Song Lyric of the Day (Paul Simon, on The Lord, ‘My Engineer’)

“The Lord is my engineer
The Lord is the earth I ride on
The Lord is the face in the atmosphere
The path I slip and slide on.”—Grammy winning American singer-songwriter Paul Simon, “The Lord,” in his Seven Psalms CD (2023)

The image of Paul Simon that accompanies this post was taken of him performing live in Mainz, Germany, on July 25, 2008, by Miho.

Spiritual Quote of the Day (Alfred Kazin, on God and Creation)

“To love God is to be grateful for the Creation and the Intelligence that keeps the universe going (while man is forever assaulting it). How odd that the first laws of science are still scriptural—that there is a world here rather than nothing."—American literary critic and memoirist Alfred Kazin (1915-1998), A Lifetime Burning in Every Moment: From the Journals of Alfred Kazin (1996)

Spiritual Quote of the Day (St. Gregory of Nazianzus, on God’s Appearance to Humanity)

“He whom presently you scorn was once transcendent, over even you. He who is presently human was incomposite. He remained what he was; what he was not, he assumed. No ‘because’ is required for his existence in the beginning, for what could account for the existence of God? But later he came into being because of something, namely for your salvation, yours, who insulted him and despised his Godhead for that very reason, because he took on your thick corporeality. Through the medium of the mind he had dealings with the flesh, being made that God on earth….He was carried in the womb, but acknowledged by a prophet yet unborn himself, who leaped for joy at the presence of the Word for whose sake he had been created. He was wrapped in swaddling bands, but at the Resurrection he unloosed the swaddling bands of the grave. He was laid in a manger, but was extolled by angels, disclosed by a star and adored by Magi. Why do you take offense at what you see, instead of attending to its spiritual significance?”— St. Gregory of Nazianzus, bishop of Constantinople and “Doctor of the Church” (c. 330-390), On God and Christ: The Five Theological Orations and Two Letters to Cledonius

Spiritual Quote of the Day (Pope St. Leo the Great, on the Son of God in ‘The Form of a Servant’)

“He took the form of a servant without stain of sin. He enhanced our humanity but did not thereby diminish his divinity. The emptying by which the invisible one made himself visible, and by which the Lord and Creator of all things willed to be one with mortal men, was a bending down in pity, not a failure of power. Accordingly, he who in the form of God was the maker of man, was himself made man in the form of a slave. Thus the Son of God enters into the depths of this world, coming down from his heavenly throne, yet not leaving his Father's glory, begotten into a new order by a new birth.”— Pope St. Leo the Great (ca. 391-461), Letters (Leo the Great), Letter 28 (“The Tome”), 3

Spiritual Quote of the Day (Book of Job, on the Power of God)

“How you have helped one who has no power!
    How you have assisted the arm that has no strength!”—Job 26:2 (New Revised Standard Version—Catholic Edition)
 
The image accompanying this post, Job Restored to Prosperity, was created in 1648 by the French Baroque painter Laurent de La Hyre (1606–1656).

Spiritual Quote of the Day (C.S. Lewis, on How God Answers)

“When I lay these questions before God I get no answer. But a rather special sort of 'No answer.' It is not the locked door. It is more like a silent, certainly not uncompassionate, gaze. As though He shook His head not in refusal but waiving the question. Like, 'Peace, child; you don't understand.'” —British novelist and religious author C.S. Lewis (1898-1963), A Grief Observed (1961)

Spiritual Quote of the Day (St. John Climacus, on How ‘God Belongs to All Free Beings’)

“God belongs to all free beings. He is the life of all, the salvation of all—faithful and unfaithful, just and unjust, pious and impious, passionate and dispassionate, monks and seculars, wise and simple, healthy and sick, young and old—just as the diffusion of light, the sight of the sun, and the changes of the weather are for all alike; ‘for there is no respect of persons with God.’” — Christian monk St. John Climacus (?-649 AD), The Ladder of Divine Ascent (ca. 600 AD), translated by Archimandrite Lazarus Moore (1959)

Spiritual Quote of the Day (Karen Armstrong, on Serenity Vs. ‘The Nervous Craving to Promote Yourself’)

“Once you gave up the nervous craving to promote yourself, denigrate others, draw attention to your unique and special qualities, and ensure that you were first in the pecking order, you experienced an immense peace.”— British religion scholar Karen Armstrong, The Case for God (2009)

Spiritual Quote of the Day (Frederica Mathewes-Green, on ‘God as Suffering Parent’)

“Maybe this crazy thing happened: God came down in a suit of skin and bones, and walked and talked, and offended people, and finally they tortured him to death. And by that death he destroyed death; he rescued us and gave life everlasting and every other good thing. Into this universe crammed with pain we say that God came down, because he loves us with the kind of love that we can only understand by thinking of how a parent loves.” —Religious author and commentator Frederica Mathewes-Green, “God as Suffering Parent,” Beliefnet, December 22, 1999, reprinted in The Best Christian Writing 2000, series editor: John Wilson (2000)

The image accompanying this post, The Crucified Christ, was created in 1610-1611 by Flemish artist and diplomat Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640).

