Category: Speaking to the Soul

For leaders of the ancient church, hospitality was an important practice for transcending the status boundaries of the surrounding culture and for working through issues of recognition and respect. It was crucial to meeting human needs—especially the physical needs of impoverished believers—and it made sense in the economy of God. Generous hosts, though not seeking gain, would find themselves blessed in the hospitality relationship.

Identified both as apostle to the apostles and as a redeemed prostitute, perhaps no other biblical saint has been the subject of as much interpretation and misinterpretation as Mary of Magdala. Although her commemoration was added to the Western church calendar only in the Middle Ages, a number of patristic writers comment on the biblical texts about her.

The main thing is that the government and the people should be democratic to the core. It is relatively unimportant who is in the government. I am not opposed to the present government because it is white. I am only opposed to it because it is undemocratic and repressive. I do not cherish such expressions as “the all-black government,” “the African majority.” I like to speak about “a democratic majority,” which should be a non-racial majority, and so could be multi-racial or not.

When a child of fifteen years, my feelings were deeply stirred by learning that an old lady, a dear friend of mine, was to be turned from her home and the bulk of her property taken from her. Her husband died suddenly, leaving no will. The law would allow her but a life interest in one-third of the estate,

On one of the banks of the river was the abode of a society of holy women under the spiritual guidance of Emmeline, the mother, and Macrina, the sister, of Gregory. Basil had returned from his journeying in the monastic regions of Egypt and the East, had brought back the best hints he had gathered, and applied them with his excellent judgment.

Lord, for the blessing of sisters

For friendship and laughter and tears

For the road walked together and adventures shared

For the breaking of bread and mugs of coffee

For sisters whose lives are hard and oppressed

For sisters who toil and have no time for rest

Lord, we pray

When we extend our views beyond the bounds of Protestantism, the early fathers afford to us abundant proof of the claim of our Church to be independent on the dictation or the control of an external jurisdiction. However enormous the power, gradually acquired, of a See dominant over the whole of Christendom,

Rescuers’ actions, whether they were religious or not, extended beyond the deeds of the Good Samaritan parable in the Bible. . . .While this biblical story encouraged some to get involved, rescuers were well aware that their decision to help was far more demanding and dangerous than caring for a wounded roadside stranger.

The debt of love is natural and continual. We all owe it, and we owe it unto all. And unto whom we owe it we never pay it, except we acknowledge that we owe it still. In this debt of love we must consider why we must love, whom we must love, and lastly, how we must love.

From 1765 to 1768, Occom traveled to England as a fundraiser for Moor’s Indian Charity School, an educational experiment designed by the Yale-educated New Light minister Eleazar Wheelock to train Native missionaries. Throughout his tour, Occom was ogled, scrutinized, mocked, misrepresented, interrogated, and exoticized.