Friday, December 31, 2010

The "athletic trim" of poverty

Among us English-speaking peoples especially do the praises of poverty need once more to be boldly sung. We have grown literally afraid to be poor. We despise anyone who elects to be poor in order to simplify and save his inner life. If he does not join the general scramble, we deem him spiritless and lacking in ambition. We have lost the power even of imagining what the ancient realization of poverty could have meant; the liberation from material attachments, the unbribed soul, the manlier indifference, the paying our way by what we are and not by what we have, the right to fling away our life at any moment irresponsibly -- the more athletic trim, in short, the fighting shape.

William James

Saturday, December 18, 2010

Stephen Colbert speaks the truth

I know this is satirical, but it is so true. I found a quote on a friend's blog and thought I would go watch The Colbert Report episode with the quote in it. Here it is:



If this is going to be a Christian nation that doesn’t help the poor, either we have to pretend that Jesus was just as selfish as we are, or we’ve got to acknowledge that he commanded us to love the poor and serve the needy without condition and then admit that we just don’t want to do it. - Stephen Colbert