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For Many Of Us The March From Selma To Montgomery Was About Protest And Prayer. Legs Are Not Lips And Walking Is Not Kneeling. And Yet Our Legs Uttered Songs. Even Without Words, Our March Was Worship. I Felt My Legs Were Praying.

-Abraham Joshua Heschel

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For Many Of Us

Abraham Joshua Heschel

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For Many Of Us The March From Selma To Montgomery Was About Protest And Prayer. Legs Are Not Lips And Walking Is Not Kneeling. And Yet Our Legs Uttered Songs. Even Without Words, Our March Was Worship. I Felt My Legs Were Praying.

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Awe Enables Us To See In The World Intimations Of The Divine, To Sense In Small Things The Beginning Of Infinite Significance, To Sense The Ultimate In The Common And The Simple, To Feel In The Rush Of The Passing The Stillness Of The Eternal.

As Civilization Advances, The Sense Of Wonder Declines. Such Decline Is An Alarming Symptom Of Our State Of Mind. Mankind Will Not Perish For Want Of Information; But Only For Want Of Appreciation.

The Idea Of Dependence Is An Explanation, Whereas Self-sufficiency Is An Unprecedented, Nonanalogous Concept In Terms Of What We Know About Life Within Nature. Is Not Self-sufficiency Itself Insufficient To Explain Self-sufficiency?

Our Goal Should Be To Live Life In Radical Amazement. ....get Up In The Morning And Look At The World In A Way That Takes Nothing For Granted. Everything Is Phenomenal; Everything Is Incredible; Never Treat Life Casually. To Be Spiritual Is To Be Amazed.

We Worry A Great Deal About The Problem Of Church And State. Now What About The Church And God? Sometimes There Seems To Be A Greater Separation Between The Church And God Than Between The Church And State.

Thought Provoking

Never Once In My Life Did I Ask God For Success Or Wisdom Or Power Or Fame. I Asked For Wonder, And He Gave It To Me.

We Do Not Step Out Of The World When We Pray; We Merely See The World In A Different Setting. The Self Is Not The Hub But The Spoke Of The Revolving Wheel. It Is Precisely The Function Of Prayer To Shift The Center Of Living From Self-consciousness To Self-surrender.

To Become Aware Of The Ineffable Is To Part Company With Words...the Tangent To The Curve Of Human Experience Lies Beyond The Limits Of Language. The World Of Things We Perceive Is But A Veil. It’s Flutter Is Music, Its Ornament Science, But What It Conceals Is Inscrutable. It’s Silence Remains Unbroken; No Words Can Carry It Away. Sometimes We Wish The World Could Cry And Tell Us About That Which Made It Pregnant With Fear--filling Grandeur. Sometimes We Wish Our Own Heart Would Speak Of That Which Made It Heavy With Wonder.

Religion Has Become An Impersonal Affair, An Institutional Loyalty. It Survives On The Level Of Activities Rather Than In The Stillness Of Commitment.

Speech Has Power. Words Do Not Fade. What Starts Out As A Sound, Ends In A Deed.

Trust Is The Core Of Human Relationships, Of Gregariousness Among Men. Friendship, A Puzzle To The Syllogistic And Critical Mentality, Is Not Based On Experiments Or Tests Of Another Person's Qualities But On Trust. It Is Not Critical Knowledge But A Risk Of The Heart Which Initiates Affection And Preserves Loyalty In Our Fellow Men.

Sometimes We Wish The World Could Cry And Tell Us About That Which Made It Pregnant With Fear-filling Grandeur. Sometimes We Wish Our Own Heart Would Speak Of That Which Made It Heavy With Wonder.

The Worship Of Reason Is Arrogance And Betrays A Lack Of Intelligence. The Rejection Of Reason Is Cowardice And Betrays A Lack Of Faith.

In The Midst Of Our Applauding The Feats Of Civilization, The Bible Flings Itself Like A Knife Slashing Our Complacency; Remind Us That God, Too, Has A Voice In History.

There Is No Answer To Auschwitz...to Try To Answer Is To Commit A Supreme Blasphemy. Israel Enables Us To Bear The Agony Of Auschwitz Without Radical Despair, To Sense A Ray Of God's Radiance In The Jungles Of History.

