People encounter God under shady oak trees, on riverbanks, at the tops of mountains, and in long stretches of barren wilderness. God shows up in whirlwinds, starry skies, burning bushes, and perfect strangers. When people want to know more about God, the son of God tells them to pay attention to the lilies of the field and the birds of the air, to women kneading bread and workers lining up for their pay. Whoever wrote this stuff believed that people could learn as much about the ways of God from paying attention to the world as they could from paying attention to scripture. What is true is what happens, even if what happens is not always right. People can learn as much about the ways of God from business deals gone bad or sparrows falling to the ground as they can from reciting the books of the Bible in order. They can learn as much from a love affair or a wildflower as they can from knowing the Ten Commandments by heart.
Barbara Brown Taylor (b. 1951) American minister, academic, author
An Altar in the World, ch. 1 (2009)
(Source)
Quotations about:
divine
Note not all quotations have been tagged, so Search may find additional quotes on this topic.
Every man is a divinity in disguise, a god playing the fool. It seems as if heaven had sent its insane angels into our world as to an asylum, and here they will break out into their native music and utter at intervals the words they have heard in heaven; and then the mad fit returns, and they mope and wallow like dogs.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American essayist, lecturer, poet
“History,” Essays: First Series (1841)
(Source)
Teach me to feel another’s Woe;
To hide the Fault I see;
That Mercy I to others show,
That Mercy show to me.Alexander Pope (1688-1744) English poet
“The Universal Prayer,” 9 (1738)
It is certain that great prosperity and worldly glory are no sure tokens of God’s love.
Thomas Brooks (1608-1680) English Puritan divine, writer
A Cabinet of Jewels
It is an open question whether any behavior based on fear of eternal punishment can be regarded as ethical or should be regarded as merely cowardly.
Margaret Mead (1901-1978) American anthropologist
(Attributed)
Quoted in Redbook (Feb 1971)
The wish to talk to God is absurd. We cannot talk to one we cannot comprehend — and we cannot comprehend God; we can only believe in Him. The uses of prayer are thus only subjective.
Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) German philosopher
Lecture, Königsberg (1775)
The angels break into song at the sight of the throne and all the songs fit together as part of a greater song, but people seem to have to search to find the right song to sing. It is a matter of finding our proper nature.
(Other Authors and Sources)
Arn Lesikar, Belief-L listserv (6 Jun 1998)
