Quotes for a Sunday

Let's start with a Jewish proverb that made the rounds a while ago. It is sure worth thinking about, even if it is more like a good Zen koan (which is not unlike a good Jewish proverb):

If God lived on earth, people would break his windows.

After breaking God's windows, perhaps, he would get back at us and punish us. Ah, but what may be the greatest punishment? Oscar Wilde had that figured out:

When the gods wish to punish us, they answer our prayers.

One of the reasons we may very well want to break God's windows, even before he answers our prayers is that there is sure a message we don't want to hear somewhere in there. Rabbi Harold Kushner points to one of those reasons that most of us would sure like to argue with God about. (You mean they are in heaven, too?):

The task of any religion is to teach us whom we're required to love, not whom we're entitled to hate.

Which Richard Rohr rounds out in this passage from Everything Belongs:

If your prayer is not enticing you outside your comfort zones, if your Christ is not an occasional 'threat', you probably need to do some growing up and learning to love.