Faith Is Not The Clinging To A Shrine But An Endless Pilgrimage Of The Heart.

In Prayer We Shift The Center Of Living From Self-consciousness To Self-surrender

Prayer Is Our Humble Answer To The Inconceivable Surprise Of Living.

Wonder Rather Than Doubt Is The Root Of All Knowledge.

Prayer Begins Where Our Power Ends.

We Can All Do Our Share To Redeem The World In Spite Of All Absurdities And All Frustrations And All Disappointments.

Prayer Is Meaningless Unless It Is Subversive, Unless It Seeks To Overthrow And To Ruin The Pyramids Of Callousness, Hatred, Opportunism, Falsehoods. The Liturgical Movement Must Become A Revolutionary Movement Seeking To Overthrow The Forces That Continue To Destroy The Promise, The Hope, The Vision.

There Is Happiness In The Love Of Labor, There Is Misery In The Love Of Gain.

A Religious Man Is A Person Who Holds God And Man In One Thought At One Time, At All Times, Who Suffers Harm Done To Others, Whose Greatest Passion Is Compassion, Whose Greatest Strength Is Love And Defiance Of Despair.

Everything Is Phenomenal; Everything Is Incredible; Never Treat Life Casually. To Be Spiritual Is To Be Amazed.

It Is Dangerous To Take Human Freedom For Granted, To Regard It As A Prerogative Rather Than As An Obligation, As An Ultimate Fact Rather Than As An Ultimate Goal. It Is The Beginning Of Wisdom To Be Amazed At The Fact Of Our Being Free.

There Are No Two Hours Alike. Every Hour Is Unique And The Only One Given At The Moment, Exclusive And Endlessly Precious. Judaism Teaches Us To Be Attached To Holiness In Time; To Learn How To Consecrate Sanctuaries That Emerge From The Magnificent Stream Of A Year.

It Is Gratefulness Which Makes The Soul Great.

We Forfeit The Right To Worship God As Long As We Continue To Humiliate Negroes. ... The Hour Calls For Moral Grandeur And Spiritual Audacity.

God Is Either Of No Importance, Or Of Supreme Importance.

Faith Is An Awareness Of Divine Mutuality And Companionship, A Form Of Communion Between God And Man. It Is Not A Psychical Quality, Something That Exists In The Mind Only, But A Force From The Beyond.

Self-sufficiency, Independence, The Capacity To Stand Apart, To Differ, To Resist, And To Defy-all Are Modes Of Being Human.

Racism Is Man's Gravest Threat To Man - The Maximum Of Hatred For A Minimum Of Reason.

The Road To The Sacred Leads Through The Secular.

We Can Never Sneer At The Stars, Mock The Dawn, Or Scoff At The Totality Of Being.

Every Little Deed Counts.

The Work On Weekdays And The Rest On The Seventh Day Are Correlated. The Sabbath Is The Inspirer, The Other Days The Inspired.

The Man Who Has Not Suffered - What Does He Know Anyway?

New Insight Begins When Satisfaction Comes To An End, When All That Has Been Seen, Said, Or Done Looks Like A Distortion. ... Man's True Fulfillment Depends On Communion With That Which Transcends Him.

It Is Of The Essence Of Virtue That The Good Is Not To Be Done For The Sake Of A Reward.

The Sabbath Is Not For The Sake Of The Weekdays; The Weekdays Are For The Sake Of Sabbath. It Is Not An Interlude But The Climax Of Living.

One Of The Major Symptoms Of The General Crisis Existent In Our World Today Is Our Lack Of Sensitivity To Words. We Use Words As Tools. We Forget That Words Are A Repository Of The Spirit. The Tragedy Of Our Times Is That The Vessels Of The Spirit Are Broken. We Cannot Approach The Spirit Unless We Repair The Vessels. Reverence For Words - An Awareness Of The Wonder Of Words, Of The Mystery Of Words - Is An Essential Prerequisite For Prayer. By The Word Of God The World Was Created.

Faith Like Job's Cannot Be Shaken Becasue It Is The Result Of Having Been Shaken.

Proximity To The Crowd, To The Majority View, Spells The Death Of Creativity. For A Soul Can Create Only When Alone, And Some Are Chosen For The Flowering That Takes Place In The Dark Avenues Of Night.

