This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
God comes through the wound': Our very imperfections—what religion labels our 'sins,' what therapy calls our 'sickness,' what philosophy terms our 'errors'—are precisely what bring us closer to the reality that no matter how hard we try to deny it, we are not the ones in control here. And this realization, inevitably and joyously, brings us closer to 'God'.
Acceptance | Imperfection | Means | Pain | Space | Spirituality | Understanding | Understand |
Assuming that his talent can survive the increasing strain, there is one scarcely avoidable danger that lies ahead of the pupil on his road to mastery. Not the danger of wasting himself in idle self-gratification - for the East has no aptitude for this cult of the ego - but rather of getting stuck in his achievement, which is confirmed by his success and magnified by his renown: in other words, of behaving as if the artistic existence were a form of life that bore witness to its own validity. The teacher foresees this danger. Carefully and with the adroitness of a psycho-pomp he seeks to head the pupil off in time and to detach him from himself. This he does by pointing out, casually and as though it were scarcely worth a mention in view of all that the pupil has already learned, that all right doing is accomplished only in a state of true selflessness, in which the doer cannot be present any longer as himself. Only the spirit is present, a kind of awareness which shows no trace of ego-hood and for that reason ranges without limit through all distances and depths, with eyes that hear and with ears that see.
It seems to me that we in our time indulge in a strange, structured and organized inner conflict, by one-sidedly furthering the intellect, but fearing emotions. We seriously believe that rationality is the only legitimate access path that is able to open up reality. I regard that as a serious error.
You see, my Lord Archbishop, what is "dubious" about my theology is not that it contradicts particular doctrinal teachings, things are much worse or better: what I want, is no more and no less than a fundamental change in the whole way that theology is done today; but I want this out of faith, not out of faithlessness.
Need | Right | Struggle | Superstition | Suspicion | Talking | Theology |
There is a great market for religious experience in our world; there is little enthusiasm for the patient acquisition of virtue, little inclination to sign up for a long apprenticeship in what earlier generations called holiness.
Age | Experience | Future | God | Old age | People | Soul | Spirit | Study | Theology | God | Old |
Thoughts lead to acts, acts lead to habits, habits lead to character - and our character will determine our eternal destiny.
Day | Love | Spirit | Spirituality | Work |
More than ever before, we need to learn and apply the principles of economic self-reliance. We do not know when the crisis involving sickness or unemployment may affect our own circumstances. We do know that the Lord has decreed global calamities for the future and has warned and forewarned us to be prepared. For this reason the Brethren have repeatedly stressed a 'back to basics' program for temporal and spiritual welfare.
Church | Government | Hope | Land | Spirituality | Tradition | Will | Witness | Government |
Today the devil as a wolf in supposedly a new suit of sheepÂ’s clothing is enticing some men to parrot his line by advocating planned government guaranteed security at the expense of our liberties.
Life | Life | Spirit | Spirituality | Will |
I can't help feeling wary when I hear anything said about the masses. First you take their faces from 'em by calling 'em the masses and then you accuse 'em of not having any faces.
Spirituality | Wrong |