The moment you take up the path, demand our activists, you must embrace their cause célèbre. Otherwise, you’re not one of them. But actually it’s not like that at all, for you didn’t jump aboard the caravan because of them. Remember the road that led you here, and what you were seeking. Don’t be sidetracked …
What is it that so appeals about our way? Could it be that we are each personally accountable for our actions? That our destiny depends on how we actually behave? Success or failure is not dependent on us belonging to a particular ethnic group or tribe. Rather, the most honorable of people in the sight …
Don’t be afraid of being called a heretic. Some of the greatest people that ever lived were called heretics in their time. Stand up for truth and justice, whatever the cost. You’re not accountable to the braying mob. You’re only accountable to God. Be just, even against yourself.
It was once asked after an incident on the bus on my way home from school, “Why don’t you stand up for yourself?” But I never did, because I felt completely powerless. In truth, I didn’t know how to. So though that was the last time I told anyone what was going on, it carried …
The past couple of years, I have been shown things which ought to make my faith unshakeable. If I fail now, I’ll only have myself to blame. If I continue to respond to the lowest calls of my soul, that doesn’t diminish the truth at all. Pondering on all that has come to light, a …
Hate no one, no matter how much they’ve wronged you.Live humbly, no matter how wealthy you become.Think positively, no matter how hard life is.Give much, even if you’ve been given little.Keep in touch with the ones who have forgotten you, and forgive who has wronged you, and do not stop praying for the best for …
I am never going to be part of the crowd. In my youth, I had twenty years of training, preparing me to walk alone. A denunciation which once rang in my ears — “You must be joking!” — when a stranger attempted to push me towards another seemed to encapsulate the situation. I was and …
I am not being facetious when I say we are often an obstacle to people believing. It’s true. When we fail to conduct ourselves in accordance with our manners and mores, ceding ground on central principles for the sake of expediency, we ourselves become a hindrance to those invested in their own journeys of faith. …
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It is a tragedy that we ourselves have become an obstacle to people believing. Daily we present such an odious caricature of faith that instead of inviting them, we push people away. Gone the notion that ours is a path of reform for all. In its place, nothing but a rallying cry for a chosen …
I logged into Facebook today for the first time in ages to find out what people were saying. I logged out again shortly afterwards, disappointed. I searched in vain for even a modicum of condemnation of the reported attrocites which set in motion all of the heartbreaking tragedy which has followed. No, but nothing. It …
It is not always helpful to those on the their own journey of inner reform to hear those who have serially engaged in enormities being given a free pass for all they did in the past. Yes, of course, the door to repentance is open to all. That gateway to reform is for everyone. Indeed, …
So warped are contemporary understandings of the Way that we are often thought to believe the very opposite of what we are actually taught. How many are even familiar with the five necessities man must enjoy in order to lead an honourable life? Who knows the centrality of the preservation of life, or the protection …
What has always appealed to me is a practical faith. While I do regularly sit down to learn, and spend much of my time pondering, I am not enamoured by the way our religion often seems to manifest itself, as something which is forever learnt, but rarely practiced. I have no interest in the lecture …
