Morning Briefings

Tough choices don’t always involve professional codes or criminal laws. Nor do they always involve big, headline-size issues. They often operate in areas that laws and regulations don’t reach.

– Rushworth M. Kidder
How Good People Make Tough Choices: Resolving the Dilemmas of Ethical Living

It might seem strange to pray at your computer, in front of a screen, especially if there are other people around you, or distracting noises. But God is everywhere, all around us, constantly reaching out to us, even in the most unlikely situations. When we know this, and with a bit of practice, we can pray anywhere!

– Sacred Space

The speaker of Australia’s Parliament has called for a public debate about whether the country’s lawmakers should end the practice of starting each session with the Lord’s Prayer. Dumping the prayer is unlikely to end anytime soon, though, as Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull said Sunday they wanted to keep the prayer.

– AP, October 27, 2008

Those who live in close proximity to their basic values are apt to agonize over choices that other people, drifting over the surface of their lives, might never even see as problems. Sound values raise tough choices; and tough choices are never easy.

– Rushworth M. Kidder
How Good People Make Tough Choices: Resolving the Dilemmas of Ethical Living

All spiritual growth is fraught with mystery. No matter how hard we try, we cannot push and shove our way into union with the Holy One.

– Joyce Rupp
Prayer

We’ve always needed God, from the very beginning of this nation.

– A Call to Prayer
9/11 tribute

As I went down in the river to pray, studying about that good old way, and who shall wear the starry crown, Good Lord, show me the way!

– Alison Krauss, Down to the River to Pray
from the Raising Sand concert tour with Robert Plant

The real quest of prayer is to know God and not to get stuff. Prayer is interpersonal communication between a person and God.

– Don M. Aycock
How to Have a Conversation with God

No one who has ever experienced God in prayer has ever found anything more joyful, not even owning half the world.

– Peter Kreeft
Prayer: The Great Conversation

For all of the misunderstandings and even deliberate attacks on prayer, one fact is certain–people pray.

– Don M. Aycock
How to Have a Conversation with God

In my survey of wives, women voted motherhood as one of their top three prayer needs. They said that one of the most worrisome aspects of parenting is finding the successful balance between being a good mother and being a good wife. Whether she says it or not, she often feels guilty about neglecting her husband or her children.

– Stormie Omartian
The Power of a Praying Husband

I’ve learned so much from what I believe my dad did right in his life. I’ve also learned a lot from reflecting on the mistakes he made. And when I get smug about being able to develop my parent skills by learning from another’s mistakes, I suddenly realize that my boys will learn from my mistakes. Scary.

– Vincent Staniforth
Questions for My Father: Finding the Man Behind Your Dad

Prayer is a strategic alliance with God. It is a good faith contract, a spiritual handshake agreement. Only faith and patience are required on our part.

– Cher & Bill Horton
Business Prayers for Millennium Managers

For twenty centuries she has been called blessed by people in all walks of life: intellectuals, illiterates, kings, warriors, tradesmen, men and women, infants and elderly: Hail Mary full of grace, the Lord is with thee, blessed art thou among women.

– Francis Fernandez
In Conversation with God

America trusts in the abiding power of prayer and asks for the wisdom to discern God’s will in times of joy and trial. As we observe this National Day of Prayer, we recognize our dependence on the Almighty, we thank Him for the blessings He has bestowed upon us, and we put our country’s future in His hands.

– A Proclamation by the President of the United States of America

In the midst of a turbulent, often chaotic life, we are all called to reach out with courageous honesty to our innermost self, with relentless care to our fellow human beings and with increasing prayer to our God.

– Henri J.M. Nouwen
Reaching Out

All season long, I would look for signs of His imminence and concern in my daily affairs. I prayed hard and only gradually became aware that this fierce praying was a way of finding prologue and entrance into my own writing. This came as both astonishment and relief. When I thought God had abandoned me, I discovered that He had simply given me a different voice to praise the inexhaustible beauty of the made world.

– Pat Conroy
My Losing Season

Pack light or pay up: UAL and US Airways will begin charging $50 roundtrip for checking a second piece of luggage on May 5, and Southwest Airlines has already implemented a similar fee. Other airlines–under severe financial pressure from high fuel prices–may follow, eager to collect hundreds of millions of dollars without raising ticket prices.

– Scott McCartney, The Wall Street Journal, March 11, 2008

If you pray more you will pray better. Take the help of all your senses to pray.

– Blessed Teresa of Calcutta

When speaking to clergy gatherings around the country I often ask, ‘Who here prays for teenagers as they go off on mission trips; or Sunday school teachers each September?’ Invariably all hands go up. Finally I ask, ‘Who here prays for all the accountants in your congregation around April 15, and who here prays for all the salespeople and those working on commission at the end of the month or year when quotas are due?’ Silence. Eyes drop to the ground. Usually, not a single hand is raised.

– David W. Miller
God at Work: The History and Promise of the Faith at Work Movement

Pray through even the small things, for He governs all aspects of our lives; pray always expecting a response, for He answers; and finally, never be afraid to pray big, for He displays His awesome power.

– from Beth Moore’s
Voices of the Faithful