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"We tend to equate hospitality with parties and social gatherings or gracious resorts and expensive restaurants. To us hospitality is an industry, not a practice, one that summons Martha Stewart to mind more quickly than Jesus Christ. But to ancient Christians hospitality was a virtue, part of the love of neighbor and fundamental to being a person of the way. While contemporary Christians tend to equate morality with sexual ethics, our ancestors defined morality as welcoming the stranger.
Unlike almost every other contested idea in early Christianity, including the nature of Christ and the doctrine of the Trinity, the unanimous witness of the ancient fathers and mothers was that hospitality was the primary Christian virtue. From the New Testament texts that unambiguously urge believers to 'practice hospitality' through St. Augustine's works in the fifth century, early Christian writings extol hospitality toward the sick, the poor, travelers, widows, orphans, slaves, prisoners, prostitutes, and the dying."
Unlike almost every other contested idea in early Christianity, including the nature of Christ and the doctrine of the Trinity, the unanimous witness of the ancient fathers and mothers was that hospitality was the primary Christian virtue. From the New Testament texts that unambiguously urge believers to 'practice hospitality' through St. Augustine's works in the fifth century, early Christian writings extol hospitality toward the sick, the poor, travelers, widows, orphans, slaves, prisoners, prostitutes, and the dying."
"This much I know: you have to forget your own worries for the sake of others, for the sake of those whom you love."
"And further, beloved brethren, what is it, what a great thing is it, how pertinent, how necessary, that pestilence and plague which seems horrible and deadly, searches out the righteousness of each one, and examines the minds of the human race, to see whether they who are in health tend the sick; whether relations affectionately love their kindred; whether masters pity their languishing servants; whether physicians do not forsake the beseeching patients; whether the fierce suppress their violence; whether the rapacious can quench the ever insatiable ardour of their raging avarice even by the fear of death; whether the haughty bend their neck; whether the wicked soften their boldness; whether, when their dear ones perish, the rich, even then bestow anything, and give, when they are to die without heirs. Even although this mortality conferred nothing else, it has done this benefit to Christians and to God's servants that we begin gladly to desire martyrdom as we learn not to fear death. These are trainings for us, not deaths: they give the mind the glory of fortitude; by contempt of death they prepare for the crown."
"That which is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. That is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation. Go and study it."
"Better no trade, than trade procured by villainy. It is far better to have no wealth than to gain wealth at the expense of virtue. Better is honest poverty, than all the riches bought by the tears, and sweat, and blood, of our fellow-creatures."
"The only clear line I draw these days is this: when my religion tries to come between me and my neighbor, I will choose my neighbor... Jesus never commanded me to love my religion."
"There is a taint on any contact between two people which does not affirm as an axiom the personal inviolability of both."
"I think a church can be clear and articulate and confident about what it believes and what its theological beliefs are, but I think to be of Christ is to be generous in how that's applied to people that don't agree."
"Hell is where no one has anything in common with anybody else except the fact that they all hate one another and cannot get away from one another and from themselves."
"Racism, specifically, is the state-sanctioned or extralegal production and exploitation of group-differentiated vulnerability to premature death."
"Know then that the body is merely a garment. Go seek the wearer, not the cloak."
"All of our humanity is dependent upon recognizing the humanity in others."
"A selfish love of ourselves makes us incapable of loving others."
"Let none turn over books, or roam the stars in quest of God, who sees him not in man."
"We’ve got to let the awkwardness be there. Then we see God on the street corner and we see God in the people who look like they’re not having the best day. We see God over and over and over again until we realize that what we’re seeing is ourselves. We wouldn’t have the capacity to see God if that wasn’t who we are in every moment, every day."
"The effect you have on others is the most valuable currency there is."
"For Jesus, there are no countries to be conquered, no ideologies to be imposed, no people to be dominated. There are only children, women and men to be loved."
"When the distorting instrument of the mind is made clear, we see life not as a collection of fragments, but as a seamless whole. We see the divine spark at the center of our very being; and we see simultaneously that in the heart of every other human being—in every country, in every race—though hidden perhaps by clouds of ignorance and conditioning, that same spark is present, one and the same in all."
"We all need joy, and we can all receive joy in only one way, by adding to the joy of others."
"We're all undesirable elements from somebody's point of view."