December

God gave us memories so that we might have roses in December.
—  James Barrie
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On This Day In:
2015	That’s Gotta Leave A Scar
	It’s All About Me (…Not!)
2014	Bull’s-Eye Next
2013	Change ÷ Time
2012	High Anxiety
2011	To Be, Do
2010	In the Arena…
	Not An Island, Today…

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Man’s Advantage Over God

When I had to consider the meaning of suffering I was faced with the ageless question:  Why does God allow it?
I conceive the answer to be that God has need of us to suffer for him; otherwise he could not know the extent of his creation, since creation without suffering does not exist.
God has created us to suffer through us, and since we believe that God is compassionate, think what agony our suffering must cause Him, cosmic suffering, on such scale!
It must be hard for God to do this to us, it must cause Him endless, infinite pain, since he is incapable of release through sleep or death.  There he has shown us mercy; there we have the advantage of Him.
—    Marcus Harrison
From his book:  “The Memoirs of Jesus Christ“
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On This Day In:
2015	Deeply
2014	Hi-Yo Silver, Away!
2013	Warning:
2012	Thinking About Beauty
2011	A Founding Father’s Argument Against Public Funding Of Religious Education
	Weekend Update
	So Far, So Good

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Poor Management Choices

I think God, in creating man, somewhat overestimated his ability.
––    Oscar Wilde
[Notice the “h” in “his”…   Methinks, Oscar refers to the latter (man) rather than the former (God).  But I could be wrong…    —    KMAB]
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On This Day In:
2015	Is It Still Dark Out?
2014	Rule One
2013	Spelling God’s Name
2012	Love Your Life And Sing
	Feeling Under the Weather?
2011	Cheers, Friend!

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Patience Is A Virtue

Retribution
Though the mills of God grind slowly,
Yet they grind exceeding small;
Though with patience he stands waiting,
With exactness grinds he all.
—    Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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On This Day In:
2015	Slow Faith
2014	Not In Any Sense
2013	The Circus On TV
2012	To Be Stronger
2011	Are You Sure?

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Would That This Be True

I have as little superstition in me as any man living, but my secret opinion has ever been, and still is, that God Almighty will not give up a people to military destruction, or leave them unsupportedly to perish, who have so earnestly and so repeatedly sought to avoid the calamities of war, by every decent method which wisdom could invent.
—    Thomas Paine
From:  “The Crisis“
23 December 1776
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On This Day In:
2021	Just Catching My Breath
	I Still Believe
2020	Sometimes It Does
	Sweet As Rain Upon My Tongue
2019	Pushing The Envelope
2018	The Price Of Justice Is (Sometimes) Security
2017	Time Too
2016	The Cornerstone Pays
2015	Would That This Be True
2014	More Likely
2013	Enjoyed The Desolation
	Watching Faux News
2012	Speaking Of Products
2011	Ready To Be Immortal?

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Dance And Sing

I would believe only in a God that knows how to dance.
―    Friedrich Nietzsche
[Or, sing…  Singing would be good, too.  Preferably both.    —    kmab]
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On This Day In:
2021	A Loss Of Happiness
	Early Boy Band Choreography
2020	Wear A Damn Mask!
	I Can’t Stay For Long
	Boxing (#2): First Lessons
2019	A Surprisingly Good Way
	It’s Official X-mas (Tree) At Home
2018	Weight / Health Update
	What’s Happening With You?
2017	The Great Leveler
	Conservative Depressions
2016	Election + 1 Month
2015	Dance And Sing
2014	A Measuring Stick For Progress
2013	Courtly Love Or Victory Over Habit
2012	Have We Met?
2011	Efficiently Useless

