What are these voices outside love's open door
Make us throw off our contentment
And beg for something more?

  -- -- --

These times are so uncertain
There's a yearning undefined
And people filled with rage
We all need a little tenderness
How can love survive in such a graceless age

And the trust and self-assurance that lead to happiness
They're the very things we kill, I guess
Pride and competition cannot fill these empty arms
And the work they put between us,
You know it doesn't keep us warm

  -- -- --

There are people in your life who've come and gone
They let you down, you know they hurt your pride
You better put it all behind you, cause life goes on
You keep carrin' that anger, it'll eat you up inside

  -- -- --

The more I know, the less I understand
All the things I thought I knew, I'm learning again
I've been tryin' to get down to the heart of the matter
But my will gets weak
And my thoughts seem to scatter
But I think it's about
Forgiveness, forgiveness

This moment, mortal as you or I,
was full of boundless, senseless,
silly joy, as if it knew
something we didn't.

-- Adam Zagajewski (via)

True love in every moment praises God.
Longing love brings a sorrow sweet to the pure.
Seeking love belongs to itself.
Understanding love gives itself equally to all.
Enlightened love is mingled with the sadness of the world.
But selfless love bears an effortless fruit,
    working so quietly even the body cannot say
    how it comes and goes.

-- Mechthild of Magdeburg

Justice = rendering what is owed to another

1) Question: What is the "what" that is owed to another?

I have an internal sense of what is owed to others. Some words or labels: respect, love, kindness, compassion, help, service. For God: worship, adoration, praise. The word sacrifice should be in there too. The best answer is the greatest commandment: to love God and to love my neighbor.

2) But when I turn the question around, and maybe this is my problem, I am not sure what is owed to me.

I know my answer to part 1 applies to me too.

This sense of what is owed to me conflicts with my sense of the First Beatitude. The First Beatitude, poor in spirit, ultimately points to the fact that all is gift.

I have no rights or claims to make on God.

In reality, I do not own anything except my choices. (Even the opportunity to make a choice is gift.) I am a steward of what is under my control, or rather, under my direct influence on things and people around me.

If all is gift, then I am radically (at the root) poor. Anything that happens to me is gift.

God's love for me is gift. His grace is gift.

And all of the words and labels I used in part 1 are gift. Even to give those to others has been a gift for me to give.

Therefore, it seems to me, I do not have a claim to be owed anything.

Even by God's greatest commandment, I do not have a claim to be owed anything because all of that too is gift.

And if I do not have a claim to be owed anything, then where does justice fit in for me? It seems justice only applies for God.

But yet, I see injustice in the world.

Nota Bene: God has a claim on me. As His creature, I have failed many times to give what is properly owed to Him. I pray for His mercy. I have also failed many times to give what is owed to my neighbor. I pray for God's mercy.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

Justice = rendering what is owed to another

1) Question: What is the "what" that is owed to another?

I have an internal sense of what is owed to others. Some words or labels: respect, love, kindness, compassion, help, service. For God: worship, adoration, praise. The word sacrifice should be in there too. The best answer is the greatest commandment: to love God and to love my neighbor.

2) But when I turn the question around, and maybe this is my problem, I am not sure what is owed to me.

I know my answer to part 1 applies to me too.

This sense of what is owed to me conflicts with my sense of the First Beatitude. The First Beatitude, poor in spirit, ultimately points to the fact that all is gift.

I have no rights or claims to make on God.

In reality, I do not own anything, except my choices. (Even the opportunity to make a choice is gift.) I am a steward of what is under my control, or rather, under my direct influence on things and people around me.

If all is gift, then I am radically (at the root) poor. Anything that happens to me is gift.

God's love for me is gift. His grace is gift.

And all of the words and labels I used in part 1 are gift. Even to give those to others has been a gift for me to give.

Therefore, it seems to me, I do not have a claim to be owed anything.

Even by God's greatest commandment, I do not have a claim to be owed anything because all of that too is gift.

And if I do not have a claim to be owed anything, then where does justice fit in for me? It seems justice only applies for God.

But yet, I see injustice in the world.

