Spiritual Wisdom
Abraham Joshua Heschel
In His Own Words
“Our goal should be to live life in radical amazement. ....get up in the morning and look at the world in a way that takes nothing for granted. Everything is phenomenal; everything is incredible; never treat life casually. To be spiritual is to be amazed.”
― Abraham Joshua Heschel
“When I was young, I used to admire intelligent people; as I grow older, I admire kind people.”
― Abraham Joshua Heschel
“Few are guilty, but all are responsible.”
― Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Prophets
“It is customary to blame secular science and anti-religious philosophy for the eclipse of religion in modern society. It would be more honest to blame religion for its own defeats. Religion declined not because it was refuted, but because it became irrelevant, dull, oppressive, insipid. When faith is completely replaced by creed, worship by discipline, love by habit; when the crisis of today is ignored because of the splendor of the past; when faith becomes an heirloom rather than a living fountain; when religion speaks only in the name of authority rather than with the voice of compassion--its message becomes meaningless.”
― Abraham Joshua Heschel, God in Search of Man: A Philosophy of Judaism
“Faith is not the clinging to a shrine but an endless pilgrimage of the heart.”
― Abraham Joshua Heschel
NBC interview filmed few weeks before his death. 33:46: "I'd say to young people a number of things: Remember, there is a meaning beyond absurdity, let be sure that every little deed counts, that every word has power, that we can do everyone our share to redeem the world. (...)
Abraham Joshua Heschel
Frederick Buechner ( add video)
In His Own Words
"By and large a good rule for finding out is this: the kind of work God usually calls you to is the kind of work (a) that you need most to do and (b) that the world most needs to have done. ... The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet"
– Source
"There are all different kinds of voices calling you to all different kinds of work, and the problem is to find out which is the voice of God rather than of Society, say, or the Superego, or Self-Interest"
Website: http://www.frederickbuechner.com/
In a myriad of commonplace activities, he finds the presence of the divine, and he elegantly describes these persons, events, and observations, nimbly transporting readers into these realities. With his masterly crafted prose, Buechner edifies, inspires, and offers a timeless model for approaching our human experience.
— HarperCollins