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Jumping Into The Dark

There has never been any decisive proof either way about God’s existence.  Ours would be a decidedly queer world if the Creator of it were as visible as, say, a playwright at his opening night.  Here is the universe, a dazzle of orderly wonders, which seems to imply a Maker.  Here is human life, full of sadness and disaster and futility, ending always in black death;  and it seems to many people to refute any notion that a God could exist.  To assert anything about God — that he is there or that he is not, that we can know him or that we cannot —  is to jump off into the dark, either way.
—    Herman Wouk
From his book:  “This Is My God“
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On This Day In:
2021	An Impossible Situation
	I Fear It Is (For Us If Not The Planet)
2020	#45 Never Shuts Up
	Walkin’ In The Rain With The One I Love
2019	Silly Pooh Bear
	Dominoes Or Jenga?
2018	Very Few
2017	Or The Candidate Who…
2016	The Happiest People
2015	Jumping Into The Dark
2014	I Would Be Sillier
2013	It Keeps Happening Anyway
2012	Take Time
2011	A Mother’s Lesson
2010	3rd Pair – Shoe Review (DOA and Final)

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I Can Tell Too

The opposite of faith is not doubt:  It is certainty.  It is madness.  You can tell you have created God in your own image when it turns out that he or she hates all the same people you do.
—     Anne Lamott
[Found at one of the blogs I follow:  http://pastlifetourist.com/
The specific link is:   http://pastlifetourist.com/2015/04/11/the-opposite-of-faith/
—    KMAB]
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On This Day In:
2014	In Hand
2013	No Fear
2012	Comic Books
	Keeping The Peace
2011	You Still Have To Pay For It

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nom de plume

Chance is the pseudonym God uses when he doesn’t want to sign his own name.
—   Anatole France
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On This Day In:
2021	Seeking Emergence
	Walking Alone
2020	51 Days Until The Moron (#45) Is Out Of Office
	Tearing The Roof Off It
2019	#Impeach45: Once A Buffoon, Now A Bad Joke
2018	Good Sense
2017	E Pluribus Unum
2016	Lacking
2015	Chip, Chip, Chip
2014	nom de plume
2013	The Real Reason
	From The Book
2012	When Young
2011	14 Ways To A Better Judgement

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Hard Evidence

The churches used to win their arguments against atheism, agnosticism, and other burning issues by burning the ismists, which is fine proof that there is a devil, but hardly evidence that there is a God.
—    Wainwright Evans
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On This Day In:
2013	Full Participation
2012	Roving (Again)
	Ooops, Again
2011	Why Not?

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In God’s Eyes

So, human beings complain that the world is ill-made, do they?  But ill-made for whom?  For Man, who, in the immense design of the Universe is no more than an unimportant mould!  The probability is that everything in this world which we think is botched or erroneous has its reasons at a totally different level of existence.  The mould endures, no doubt, a small amount of suffering, but somewhere there are giants who, huge in stature as in mind, live in a state of semi-divinity.  This is Voltaire’s answer to the problem of evil.  It is not very satisfactory because the mould need never have been created, and, in the eyes of God, it may well be that mere size is of no importance.
—    André Maurois
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On This Day In:
2013	We Root For Ourselves
2012	Like A Shark
2011	Discernible Virtue

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Not Really At All

God’s Word teaches a very hard, disturbing truth.  Those who neglect the poor and the oppressed are really not God’s people at all — no matter how frequently they practice their religious rituals nor how orthodox are their creeds and confessions.
—    Theologian Ronal Sider
[Found on a blog I follow:  http://culturemonk.com/
The specific post is:  http://culturemonk.com/2014/03/26/its-probably-why-i-used-to-be-a-stripper-really/
—    KMAB]
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On This Day In:
2013	Listening And Deserving
2012	I’m Still Not Certain
2011	True, False And Useful

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Question From A Founding Father

The question before the human race is, whether the God of nature shall govern the world by his own laws, or whether priests and kings shall rule it by fictitious miracles.
—    President John Adams
second President of the United States
(In a letter to Thomas Jefferson, June 20, 1815)
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On This Day In:
2013	Make Heroes
2012	See And Hold
2011	Am Not, Are So

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Ooops!

Is man only a blunder of God, or God only a blunder of man?
-–    Friedrich Nietzsche
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Still Inventing

If there were no God, it would be necessary to invent him.
—    Voltaire
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