Nota Bene: God has a claim on me. As His creature, I have failed many times to give what is properly owed to Him. I pray for His mercy. I have also failed many times to give what is owed to my neighbor. I pray for God's mercy.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

con•tin•gent |kən'tinjənt|
adjective
1 subject to chance : the contingent nature of the job. See note at accidental.
• (of losses, liabilities, etc.) that can be anticipated to arise if a particular event occurs : businesses need to be aware of their liabilities, both actual and contingent.
• PHILOSOPHY true by virtue of the way things in fact are and not by logical necessity : that men are living creatures is a contingent fact.
2 (contingent on/upon) occurring or existing only if (certain other circumstances) are the case; dependent on : resolution of the conflict was contingent on the signing of a cease-fire agreement.

noun
a group of people united by some common feature, forming part of a larger group : a contingent of Japanese businessmen attending a conference.
• a body of troops or police sent to join a larger force in an operation : a contingent of 2,000 marines.

DERIVATIVES
con•ting•ent•ly adverb

ORIGIN late Middle English (in the sense [of uncertain occurrence] ): from Latin contingere 'befall,' from con- 'together with' + tangere 'to touch.' The noun sense was originally [something happening by chance,] then [a person's share resulting from a division, a quota] ; the current sense dates from the early 18th cent.

Is "image and likeness" a redundant phrase, or does it mark a distinction? Arguably the latter. To be created in God's image is to be granted the potentiality for sharing in the divine life, a potentiality that may or may not be actualized and is shared in equally by all human beings without their consent. Likeness, however, results from man's free actualization of that potentiality. Whereas the image of God is imposed on man, likeness to God is not, but requires the free cooperation of the creature.

-- Bill Vallicella (via)

I should not have hid
Where my heart can't follow
Cause this grace gets so far
And too hard to swallow
I've been running from Saul,
He's been giving chase
When I look in his eyes
All I see is his face

Are you still on my back
After all these years?
Chasing my out of hell
And my nice veneers
I don't know how you stand
When you've got no floor
Or how you can breathe
With your hands on boards

I just want to be not what I am today
I just want to be better than my friends might say
I just want a small part in your passion play

Do you hear when I call
    In the midst of wrong?
Do you hear these here words
    While I sing this song?

Are you caught up in me
Like I heard you say?
Or just some big cashier
That I'll have to pay

I just want to be not what I am today
I just want to be better than my friends might say
I just want a small part in your passion play

-- William Fitzsimmons

When someone deeply listens to you
it is like holding out a dented cup
you've had since childhood
and watching it fill up with
cold, fresh water.
When it balances on top of the brim,
you are understood.
When it overflows and touches your skin,
you are loved.
When someone deeply listens to you,
the room where you stay
starts a new life
and the place where you wrote
your first poem
begins to glow in your mind's eye.
It is as if gold has been discovered!
When someone deeply listens to you,
your bare feet are on the earth
and a beloved land that seemed distant
is now at home within you.

-- John Fox, from Finding What You Didn't Lose (via)

In the fallout now
It's hard to feel like we can turn around
With the damage done
It's hard to see how far we've come
We could not be proud
Of where our feet have walked along the ground
In the silence now
We play it back and forwards again

There's a sound in our guiltiness
It's a warning bell that rings
It's a call to our loneliness
And we can't see

We roll the dice we play like fools
We plead with time to change the rules
It's like a hurricane is coming our way
We've all been warned but we still chose to stay

I can't believe it now the time has come

Play the victim here
You know it's nothing but your pride and fear
But the more you hurt
The more you love the one you were

There's a sound in our guiltiness
It's a warning bell that rings
It's a call to our loneliness
And we can't see

We roll the dice we play like fools
We plead with time to change the rules
It's like a hurricane is coming our way
We've all been warned but we still chose to stay

I can't believe it now the time has come

In the light of the morning
Can we change what we felt and heard
Can we turn it into the glory
Break the paths of our fathers before us
Though we stand on the outside
We will find what we once believed
And will crawl our way to the clear skies
Standing up we are
Standing up we are

We roll the dice we play like fools
We plead with time to change the rules
It's like a hurricane is coming our way
We've all been warned but we still chose to stay

I can't believe it now the time has come

-- "Hurricane" by Needtobreathe (sound clip)

You will never be alone, you hear so deep
a sound when autumn comes. Yellow
pulls across the hills and thrums,
or in the silence after lightning before it says
its names - and then the clouds' wide-mouthed
apologies. You were aimed from birth:
you will never be alone. Rain
will come, a gutter filled, an Amazon,
long aisles - you never heard so deep a sound,
moss on rock, and years. You turn your head--
that's what the silence meant: you're not alone.
The whole wide world pours down.

-- William Stafford

Source: xkcd

Who do you believe when you can't get through
When everything you know seems so untrue
When I'm lost in a place that I thought I knew
Give me some way that I might find you

-- Needtobreathe, "Through Smoke" (listen)