The Time For The Kingdom May Be Far Off, But The Task Is Plain: To Retain Our Share In God In Spite Of Peril And Contempt. There Is A War To Wage Against The Vulgar, The Glorification Of The Absurd, A War That Is Incessant, Universal. Loyal To The Presence Of The Ultimate In The Common, We May Be Able To Make It Clear That Man Is More Than Man, That In Doing The Finite He May Perceive The Infinite .

There Are Few Ideas In The World Of Thought Which Contain So Much Spiritual Power As The Idea Of The Sabbath. Aeons Hence, When Of Many Of Our Cherished Theories Only Shreds Will Remain, That Cosmic Tapestry Will Continue To Shine.

Self-respect Is The Fruit Of Discipline.

Inspirational Life

Prayer Begins At The Edge Of Emptiness.

When Faith Is Completely Replaced By Creed, Worship By Discipline, Love By Habit; When The Crisis Of Today Is Ignored Because Of The Splendors Of The Past; When Faith Becomes An Heirloom Rather Than A Living Fountain; When Religion Speaks Only In The Name Of Authority Rather Than With The Voice Of Compassion, Its Message Becomes Meaningless.

To Pray Is To Dream In League With God, To Envision His Holy Visions.

The Awe Of God Is Wisdom.

Self-respect Is The Fruit Of Discipline; The Sense Of Dignity Grows With The Ability To Say No To Oneself.

In Our Daily Lives We Attend Primarily To That Which The Senses Are Spelling Out For Us: To What The Eyes Perceive, To What The Fingers Touch. Reality To Us Is Thinghood , Consisting Of Substances That Occupy Space; Even God Is Conceived By Most Of Us As A Thing. The Result Of Our Thinginess Is Our Blindness To All Reality That Fails To Identify Itself As A Thing, As A Matter Of Fact.

Human Being Is Both Being In The World And Living In The World. Living Involves Responsible Understanding Of One's Role In Relation To All Other Beings. For Living Is Not Being In Itself, But Living Of The World, Affecting, Exploiting, Consuming, Comprehending, Deriving, Depriving.

All Action Is Vicarious Faith.

Just To Be Is A Blessing. Just To Live Is Holy.

Spiritual Life Begins To Decay When We Fail To Sense The Grandeur Of What Is Eternal In Time.

The Anchor Of Meaning Resides In An Abyss, Deeper Than The Reach Of Despair. Yet The Abyss Is Not Not Infinite; Its Bottom May Suddenly Be Discovered Within The Confines Of A Human Heart Or Under The Debris Of Might Doubts. This May Be The Vocation Of Man: To Say "amen" To Being And To The Author Of Being; To Live In Defiance Of Absurdity, Notwithstanding Futility And Defeat; To Attain Faith In God Even In Spite Of God.

We Worship God Through Our Questions.

Worship Is A Way Of Seeing The World In The Light Of God.

The Riches Of The Soul Are Stored Up In Its Memory. This Is The Test Of Character, Not Whether A Man Follows The Daily Fashion, But Whether The Past Is Alive In His Present.

When I Was Young, I Admired Clever People. Now That I Am Old, I Admire Kind People.

A Religious Man Is A Person... Whose Greatest Passion Is Compassion.

Awe Is An Intuition For The Dignity Of All Things, A Realization That Things Not Only Are What They Are But Also Stand, However Remotely, For Something Supreme. Awe Is A Sense For Transcendence, For The Reference Everywhere To Mystery Beyond All Things. It Enables Us To Perceive In The World Intimations Of The Divine. ... To Sense The Ultimate In The Common And The Simple: To Feel In The Rush Of The Passing The Stillness Of The Eternal. What We Cannot Comprehend By Analysis, We Become Aware Of In Awe.

The Tragedy Of Religion Is Partly Due To Its Isolation From Life, As If God Could Be Segregated.

Indifference To Evil Is More Insidious Than Evil Itself. It Is A Silent Justification Affording Evil Acceptability In Society.

To Abstain Completely From All Enjoyments May Be Easy. Yet To Enjoy Life And Retain Spiritual Integrity - There Is The Challenge.

I Have One Talent, And That Is The Capacity To Be Tremendously Surprised, Surprised At Life, At Ideas. This Is To Me The Supreme Hasidic Imperative: Don't Be Old. Don't Be Stale.

