StephenBarkley.com

The man to whom God is all in all, who feels his life-roots hid with Christ in God, who knows himself the inheritor of all wealth and worlds and ages, yea, of power essential and in itself, that man has begun to be alive indeed. —George MacDonald (Unspoken Sermons) You’ve got to love a surprise [...]

The Lord has multiplied his knowledge . . . For there went forth a stream, and it became a great river and broad; indeed it carried everything, and it shattered and brought (it) to the Temple. And the restraints of men were not able to restrain it . . . For it [the water] spread [...]

And Lord, haste the day when my faith shall be sight, The clouds be rolled back as a scroll. — Horatio G. Spafford, “It is Well With My Soul” The shore of the Dead Sea is the lowest point of dry land on the planet. Since elevation is measured by Sea level, the Dead Sea is [...]

If our waters are polluted it is not because God is exercising some tyrannical power over us; it is because we foul our own streams. —David L. Barr (Tales of the End) On my holidays in Bancroft, I picked up a copy of Joe Kane’s book, “Running the Amazon”. The book details the first complete descent [...]

Just as the altar needed to be cleansed of its defilement before the temple worship system could be established, so the land must be renewed before it can play its intended role in the deity-nation-land relationship. — Daniel I. Block (The Book of Ezekiel: Chapters 25-48) I remember looking for my first real apartment with [...]

The dripping blood our only drink, The bloody flesh our only food: In spite of which we like to think That we are sound, substantial flesh and blood— Again, in spite of that, we call this Friday Good. — T. S. Eliot (Four Quartets 2: East Coker) Nothing brings people to church like food. Hold [...]

The tree of American economy is rooted in the toxic soil of unbridled materialism, a culture that extols greed, a false standard of values that puts short-term profits over societal health, and a distorted calculus that measures human worth by personal income instead of character, integrity, and generosity. — Jim Wallis (God’s Politics) Samuel warned [...]

Power can be an extremely destructive thing in any context, but in the service of religion it is downright diabolical. — Richard Foster (The Challenge of the Disciplined Life) You know you’re approaching a profound section of scripture when the section heading (at least in my NRSV) reads, “Miscellaneous Regulations”. Nothing warms the soul and [...]

Afresh I seek thee.  Lead me once more I pray— Even should it be against my will, thy way. Let me not feel thee foreign any hour, Or shrink from thee as an estranged power. Through doubt, through faith, through bliss, through stark dismay, Through sunshine, wind, or snow, or fog, or shower, Draw me [...]

Religious piety is bankrupt without justice. — Richard Foster (The Challenge of the Disciplined Life) Nothing’s more frustrating than sitting down in front of some mindless TV drama with a fresh bag of chips, only to open the bag and find it half full. I know they sell it by weight, not volume—that doesn’t matter. What [...]