This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Richard Niebuhr, fully Helmut Richard Niebuhr
God, give us grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed, courage to change the things which should be changed and the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other.
Change | Courage | Distinguish | Grace | Serenity | Wisdom |
What we want, above all things, in this age is heartiness and holy simplicity; men who justify the holy impulse of grace in their hearts, and do not keep it back by artificial clogs of prudence and false fear, or the sham pretences of fastidiousness and artificial delicacy. These are they whom God will make His witnesses in all ages. They dare to be holy, dare just as readily to be singular. What God puts in them, that they accept; and when He puts a song, they sing it.
Age | Fastidiousness | God | Grace | Impulse | Justify | Men | Prudence | Prudence | Will | God |
James Baldwin, fully James Arthur Baldwin
Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within. I use the word "love" here not merely in the personal sense but as a state of being, or a state of grace - not in the infantile American sense of being made happy but in the tough and universal sense of quest and daring and growth.
Jean Grou, fully Jean Nicholas Grou
No man has ever yet desired to pray without ceasing, asked for that grace earnestly, and done everything suggested by God for its bestowal, without having obtained it. To suppose such a thing would be manifest absurdity. For who is it who gives you the desire? God, of course. Does He give it you in order that it may stay unfulfilled? That is impossible. He implants within you a desire for something with the intention of giving you that very thing; He will infallibly give it you if you ask for it in the right way; and He begs you, He urges you, He assists you to make the petition.
Desire | Giving | God | Grace | Intention | Man | Order | Right | Will | God |
Nine requisites for contented living: Health enough to make work a pleasure. Wealth enough to support your needs. Strength to battle with difficulties and overcome them. Grace enough to confess your sins and forsake them. Patience enough to toil until some good is accomplished. Charity enough to see some good in your neighbor. Love enough to move you to be useful and helpful to others. Faith enough to make real the things of God. Hope enough to remove all anxious fears concerning the future.
Battle | Charity | Enough | Faith | Good | Grace | Health | Hope | Love | Patience | Strength | Work |
Though there is not always grace where there is the fear of hell, yet, to be sure, there is no grace where there is no fear of God.
John Piper, fully John Stephen Piper
Without humility, every virtue and every grace withers.
Gloom’s roots are in pretentiousness, fastidiousness, and a disregard of the good. The gloomy man, living in irritation and a constant quarrel with his destiny, senses hostility everywhere and seems never to be aware of the illegitimacy of his own complaints. He has a fine sense for the incongruities of life but stubbornly refuses to recognize the delicate grace of existence.
Only those who have experienced ultimate not-knowing, the voicelessness of a soul struck by wonder, total muteness, are able to enter the meaning of God, a meaning greater than the mind. There is a loneliness in us that hears. When the soul parts from the company of the ego and its retinue of petty concepts; when we cease to exploit all things but instead pray the world’s cry, the world’s sigh, our loneliness may hear the living grace beyond all power.
Religion is neither a state of mind nor an achievement of intellect. It does not rule hearts by the grace of man; its roots lie not in his inwardness. It is not an event in the soul but a matter of fact outside the soul. Even what starts as an experience in man transcends the human sphere, becoming an objective event outside him. In this power of transcending the soul, time, and space, the pious man sees the distinction of religious acts.
Achievement | Distinction | Experience | Grace | Man | Mind | Pious | Power | Rule | Soul |
So our customary practice of prayer was brought to mind: how through our ignorance and inexperience in the ways of love we spend so much time on petition. I saw that it is indeed more worthy of God and more truly pleasing to him that through his goodness we should pray with full confidence, and by his grace cling to him with real understanding and unshakeable love, than that we should go on making as many petitions as our souls are capable of.
God | Grace | Ignorance | Love | Practice | Prayer | Time | Understanding | God |
The grace to be a beginner is always the best prayer for an artist.
Ken Wilber, fully Kenneth Earl Wilber II
We move from part to whole and back again, and in that dance of comprehension, in that amazing circle of understanding, we come alive to meaning, to value, and to vision: the very circle of understanding guides our way, weaving together the pieces, healing the fractures, mending the torn and tortured fragments, lighting the way ahead - this extraordinary movement from part to whole and back again, with healing the hallmark of each and every step, and grace the tender reward.
Grace | Understanding |
Thomas Erskine, Lord Erskine, 1st Baron Erskine
In the New Testament, religion is grace and ethics is gratitude.
That I discovered the deed that intends me, that, this movement of my freedom, reveals the mystery to me. But this, too, that I cannot accomplish it the way I intended it, this resistance also reveals the mystery to me. He that forgets all being caused as he decides from the depths, he that puts aside possessions and cloak and steps bare before the countenance--this free human being encounters fate as the counter-image of his freedom. It is not his limit but his completion; freedom and fate embrace each other to form meaning; and given meaning, fate--with its eyes, hitherto severe, suddenly full of light--looks like grace itself.
Speak quietly to yourself & promise there will be better days. Whisper gently to yourself and provide assurance that you really are extending your best effort. Console your bruised and tender spirit with reminders of many other successes. Offer comfort in practical and tangible ways - as if you were encouraging your dearest friend. recognize that on certain days the greatest grace is that the day is over and you get to close your eyes. Tomorrow comes more brightly.
Better | Comfort | Day | Grace | Promise | Spirit | Tomorrow | Will |