It Is Not Enough For Me To Ask Question; I Want To Know How To Answer The One Question That Seems To Encompass Everything I Face: What Am I Here For?

Questions And Answers

Answering Questions

All That Is Left Is To Us Is Our Being Horrified At The Loss Of Our Sense Of Horror.

The Issue Of Prayer Is Not Prayer; The Issue Of Prayer Is God.

To Pray Is To Take Notice Of The Wonder, To Regain A Sense Of The Mystery That Animates All Beings, The Divine Margin In All Attainments.

People Are Anxious To Save Up Financial Means For Old Age; They Should Also Be Anxious To Prepare A Spiritual Means For Old Age.... Wisdom, Maturity, Tranquility Do Not Come All Of A Sudden When We Retire.

When Religion Speaks Only In The Name Of Authority Rather Than With The Voice Of Compassion, Its Message Becomes Meaningless.

The Opposite Of Good Is Not Evil, The Opposite Of Good Is Indifference.

Our Concern Is Not How To Worship In The Catacombs But How To Remain Human In The Skyscrapers.

Then Comes The Insight That All Is God. One Still Realizes That The World Is As It Was, But It Does Not Matter, It Does Not Affect One's Faith.

Wonder, Or Radical Amazement, Is A Way Of Going Beyond What Is Given In Thing And Thought, Refusing To Take Anything For Granted, To Regard Anything As Final. It Is Our Honest Response To The Grandeur And Mystery Of Reality Our Confrontation With That Which Transcends The Given.

To Become Aware Of The Ineffable Is To Part Company With Words.

Solitude Is A Necessary Protest To The Incursions And The False Alarms Of Society's Hysteria, A Period Of Cure And Recovery.

Our Age Is One In Which Usefulness Is Thought To Be The Chief Merit Of Nature; In Which The Attainment Of Power, The Utilization Of Its Resources Is Taken To Be The Chief Purpose Of Man In God's Creation. Man Has Indeed Become Primarily A Tool-making Animal, And The World Is Now A Gigantic Tool Box For The Satisfaction Of His Needs.

Faith Opens Our Hearts For The Entrance Of The Holy. It Is Almost As Though God Were Thinking For Us.

Remember That There Is Meaning Beyond Absurdity. Know That Every Deed Counts, That Every Word Is Power...above All, Remember That You Must Build Your Life As If It Were A Work Of Art.

Normal Consciousness Is A State Of Stupor, In Which The Sensibility To The Wholly Real And Responsiveness To The Stimuli Of The Spirit Are Reduced. The Mystics, Knowing That Man Is Involved In A Hidden History Of The Cosmos, Endeavor To Awake From The Drowsiness And Apathy And To Regain The State Of Wakefulness For Their Enchanted Souls.

Much Of What The Bible Demands Can Be Comprised In One Imperative: Remember!

How Embarrassing For Man To Be The Greatest Miracle On Earth And Not To Understand It!

Man Is A Messenger Who Forgot The Message.

This Is One Of The Goals Of The Jewish Way Of Living: To Experience Commonplace Deeds As Spiritual Adventures, To Feel The Hidden Love And Wisdom In All Things.

Being Is Transcended By A Concern For Being. Our Perplexity Will Not Be Solved By Relating Human Existence To A Timeless, Subpersonal Abstraction Which We Call Essence. We Can Do Justice To Human Being Only By Relating It To The Transcendent Care For Being.

Man Is Naturally Self-centered And He Is Inclined To Regard Expediency As The Supreme Standard For What Is Right And Wrong. However, We Must Not Convert An Inclination Into An Axiom That Just As Man's Perceptions Cannot Operate Outside Time And Space, So His Motivations Cannot Operate Outside Expediency; That Man Can Never Transcend His Own Self. The Most Fatal Trap Into Which Thinking May Fall Is The Equation Of Existence And Expediency.

God Is Everywhere Or Nowhere, The Father Of All People Or Of None, Concerned About Everything Or Nothing. Only In His Presence Shall We Learn That The Glory Of Humankind Is Not In Its Will To Power But In Its Power Of Compassion.

