the same conclusion.

:-)

(((Thought Criminal))) said...

I don't get the leap Faith made (mind the unintentional pun since we're talking Kierkegaard) between Kierkegaard and "liberal theology."

Liberal theology as I understand it posits a post-modernist view of scripture, in that the writings by the Bible's authors must be taken in the context of their times and may or may not apply to today. In Kierkegaard I see the opposite.

Actually, much of Kierkegaard's theological philosophy is compatible with Edmund Burke's political philosophy, and Burke if anything is the grandfather of political conservatism. Kierkegaard was very much opposed to state control of the church. Burke was opposed to church control of the state.

In a world now where "Christian" can mean "dabbed on the head with water as an infant by a priest" to "prayed for after death by a Mormon" and all points in between, Kierkegaard was concerned with what it meant to be a Christian in a world where it's very very easy to not be one.

I think Kierkegaard deserves more consideration.