Category: VOCATION

  • The most frustrated people are those who feel their lives can only improve when others put forth the necessary effort to make things better.

    Uninvited: Living Loved When You Feel Less Than, Left Out, and Lonely
    Lysa TerKeurst

  • The connoisseur does not merely enjoy his claret as he might enjoy warming his feet when they were cold. He feels that here is a wine that deserves his full attention; that justifies all the tradition and skill that have gone to its making and all the years of training that have made his own palate fit to judge it. There is even a glimmering of unselfishness in his attitude. He wants the wine to be preserved and kept in good condition, not entirely for his own sake. Even if he were on his deathbed and was never going to drink wine again, he would be horrified at the thought of this vintage being spilled or spoiled or even drunk by clods (like myself) who can’t tell a good claret from a bad. And so with the man who passes the sweet-peas. He does not simply enjoy, he feels that this fragrance somehow deserves to be enjoyed.

    —C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

  • We use our cars and clothing and career credentials to craft images of ourselves we wish to promote and project to others, while keeping much about ourselves carefully hidden from view.

    Vainglory: The Forgotten Vice
    Rebecca Konyndyk DeYoung

  • Just as a body left idle grows sickly and unattractive, exercise and labor make it healthy and attractive. The same applies to the soul: like iron left unused, it rusts, but when active, it shines brightly. Adversity keeps the soul in motion, just as arts perish without activity. Adverse circumstances stir the soul to action; without them, it would languish.

    —St. John Chrysostom

  • They that are learned know the worth of time, and the manner how well to improve a day; and they are to prepare themselves for such purposes in which they may be most useful in order to arts or arms, to counsel in public, or government in their country: but for others of them that are unlearned, let them choose good company, such as may not tempt them to a vice, or join with them in any; but that may supply their defects by counsel and discourse, by way of conduct and conversation. Let them learn easy and useful things, read history and the laws of the land, learn the customs of their country, the condition of their own estate, profitable and charitable contrivances of it: let them study prudently to govern their families, learn the burdens of their tenants, the necessities of their neighbours, and in their proportion supply them, and reconcile their enmities, and prevent their law-suits, or quickly end them; and in this glut of leisure and disemployment, let them set apart greater portions of their time for religion and the necessities of their souls.

    —Rev. Jeremy Taylor, CARE OF OUR TIME. -Rules for employing our time…, The Whole Works of the Right Rev. Jeremy Taylor, Volume 3. THE RULE AND EXERCISES OF HOLY LIVING AND DYING….: The Rule and Exercises of Holy Living and Dying

  • All of these punishments on earth are different from the eternal punishment. The eternal punishment is eliminated by repentance, but the earthly punishment remains intact. So the mother who does not bring up her son properly repents and her sins are forgiven, but her son remains as a bitterness of heart to her on earth. The student who does not study and fails can repent and the Lord will forgive him for his negligence, but this does not bring back a year of his life lost on earth in vain. The person for whom since causes disease can be forgiven his sin by repentance, but the disease remains with him as an earthly punishment as a natural result of sin.

    —H.H. Pope Shenouda III, The Life of Repentance and Purity

  • There is a well known saying: “He who lives only for himself never lived.” Then in the service, you must get out of your shell to meet others. You must get out of the “I” sphere to spread your love among all. You feel that your message in life is to do good to all those whom God send in your way. The more you gain experience in life and broadness in the heart, the circle of your service will get bigger. It would not be limited to your house and your family, and not only to your relatives, neighbours, friends and colleagues, but it will reach to a range that is wider and wider…

    —H.H. Pope Shenouda III, The Spiritual Means

  • and I repeat again St. Augustine’s words: “Love and do as you will.” Don’t worry about what you ought to do. Worry about loving. Don’t interrogate heaven repeatedly and uselessly saying, “What course of action should I pursue?” Concentrate on loving instead. And by loving you will find out what is for you. Loving, you will listen to the Voice. Loving, you will find peace.

    Letters from the Desert
    by Carlo Carretto

  • “Three things the mind is enlightened with: doing good to those who wrong you, enduring what befalls you from your enemies, and abandoning looking at and envying those who are ahead of you in the world.“

    —Abba Arsenius
    Abba Arsenius – The Tutor of the Emperor’s Sons

  • If people don’t either love or hate your work, you just haven’t done all that much.

    —Tinker Hatfield