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We Are So Impressed By Scientific Clank That We Feel We Ought Not To Say That The Sunflower Turns Because It Knows Where The Sun Is. It Is Almost Second Nature To Us To Prefer Explanations . . . With A Large Vocabulary. We Are Much More Comfortable When We Are Assured That The Sunflower Turns Because It Is Heliotropic. The Trouble With That Kind Of Talk Is That It Tempts Us To Think That We Know What The Sunflower Is Up To. But We Don't. The Sunflower Is A Mystery, Just As Every Single Thing In The Universe Is.

-Robert Farrar Capon

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We Are So Impressed

Robert Farrar Capon

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We Are So Impressed By Scientific Clank That We Feel We Ought Not To Say That The Sunflower Turns Because It Knows Where The Sun Is. It Is Almost Second Nature To Us To Prefer Explanations . . . With A Large Vocabulary. We Are Much More Comfortable When We Are Assured That The Sunflower Turns Because It Is Heliotropic. The Trouble With That Kind Of Talk Is That It Tempts Us To Think That We Know What The Sunflower Is Up To. But We Don't. The Sunflower Is A Mystery, Just As Every Single Thing In The Universe Is.

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The Truth That Makes Us Free Is Always Ticking Away Like A Time-bomb In The Basement Of Everybody's Church.

...there Is Therefore Now No Condemnation For Two Reasons: You Are Dead Now; And God, As The Lamb Slain From The Foundation Of The World, Has Been Dead All Along. The Blame Game Was Over Before It Started. It Really Was. All Jesus Did Was Announce That Truth And Tell You It Would Make You Free. It Was Admittedly A Dangerous Thing To Do. You Are A Menace. Be He Did It; And Therefore, Menace Or Not, Here You Stand: Uncondemned, Forever, Now. What Are You Going To Do With Your Freedom?

However Much We Hate The Law, We Are More Afraid Of Grace

A Silent Lover Is One Who Doesn't Know His Job.

The Bread And The Pastry, The Cheeses And Wine, And The Sugar Go Into The Supper Of The Lamb Because We Do. It Is Our Love That Brings The City Home. It Is I Grant You, An Incautious And Extravagant Hope. But Only Outlandish Hopes Can Make Themselves At Home.

The World Is By No Means Averse To Religion. In Fact, It Is Devoted To It With A Passion. It Will Buy Any Recipe For Salvation As Long As That Formula Leaves The Responsibility For Cooking Up Salvation Firmly In Human Hands. The World Is Drowning In Religion. But It Is Scared Out Of Its Wits By Any Mention Of The Grace That Takes The World Home Gratis.

You Can Fold Up Spiritually, Morally, Or Intellectually And Still Be Safe. Because At The Very Worst, All You Can Be Is Dead —and For Him Who Is The Resurrection And The Life, That Just Makes You His Cup Of Tea.

One Real Thing Is Closer To God Than All The Diagrams In The World

Jesus Came To Raise The Dead. He Did Not Come To Teach The Teachable; He Did Not Come To Improve The Improvable; He Did Not Come To Reform The Reformable. None Of Those Things Works.

The World Looks As If It Has Been Left In The Custody Of Trolls.

The Reason For Not Going Out And Sinning All You Like Is The Same As The Reason For Not Going Out And Putting Your Nose In A Slicing Machine: Its Dumb, Stupid, And No Fun. Some Individual Sins May Have Pleasure Still Attached To Them Because Of The Residual Goodness Of The Realities They Are Abusing: Adultery Can Indeed Be Pleasant And Tying One On Can Amuse. But Betrayal, Jealousy, Love Grown Cold, And The Gray Dawn Of The Morning After Are Nobody's Idea Of A Good Time.

Perhaps You See, Therefore, Why I Think Taste Must Come Before Nutrition? Our Infatuation For The Quasi-scientific Has Left Us Easy Marks For Con Men And Tin Fiddle Manufacturers.

For All Its Rooted Loveliness, The World Has No Continuing City Here; It Is An Outlandish Place, A Foreign Home, A Session In Via To A Better Version Of Itself-and It Is Our Glory To See It So And To Thirst Until Jerusalem Comes Home At Last. We Were Given Appetites, Not To Consume The World And Forget It, But To Taste Its Goodness And Hunger To Make It Great.

We Are So Impressed By Scientific Clank That We Feel We Ought Not To Say That The Sunflower Turns Because It Knows Where The Sun Is. It Is Almost Second Nature To Us To Prefer Explanations . . . With A Large Vocabulary. We Are Much More Comfortable When We Are Assured That The Sunflower Turns Because It Is Heliotropic. The Trouble With That Kind Of Talk Is That It Tempts Us To Think That We Know What The Sunflower Is Up To. But We Don't. The Sunflower Is A Mystery, Just As Every Single Thing In The Universe Is.

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Christianity Is Not A Religion; It Is The Proclamation Of The End Of Religion. Religion Is A Human Activity Dedicated To The Job Of Reconciling God To Humanity And Humanity To Itself. The Gospel, However - The Good News Of Our Lord And Savior, Jesus Christ, Is The Astonishing Announcement That God Has Done The Whole Work Of Reconciliation Without A Scrap Of Human Assistance. It Is The Bizarre Proclamation That Religion Is Over - Period.