God Is Not A Hypothesis Derived From Logical Assumptions, But An Immediate Insight, Self-evident As Light. He Is Not Something To Be Sought In The Darkness With The Light Of Reason. He Is The Light.

There Is A Realm Of Time Where The Goal Is Not To Have But To Be, Not To Own But To Give, Not To Control But To Share, Not To Subdue But To Be In Accord. Life Goes Wrong When The Control Of Space, The Acquisition Of Things Of Space, Becomes Our Sole Concern.

People Of Our Time Are Losing The Power Of Celebration. Instead Of Celebrating We Seek To Be Amused Or Entertained. Celebration Is An Active State, An Act Of Expressing Reverence Or Appreciation. To Be Entertained Is A Passive State--it Is To Receive Pleasure Afforded By An Amusing Act Or A Spectacle.... Celebration Is A Confrontation, Giving Attention To The Transcendent Meaning Of One's Actions. Source: The Wisdom Of Heschel

The Primary Purpose Of Prayer Is Not To Make Requests. The Primary Purpose Is To Praise, To Sing, To Chant. Because The Essence Of Prayer Is A Song, And Man Cannot Live Without A Song. Prayer May Not Save Us. But Prayer May Make Us Worthy Of Being Saved.

(people Achieve) Fullness Of Being In Fellowship, In Care For Others.

A Test Of A People Is How It Behaves Toward The Old. It Is Easy To Love Children. Even Tyrants And Dictators Make A Point Of Being Fond Of Children. But The Affection And Care For The Old, The Incurable, The Helpless Are The True Gold Mines Of A Culture.

Being Points Beyond Itself. Accustomed To Think In Terms Of Space, The Expression "being Points Beyond Itself" May Be Taken To Denote A Higher Point In Space. What Is Meant, However, Is A Higher Category Than Being: The Power Of Maintaining Being.

Prayer Is Not A Stratagem For Occasional Use, A Refuge To Resort To Now And Then. It Is Rather Like An Established Residence For The Innermost Self. All Things Have A Home: The Bird Has A Nest, The Fox Has A Hole, The Bee Has A Hive. A Soul Without Prayer Is A Soul Without A Home.

When We Pray, We Bring G-d Into The World

There Is No Specialized Art Of Prayer. All Of Life Must Be A Training To Pray. We Pray The Way We Live.

Knowledge-like The Sky- Is Never Private Property. No Teacher Has A Right To Withhold It From Anyone Who Asks For It. Teaching Is The Art Of Sharing.

Wonder Or Radical Amazement Is The Chief Characteristic Of The Religious Man's Attitude Toward History And Nature.

I Would Say About Individuals, A Individual Dies When They Cease To To Be Surprised. I Am Surprised Every Morning When I See The Sunshine Again. When I See An Act Of Evil I Don't Accomodate, I Don't Accomodate Myself To The Violence That Goes On Everywhere. I Am Still So Surprised! That Is Why I Am Against It. We Must Learn To Be Surprised.

A Prophet's True Greatness Is His Ability To Hold God And Man In A Single Thought.

Only Those Will Apprehend Religion Who Can Probe Its Depth, Who Can Combine Intuition And Love With The Rigor Of Method

To Be Is To Stand For.

Philosophy May Be Defined As The Art Of Asking The Right Question...awareness Of The Problem Outlives All Solutions. The Answers Are Questions In Disguise, Every New Answer Giving Rise To New Questions.

(people) Can Never Attain Fulfillment, Or Sense Of Meaning, Unless It Is Shared, Unless It Pertains To Other Human Beings.

He Who Is Satisfied Has Never Truly Craved, And He Who Craves For The Light Of God Neglects His Ease For Ardor.

To Serve Does Not Mean To Surrender But To Share.

A Soul Can Create Only When Alone.

In Any Free Society Where Terrible Wrongs Exist, Some Are Guilty - All Are Responsible.

To Be Spiritual Is To Be Amazed.

God Is Not Nice. God Is Not An Uncle. God Is An Earthquake.

The Task Of Life Is To Face Sacred Moments.

Things, When Magnified, Are Forgeries Of Happiness.

Few Are Guilty, But All Are Responsible.

