To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary: to one without faith, no explanation is possible.

“Silence is the language of god, all else is poor translation”

Rumi

Grace, mercy, and peace, from God our father and Jesus Christ our Lord.

if it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.

God’s way is best; if human wisdom a fairer way may seem to show, tis only that our earth-dimmed vision the truth can never clearly know.

Beside the still waters, vol. 29, issue 4

Receiving forgiveness produces love, and love produces expressions of gratitude. So if gratitude is an expression of love based on forgiveness, lack of gratitude must be a sign that love inspired by forgiveness is missing.

Jim Yoder, Riverton, WY, Beside the Still Waters, Vol. 29, Iss. 4.

In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God.

1 Thessalonians 5:18

But the fact is that his mind came from one set of books as surely as mine has come from another set of books. But that can’t be true. …Who knows where any mind comes from. It’s all mystery.
Much more prayer is called for, clearly, but first I will take a nap.

p. 125, Gilead, Marilynne Robinson.

This is an important thing, which I have told many people, and which my father told me, and which his father told him. When you encounter another person, when you have dealings with anyone at all, it is as if a question was being put to you. So you must think, what is the lord asking me in this moment, in this situation. If you confront insult or antagonism, your first impulse will be to respond in kind. But if you think as it were, this is an emissary sent from the lord, and some benefit is intended for me, first of all the occasion to demonstrate my faithfulness, the chance to show that I do in some small degree participate in the grace that saved me, you are free to act otherwise than as things would seem to dictate. You are free to act by your own lights.

p. 124, Gilead, Marilynne Robinson.