Spiritual Quote of the Day (St. Paul to the Romans, on ‘No Distinction Between Jew and Greek’)

“Brothers and sisters:
What does Scripture say?
            The word is near you,
                        in your mouth and in your heart
—that is, the word of faith that we preach—,
for, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord
and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead,
you will be saved.
For one believes with the heart and so is justified,
and one confesses with the mouth and so is saved.
For the Scripture says,
            No one who believes in him will be put to shame.
For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek;
the same Lord is Lord of all,
enriching all who call upon him.
For ‘everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.’”—Letter of St. Paul (c. 4-67 AD), to the Romans 10: 8-13
 
Likewise, there is no distinction between anyone else, along any lines, who “calls on the name of God.”
 
The image of St. Paul accompanying this post was created by the Spanish Renaissance painter El Greco (1541-1614).

Spiritual Quote of the Day (Book of Isaiah, With God Strengthening ‘Those With Fearful Hearts’)

“Strengthen the feeble hands,
    steady the knees that give way;
say to those with fearful hearts,
    ‘Be strong, do not fear;
your God will come,
    he will come with vengeance;
with divine retribution
    he will come to save you.’
 
Then will the eyes of the blind be opened
    and the ears of the deaf unstopped.
Then will the lame leap like a deer,
    and the mute tongue shout for joy.
Water will gush forth in the wilderness
    and streams in the desert.
The burning sand will become a pool,
    the thirsty ground bubbling springs.
In the haunts where jackals once lay,
    grass and reeds and papyrus will grow.”—Isaiah 35: 3-7 (New International Version)
 
(This detail of Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel shows the prophet Isaiah.)

Spiritual Quote of the Day (Anselm of Canterbury, Urging ‘Insignificant Man’ To Rest in God)

“Come now, insignificant man, fly for a moment from your affairs, escape for a little while from the tumult of your thoughts. Put aside now your weighty cares and leave your wearisome toils. Abandon yourself for a little to God and rest for a little in Him.”— Italian Benedictine monk, abbot, philosopher, theologian, and “Doctor of the Church” Anselm of Canterbury (d. 1109), Proslogion (“Discourse”) (1078) 

Spiritual Quote of the Day (Fr. Greg Boyle, on God’s Love)

“The God who loves the sound of our voices sends us into the dark house of the world confident that only love can find the way to make windows.”—American humanitarian, author, and Jesuit Fr. Greg Boyle quoted by Mary Lee Talbot, “Only Love Can Find A Way To Make Windows In A Dark World, Says Fr. Greg Boyle,” The Chautauquan Daily, June 26, 2024

The image accompanying this post shows Fr. Boyle, founder of Homeboy Industries, giving the keynote address on kinship at We ♥ LA: An Urban Retreat for LA's Passionate Leaders. The event was hosted by the Durfee Foundation on October 14, 2010, on its 50th anniversary. Fr Greg's address was made in tribute to the more than 300 nonprofit workers who gathered to celebrate their abiding affection for Los Angeles. The photo was taken by the Durfee Foundation.

Spiritual Quote of the Day (Gerard Manley Hopkins, on Beauty From God)

“Glory be to God for dappled things—
   For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
       For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
   Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;
       And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim.
 
“All things counter, original, spare, strange;
   Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
      With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
      Praise Him.”—English Jesuit and poet Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–1889), “Pied Beauty”

Spiritual Quote of the Day (Bruce Springsteen, on Flannery O'Connor and ‘The Intangible Mysteries of Life’)

“[T]he short stories of Flannery O'Connor landed hard on me. You could feel within them the unknowability of God, the intangible mysteries of life that confounded her characters, and which I find by my side every day. They contained the dark Gothicness of my childhood and yet made me feel fortunate to sit at the center of this swirling black puzzle, stars reeling overhead, the earth barely beneath us.”—American rock ‘n’ roll legend Bruce Springsteen, “By the Book: Bruce Springsteen,” The New York Times Book Review, Nov. 2, 2014

Spiritual Quote of the Day (Thomas Merton, on God Shining Through the ‘Absolutely Transparent’ World)

