Morning Briefings

Jesus’ life didn’t go well. He didn’t reach his earning potential. He didn’t have the respect of his colleagues. His life wasn’t long. He didn’t meet his soul mate. And he wasn’t understood by his mother. Yet I think I deserve all those things because I am so spiritual.

– Hugh Prather
Spiritual Notes to Myself

The rich and the poor have this in common, the Lord is the maker of them all.

– Proverbs 22:2

World stock markets tumble on Lehman bankruptcy filing, Merrill Lynch takeover: The 158-year-old Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. filed Monday for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The company was crippled by $60 billion in soured real-estate holdings and unable to find an investment partner to throw it a lifeline…when Bank of America balked at buying Lehman, the government urged it to buy investment bank Merrill Lynch instead.

–
AP, September 15, 2008

Texas singer seeks to understand a tragedy: ‘I think in many ways everybody is a survivor, it’s just a little bit more obvious in my case. Everybody has been knocked back, and for the most part, you know what people do? They keep going, and most people do it with grace and humor and goodwill and a spirit of generosity.’

– Naomi Koppel, AP, as reported on
Yahoo! News, May 23, 2008

In my experience the bad days have been exceptions rather than rules. But some people face a lifetime of adversity. During such times, we’re swimmers drawn toward open water by powerful undertows of doubt. We grieve and weep and sometimes feel we’re drowning. But what if we knew it would turn out well, whatever we are facing? What if Romans 8:28 really were more than a cliche? What if it always worked? Would it make a difference to you?

– Robert J. Morgan
The Promise: How God Works All Things Together for Good

Man’s accidents are God’s purposes, 1843: No one knows what prompted Sophia Hawthorne to engrave this phrase on the window. Some scholars suggest it may refer to a miscarriage she had in that year after slipping on a patch of ice. There is a sense of grief and resignation about her words, but also of strength and resolution. No easy answer is asked for or given, just a blunt acceptance of events and a determination to either endure or overcome them.

– from James Geary’s
The World in a Phrase

The course of American history demonstrates the difficulties, the struggles and the great intellectual and moral resolve which were demanded to shape a society which faithfully embodied these noble principles. In our time, too, particularly in moments of crisis, Americans continue to find their strength in a commitment to this patrimony of shared ideals and aspirations.

– from the address of Pope Benedict XVI on the White House Lawn, April 16, 2008 as reported by
Whispers in the Loggia

Housing Construction Hits 16-Year Low: The overall construction decline left home building 24.2 percent below the level of activity a year ago.

– Martin Crutsinger, AP Economics Writer

Mine was a Disney World sort of life –inauthentic, narrow, utterly predictable, and largely devoid of any real meaning. The end to this illusion would come to me, as it has for so many, by means of a personal crisis.

– Joseph Jaworski
Synchronicity: The Inner Path of Leadership