Righteousness is not to be taken lightly, nor is it easily attained. God gives it to those who know they cannot live without it. Our desire for personal righteousness must be powerful, all-consuming, dominating everything we do. Pursuing righteousness means that we value the opinion of God far more than we treasure the opinions of people. Righteousness is not merely an absence of sin. It is allowing God to fill us with His holiness. It is becoming like Christ."
Henry Blackaby, Hunger and Thirst
“Hope, on one hand, is an absurdity too embarrassing to speak about, for it flies in the face of all those claims we have been told are facts. Hope is the refusal to accept the reading of reality which is the majority opinion; and one does that only at great political and existential risk. On the other hand, hope is subversive, for it limits the grandiose pretension of the present, daring to announce that the present to which we have all made commitments is now called into question. Our consumer culture is organized against history. There is a depreciation of memory and a ridicule of hope, which means everything must be held in the now, either an urgent now or an eternal now."
Walter Brueggemann, The Prophetic Imagination
"For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me no thing to drink, a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you gave me no clothing, sick and held in detention, and you did not care for me."
Matthew 25
"In the Incarnation the whole human race recovers the dignity of the image of God. Thereafter, any attack, even on the least of men, is an attack on Christ, who took on the form of man, and in his own Person restored the image of God in all. Through our relationship with the Incarnation, we recover our true humanity, and at the same time are delivered from that perverse individualism which is the consequence of sin, and recover our solidarity with all mankind."
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship
The Consumer Price Index of inflation numbers were in-line this morning.
Stocks had another wide ranging day with a failed rally, finishing up pretty much unchanged.
The Dollar chopped sideways finishing slightly higher.
Gold lost a little ground, silver was slightly higher.
VIX wandered around as usual.
How many grow cold and fall away, and so easily.
During my healing from eye trouble I have been listening to Mike Duncan's History of Rome on Youtube. I did a second major in classics in college and it's a nice refresh of things I had studied, and is very well done, tying things together. Since I am prohibited from reading for a while, this is a very nice audio-only substitute.
One day at a time.
Have a pleasant evening.
