Song Lyric of the Day (Maggie Rose, on ‘Something Broken’)

“Life's full of broken things
Like hearts, homes, and dreams
We all come from something broken.”— “Broken,” composed by Patrick Russell Davis, Margaret Rose Durante (AKA Maggie Rose), and Corey Crowder, from Ms. Rose’s EP The Variety Show, Vol. 1 (2016)
 
On Sundays, I normally include a “Spiritual Quote of the Day” on this blog. But last night, while listening to several country music artists on a PBS station, I heard this song from Maggie Rose, a singer-songwriter I hadn't heard of before. 

It struck me that it is precisely “something broken”—call it original sin or just the human condition—that has sparked the need for so much religious consolation.
 
And so, I offer it here, and hope that anyone reading this finds what will mend anything broken in their own lives.

Spiritual Quote of the Day (Lisa Miller, on Two Threads Within Spiritual Life)

“Scientists don't define spirituality—we identify threads within human spiritual life. Two threads stand out. The first is our capacity to have a relationship with the sacred. People may call this God, the universe, a higher power or the force of life. It is the capacity to feel loved, held and guided, that we are never alone. The second thread is to share this with others.”— Lisa Miller, clinical psychologist and director of the Spirituality Mind Body Institute, Teachers College, Columbia University, quoted in Elizabeth Bernstein, “Bonds: Spirituality in the Lens of Science,” The Wall Street Journal, Aug. 18, 2021

Quote of the Day (Thomas Merton, on the ‘Conversion of the Deep Will to God’)

“There is a conversion of the deep will to God that cannot be effected in words – barely in a gesture or ceremony. There is a conversion of the deep will and a gift of my substance that is too mysterious for liturgy, and too private.”— American Trappist monk, theologian, and memoirist Thomas Merton (1915-1968), journal entry for Dec. 22, 1949, in The Sign of Jonas: The Journal of Thomas Merton (1953)

Quote of the Day (Alice Walker, on Making Holy the Sabbath)

“Anybody can observe the Sabbath, but making it holy surely takes the rest of the week.” —American novelist, short-story writer, poet and social activist Alice Walker, In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens: Womanist Prose (1983) 

(Photo of Alice Walker, reading and talking about “Why War is Never a Good Idea” and “There’s a Flower at the End of My Nose Smelling Me,” taken Oct. 1, 2007, by Virginia DeBolt.)

 

Quote of the Day (Emanuel Swedenborg, on Angels Near Us ‘Every Moment’)

“Especially do the angels call forth the goods and truths that are with a man, and set them in opposition to the evils and falsities which the evil spirits excite. Thus the man is in the midst, and does not perceive either the evil or the good; and being in the midst, he is in freedom to turn himself either to the one or to the other. By such means do angels from the Lord lead and protect a man, and this every moment, and every moment of a moment; for if the angels were to intermit their care for a single moment, the man would be precipitated into evil from which he could never afterward be brought out. These things the angels do from the love they have from the Lord, for they perceive nothing more delightful and happy than to remove evils from a man, and lead him to heaven.”— Swedish philosopher, mystic, and scientist Emanuel Swedenborg (1688–1772), Arcana Coelestia, Volume 8, translated by John Clowes, revised and edited by John Faulkner Potts (1749-1756)

Angels are indeed with us every moment, but they’re not just the winged messengers so familiar from religious readings or artistic depictions (such as this one from Rembrandt, of an angel appearing to the shepherds). Nor are they unfamiliar beings who appear in our lives suddenly and disappear just as quickly. 

No, angels are the friends and family, living and dead, who constantly lead us, by word and deed, now or remembered, to our better selves. We just have to be awake to their call.

Quote of the Day (Blaise Pascal, on the Approach to God)

“Jesus Christ is a God to whom we approach without pride, and before whom we are humbled without despair.”—French philosopher and logician Blaise Pascal (1623–1662, Pensees (Thoughts on Religion and Philosophy), translated by Isaac Taylor