Instead Of Indulging In Jealousy, Greed, In Relishing Themselves, There Are Men Who Keep Their Hearts Alert To The Stillness In Which Time Rolls On And Leaves Us Behind. ... Those Who Are Open To The Wonder Will Not Miss It. Faith Is Found In Solicitude For Faith, In An Inner Care For The Wonder That Is Everywhere.

You Must Build Your Life As If It Were A Work Of Art.

The Course Of Life Is Unpredictable No One Can Write His Autobiography In Advance.

Dear Lord, Grant Me The Grace Of Wonder. Surprise Me, Amaze Me, Awe Me In Every Crevice Of Your Universe. Each Day Enrapture Me With Your Marvelous Things Without Number. ...i Do Not Ask To See The Reason For It All: I Ask Only To Share The Wonder Of It All.

Forfeit Your Sense Of Awe, Let Your Conceit Diminish Your Ability To Revere, And The Universe Becomes A Market Place For You.

Acceptance Is Appreciation, And The High Value Of Appreciation Is Such That To Appreciate Appreciation Seems To Be The Fundamental Prerequisite For Survival. Mankind Will Not Die For Lack Of Information; It May Perish For Lack Of Appreciation.

Life Without Commitment Is Not Worth Living.

The Test Of Love Is In How One Relates Not To Saints And Scholars But To Rascals.

Society Today Is No Longer In Revolt Against Particular Laws Which It Finds Alien, Unjust, And Imposed, But Against Law As Such, Against The Principle Of Law. And Yet We Must Not Regard This Revolt As Entirely Negative. The Energy That Rejects Many Obsolete Laws Is An Entirely Positive Impulse For Renewal Of Life And Law.

There Are Two Primary Ways In Which Mans Relates Himself To The World That Surround Him: Manipulation And Appreciation . In The First Way He Sees In What Surrounds Him Things To Be Handled, Forces To Be Managed, Objects To Be Put To Use. In The Second Way He Sees In What Surrounds Him Things To Be Acknowledged, Understood, Valued Or Admired.

The Supremacy Of Expediency Is Being Refuted By Time And Truth. Time Is An Essential Dimension Of Existence Defiant Of Man's Power, And Truth Reigns In Supreme Majesty, Unrivaled, Inimitable, And Can Never Be Defeated.

Wise Criticism Always Begins With Self-criticism.

When I Marched With Martin Luther King In Selma, I Felt My Legs Were Praying.

In The Darkest Night To Be Certain Of The Dawn...to Go Through Hell And To Continue To Trust In The Goodness Of God-this Is The Challenge And The Way.

We Are Closer To God When We Are Asking Questions Than When We Think We Have The Answers.

Asking Questions

I Am Commanded Therefore I Am.

Self-respect Is The Root Of Discipline

The Meaning Of The Sabbath Is To Celebrate Time Rather Than Space. Six Days A Week We Live Under The Tyranny Of Things Of Space; On The Sabbath We Try To Become Attuned To Holiness In Time. It Is A Day On Which We Are Called Upon To Share In What Is Eternal In Time, To Turn From The Results Of Creation To The Mystery Of Creation; From The World Of Creation To The Creation Of The World.

Ultimately There Is No Power To Narcissistic, Self-indulgent Thinking. Authentic Thinking Originates With An Encounter With The World.

The Beginning Of Our Happiness Lies In The Understanding That Life Without Wonder Is Not Worth Living.

Celebration Is A Confrontation, Giving Attention To The Transcendent Meaning Of One's Actions.

Those Of Faith Who Plant Sacred Thoughts In The Uplands Of Time, The Secret Gardeners Of The Lord In Mankind's Desolate Hopes, May Slacken And Tarry But Rarely Betray Their Vocation.

Mundus Vult Decipi'—the World Wants To Be Deceived. To Live Without Deception Presupposes Standards Beyond The Reach Of Most People Whose Existence Is Largely Shaped By Compromise, Evasion And Mutual Accommodation. Could They Face Their Weakness, Their Vanity And Selfishness, Without A Mask?

There Is A Built-in Sense Of Indebtedness In The Consciousness Of Man, An Awareness Of Owing Gratitude, Or Being Caled Upon At Certain Moments To Reciprocate, To Answer, To Live In A Way Which Is Compatible With The Grandeur And Mystery Of Living.

