Tuesday, March 27, 2007

I do not believe that evil angels seize human institutions and pervert them. Rather, I see the demonic as arising within the institution itself, as it abandons its divine vocation for a selfish, lesser goal. Therefore I would not attempt to cast out the spirit of a city, for example, but rather, to call on God to transform it, to recall it to its divine vocation. My spiritual conversation is with God, not the demonic.- Walter Wink, The Powers That Be; Theology for a New Millennium, p. 197.

Tuesday, March 20, 2007

….a fanatic in a train who had given her a tract: Love God Or Go To Hell. It was only after a number of years that she had come to the conclusion that the title was aright, except perhaps for “go to” – since the truth would have been more accurately rendered by “be in Hell”. She was doubtful also about “God”; “Love” would have been sufficient by itself but it was necessary at first to concentrate on something which could be distinguished from all its mortal vessels, and the more one lived with that the more one found that it possessed in fact all the attributes of Deity. She had tried to enjoy, and she remembered vividly the moment when walking down Kingsway, it had struck her that there was no need for her to try or to enjoy; she had only to be still, and let that recognized Deity itself enjoy, as its omnipotent nature was. She still forgot occasionally; her mortality still leaped rarely into action, and confused her and clouded the sublime operation of – of It. But rarely and more rarely those moments came; more and more securely the working of that Fate which was Love possess her. For it was fatal in its nature; rich and austere at once, giving death and life in the same moment, restoring beyond belief all the things it took away – except the individual will.

The Greater Trumps
Charles Williams