... The Proper Self-knowledge And Self-love Of Every Created Thing Is Ipso Facto A Participation In The Knowledge And Love Of God. The Entire Universe Moves By Desire For The Highest Good Simply Because Every Part Of It Loves What God Loves - Namely, Its Own Being.

Even To This Day, Grace Remains Hard To Swallow. Religiosity And Moralism Go Down Easier Than Free Forgiveness.

Why Do We Marry, Why Take Friends And Lovers? Why Give Ourselves To Music, Painting, Chemistry Or Cooking? Out Of Simple Delight In The Resident Goodness Of Creation, Of Course; But Out Of More Than That, Too. Half Earth's Gorgeousness Lies Hidden In The Glimpsed City It Longs To Become.

It Is Precisely Because No One Needs Soup, Fish, Meat, Salad, Cheese, And Dessert At One Meal That We So Badly Need To Sit Down To Them From Time To Time. It Was Largesse That Made Us All; We Were Not Created To Fast Forever... Enter Here, Therefore, As A Sovereign Remedy For The Narrowness Of Our Minds And The Stinginess Of Our Souls.

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With Jesus, However, The Device Of Parabolic Utterance Is Used Not To Explain Things To People’s Satisfaction But To Call Attention To The Unsatisfactoriness Of All Their Previous Explanations And Understandings.

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Preachers Are Stewards Whom The Lord Has ‘set Over His Household Servants To Provide Them With Food At The Proper Time.’ After All The Years The Church Has Suffered Under Forceful Preachers And Winning Orators, Under Compelling Pulpiteers And Clerical Bigmouths With Egos To Match, How Nice To Hear That Jesus Expects Preachers In Their Congregations To Be Nothing More Than Faithful Household Cooks.

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If You Take All Your Meals Seriously, None Of Them Gets A Chance To Matter.

Salvation Is A Gift Given, Not A Bargain Struck.

Only Miracle Is Plain; It Is In The Ordinary That Groans With The Weight Of Glory.

Christianity Is Not A Religion. Christianity Is The Proclamation Of The End Of Religion, Not Of A New Religion, Or Even Of The Best Of All Religions. If The Cross Is The Sign Of Anything, It's The Sign That God Has Gone Out Of The Religion Business And Solved All Of The World's Problems Without Requiring A Single Human Being To Do A Single Religious Thing. What The Cross Is Actually A Sign Of Is The Fact That Religion Can't Do A Thing About The World's Problems - That It Never Did Work And It Never Will

Every Real Thing Is A Joy, If Only You Have Eyes And Ears To Relish It, A Nose And Tongue To Taste It.

I Like A Cook Who Smiles Out Loud When He Tastes His Own Work. Let God Worry About Your Modesty; I Want To See Your Enthusiasm.

Older Women Are Like Aging Strudels - The Crust May Not Be So Lovely, But The Filling Has Come At Last Into Its Own.

The Life Of Grace Is Not An Effort On Our Part To Achieve A Goal We Set Ourselves. It Is A Continually Renewed Attempt Simply To Believe That Someone Else Has Done All The Achieving That Is Needed And To Live In Relationship With That Person, Whether We Achieve Or Not. If That Doesn't Seem Like Much To You, You're Right: It Isn't. And, As A Matter Of Fact, The Life Of Grace Is Even Less Than That. It's Not Even Our Life At All, But The Life Of That Someone Else Rising Like A Tide In The Ruins Of Our Death.

At The Root Of Many A Woman's Failure To Become A Great Cook Lies Her Failure To Develop A Workmanlike Regard For Knives.

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Grace Is The Celebration Of Life, Relentlessly Hounding All The Non-celebrants In The World. It Is A Floating, Cosmic Bash Shouting Its Way Through The Streets Of The Universe, Flinging The Sweetness Of Its Cassations To Every Window, Pounding At Every Door In A Hilarity Beyond All Liking And Happening, Until The Prodigals Come Out At Last And Dance, And The Elder Brothers Finally Take Their Fingers Out Of Their Ears.

...we Are Saved By Christ Alone Who Raises Us From The Dead - From The Absolution Of Our Death. We Come Before Him At The Judgement With No Handwriting Whatsoever Against Us. It's Simply Cheating To Say You Believe That And Then Renege On It By Postulating Some List Of Extra-rotten Crimes For Which Christ Has To Send You To Hell. He, The Universal Redeemer, Is The Only Judge; As Far As He's Concerned, The Only Mandatory Sentence Is To Life And Life Abundant.

But All The While, There Was One Thing We Most Needed Even From The Start, And Certainly Will Need From Here On Out Into The New Jerusalem: The Ability To Take Our Freedom Seriously And Act On It, To Live Not In Fear Of Mistakes But In The Knowledge That No Mistake Can Hold A Candle To The Love That Draws Us Home. My Repentance, Accordingly, Is Not So Much For My Failings But For The Two-bit Attitude Toward Them By Which I Made Them More Sovereign Than Grace. Grace - The Imperative To Hear The Music, Not Just Listen For Errors - Makes All Infirmities Occasions Of Glory.

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