We May Not Know Whether Our Understanding Is Correct, Or Whether Our Sentiments Are Noble, But The Air Of The Day Surrounds Us Like Spring Which Spreads Over The Land Without Our Aid Or Notice.

We Must First Peer Into The Darkness, Feel Strangled And Entombed In The Hopelessness Of Living Without God, Before We Are Ready To Feel The Presence Of His Living Light.

Feel In The Rush Of The Passing The Stillness Of The Eternal

For Many Of Us The March From Selma To Montgomery Was About Protest And Prayer. Legs Are Not Lips And Walking Is Not Kneeling. And Yet Our Legs Uttered Songs. Even Without Words, Our March Was Worship. I Felt My Legs Were Praying.

The Issue Of Prayer Is Not Prayer; The Issue Of Prayer Is God. One Cannot Pray Unless He Has Faith In His Own Ability To Accost The Infinite, Merciful, Eternal God.

The Hour Calls For Moral Grandeur And Spiritual Audacity.

Understanding God Is Not Attained By Calling Into Session All Arguments For And Against Him, In Order To Debate Whether He Is A Reality Or A Figment Of The Mind. God Cannot Be Sensed As A Second Thought, As An Explanation Of The Origin Of The Universe. He Is Either The First And The Last, Or Just Another Concept.

Understanding God

...morally Speaking, There Is No Limit To The Concern One Must Feel For The Suffering Of Human Beings, That Indifference To Evil Is Worse Than Evil Itself, That In A Free Society, Some Are Guilty, But All Are Responsible.

The Problem To Be Faced Is: How To Combine Loyalty To One's Own Tradition With Reverence For Different Traditions.

The True Meaning Of Existence Is Disclosed In Moments Of Living In The Presence Of God

Presence Of God

Prayer Cannot Bring Water To Parched Fields, Or Mend A Broken Bridge, Or Rebuild A Ruined City; But Prayer Can Water An Arid Soul, Mend A Broken Heart, And Rebuild A Weakened Will.

Faith Is Not The Clinging To A Shrine But An Endless Pilgrimage Of The Heart. Audacious Longing, Burning Songs, Daring Thoughts, An Impulse Overwhelming The Heart, Usurping The Mind--these Are All A Drive Towards Serving Him Who Rings Our Hearts Like A Bell. It Is As If He Were Waiting To Enter Our Empty, Perishing Lives.

The Degree To Which One Is Sensitive To Other People's Suffering, To Other (people's) Humanity, Is The Index Of One's Own Humanity

The Essence Of Man Is Not What He Is, But In What He Is Able To Be.

Philosophy, To Be Relevant, Must Offer Us A Wisdom To Live By.

Man's Sin Is In His Failure To Live What He Is. Being The Master Of The Earth, Man Forgets That He Is The Servant Of God.

Pagans Exalt Sacred Things, The Prophets Extol Sacred Deeds.

I Did Not Ask For Success; I Asked For Wonder.

In A Controversy, The Instant We Feel Anger, We Have Already Ceased Striving For Truth And Have Begun Striving For Ourselves.

The Higher Goal Of Spiritual Living Is Not To Amass A Wealth Of Information, But To Face Sacred Moments.

Indeed, The Sort Of Crimes And Even The Amount Of Delinquency That Fill The Prophets Of Israel With Dismay Do Not Go Beyond That Which We Regard As Normal, As Typical Ingredients Of Social Dynamics. To Us A Single Act Of Injustice--cheating In Business, Exploitation Of The Poor--is Slight; To The Prophets, A Disaster. To Us Injustice Is Injurious To The Welfare Of The People; To The Prophets It Is A Deathblow To Existence: To Us, An Episode; To Them, A Catastrophe, A Threat To The World.

To Sing Means To Sense And To Affirm That The Spirit Is Real And That Its Glory Is Present.

Awareness Of The Divine Begins With Wonder.

Faith Is Something That Comes Out Of The Soul. It Is Not An Information That Is Absorbed But An Attitude, Existing Prior To The Formulation Of Any Creed.

Life Is Not Meaningful...unle Ss It Is Serving An End Beyond Itself; Unless It Is Of Value To Someone Else.

All Events Are Secretly Interrelated; The Sweep Of All We Are Doing Reaches Beyond The Horizon Of Our Comprehension.

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