“Life is this simple: we are living in a world that is absolutely transparent and the divine is shining through it all the time. This is not just a nice story or a fable, it is true. If we abandon ourselves to God and forget ourselves, we see it sometimes, and we see it maybe frequently. God manifests Himself everywhere, in everything ─ in people and in things and in nature and in events. It becomes very obvious that He is everywhere and in everything and we cannot be without Him. You cannot be without God. It's impossible. It's simply impossible. The only thing is that we don't see it. What is it that makes the world opaque? It is care.” —American Trappist monk, theologian, memoirist and poet Thomas Merton (1915-1968), 1965 informal talk “Life and Solitude" quoted by Basil Pennington, On Retreat With Thomas Merton (1995)

Spiritual Quote of the Day (Phil Klay, on ‘God in a War Zone’)

“How do you not see God in a war zone? The God I believe in was tortured and died in agony on the cross. God is there when I see another human being and see something of infinite worth and value. God is there in this infinite horror and majesty of the world. The idea to me that all of this beauty and all of this horror is nothing but mere matter seems ridiculous, and I can’t disentangle my sense of horror from my sense of the beauty and value of what is being destroyed in war.”—American novelist and Iraq war veteran Phil Klay, interviewed by David Marchese for “Talk” column, “Finding a Moral Center in This Era of War,” The New York Times Magazine, Dec. 3, 2023

The attached photo of an anti-terrorist operation in eastern Ukraine, taken July 18, 2016, was distributed by the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine.

Spiritual Quote of the Day (Henri Nouwen, on Experiencing God ‘In the Fullness of Time’)

“We often experience our time as empty. We hope that tomorrow, next week, next month or next year the real things will happen. But sometimes we experience the fullness of time. That is when it seems that time stands still, that past, present, and future become one; that everything is present where we are; and that God, we, and all that is have come together in total unity. This is the experience of God’s time. ‘When the completion of the time came [that is: in the fullness of time], God sent his Son, born of a woman’ (Galatians 4:4), and in the fullness of time God will ‘bring everything together under Christ, as head, everything in the heavens and everything on earth’ (Ephesians 1:10). It is in the fullness of time that we meet God.”— Dutch-born Catholic priest, theologian, psychologist and writer Henri Nouwen (1932-1996), Bread For The Journey: A Daybook of Wisdom and Faith (1997)

Spiritual Quote of the Day (John Courtney Murray, on ‘The History Which God Makes’)

“For the Christian affirmation is that there is indeed another history, the history which God makes, and which takes place in and through the events of human history.  This history of salvation can be seen only with the eyes of faith and its external manifestation is a sign, the sacrament which is the church.  Yet this instrument of Christ’s revelation has, in cold historical fact, obscured his face and failed to proclaim his message.  This the church has done not through malice but simply because she is human.  Her members are therefore themselves in some sense unbelievers, and must share responsibility for the unbelief of the world around them.  This world in turn cannot be absolved from its own guilt, for there will always be men who freely choose to live in darkness rather than in light.  Yet what the Christian must guard against, when he and his church present themselves to the world in which they live, is that this world should not encounter in them that portion of darkness which is theirs.  This we all pray for, that the light which is Christ may break through our darkness, and that contemporary unbelief may find in the church a sacrament of Christian faith.”—American Roman Catholic theologian Fr. John Courtney Murray (1904-1967), “The Unbelief Of The Christian,” originally published in The Presence and Absence of God (1969), republished in American Sermons: The Pilgrims to Martin Luther King Jr., edited by Michael Warner (1999)

Spiritual Quote of the Day (1 Samuel, on How God Made Himself Known to the Prophet)

“At that time Samuel was not familiar with the LORD, because the LORD had not revealed anything to him as yet. The LORD called Samuel again, for the third time. Getting up and going to [the priest] Eli, he said, ‘Here I am.  You called me.’ Then Eli understood that the LORD was calling the youth. So he said to Samuel, ‘Go to sleep, and if you are called, reply, Speak, LORD, for your servant is listening.’ When Samuel went to sleep in his place, the LORD came and revealed his presence, calling out as before, ‘Samuel, Samuel!’ Samuel answered, ‘Speak, for your servant is listening.’ Samuel grew up, and the LORD was with him, not permitting any word of his to be without effect.” — 1 Samuel 3:8-10, 19 (New American Bible)

Like so many of the stories in the Bible, this one exerts a mysterious but powerful hold on my imagination. Like Samuel, many of us, for the longest time, go through life unsure when and how we are being called by God, and for what purpose. But the task remains for us to remain open to His call—to let God know that we are listening.

It is Samuel’s marvelous power that God would not “any word of his…be without effect.” That is the gift all writers wish for, in their way.

The image accompanying this post, “Samuel Mistakes God's Call” (depicting Samuel approaching Eli), was created by the great Pennsylvania painter and illustrator N.C. Wyeth (1882-1945)—not only an extraordinarily vivid artist himself, but also father and grandfather of others with similar gifts: Andrew and Jamie, respectively.