Pastoral Care Quotes

I listened impatiently to the wisdom of the O'Neills for about twenty minutes until I could take no more (by this time Steve and Susan had me thumbing through the paperback). I slid the book across the desk at them and said, 'This is so much shit.'

That was a mistake because the word 'shit' on the lips of a pastor deeply offended their moral sensibilities. Such was the state of things among us. They took grave exception to the word SHIT, while I was expected to remain noddingly neutral toward their adultery. WELL, SHIT, I thought. Without apologizing, I tried to convince them I was merely 'upset' by the prospects of their separation. Gradually, I achieved the clinical tone that they so admired in the O'Neills and evidently expected in their country parson. ~ Richard Lischer

Protestants at one time were confident that their free form of confession was a vast improvement upon Catholic private confession to a priest because it is voluntary, demystified, and not routinized. But amid the acids of modernity it has volunteered itself right out of existence. Demystification has dwindled into desacralization. The escape from routinization has become a convenient cover for the demise of repentance. The postmodern pastor is trying to learn anew to listen to the deeper range of feelings of others, without forgetfulness of the Word of God. ~ Thomas C. Oden

When a pastor is led by what people demand of them and not what God demands of them a shepherd turns into a wolf ~ John M Sheehan

One trains the eye of confession most closely on what is hurting. If sin is present it will be aching. Confession begins where the raw anguish of conscience is rubbing against the primordial awareness of God's holiness. ~ Thomas C. Oden

You could remove the powerful preaching from our church and it would still continue. You could remove the administration of pastoral care through the cell group system and the church would still continue. But if you remove the prayer life of our church it would collapse. ~ David Yonggi Cho

At Vatican II my mind was growing through the embryonic beginning of a reversal of moral conscience unlike any I had known. I found myself increasingly critical of the Freudian psychoanalysis that had long shaped my interest in personal behavior change. I better recognized the long captivity of Protestant pastoral care to contemporary psychology and became a critic of the very accommodation to modern consciousness that I myself had advocated throughout the preceding decade. ~ Thomas C. Oden

The prayer level of a church never rises any higher than the personal example and passion of the leaders. The quantity and quality of prayer in leadership meetings is the essential indicator of the amount of prayer that will eventually arise among the congregation. ~ Daniel Henderson

The existence of God is neither precluded nor rendered improbable by the existence of evil. Of course, suffering and misfortune may nonetheless constitute a problem for the theist; but the problem is not that his beliefs are logically or probabilistically incompatible. The theist may find a religious problem in evil; in the presence of his own suffering or that of someone near to him he may find it difficult to maintain what he takes to be the proper attitude towards God. Faced with great personal suffering or misfortune, he may be tempted to rebel against God, to shake his fist in God's face, or even to give up belief in God altogether. But this is a problem of a different dimension. Such a
problem calls, not for philosophical enlightenment, but for pastoral care. The Free Will Defense, however, shows that the existence of God is compatible, both logically and probabilistically, with the existence of evil; thus it solves the main philosophical problem of evil. ~ Alvin Plantinga

The deeper irony is that the evidence of sin that are always found in and around the body of Christ may become indirect intimations of its holiness. It could not be a holy church if it had clean hands, as if severed from its task of saving sinners and healing human hurt. ~ Thomas C. Oden

The confessor can nullify the exquisitely seasonable moment of confession by talking instead of listening. When he sees pedagogy and advice as more important than simple listening, he diverts the stream of confession. ~ Thomas C. Oden

It doesn't matter how many times you fail. It doesn't matter how many times you almost get it right. No one is going to know or care about your failures, and neither should you. All you have to do is learn from them and those around you because all that matters in business is that you get it right once. Then everyone can tell you how lucky you are. ~ Mark Cuban

I always tell her I don't care what's normal after what happened; I just want normal - without qualifiers. I want to open my closet, pull on any outfit, and not obsess about people thinking I'm asking for it. ~ Patty Blount

I don't care a damn for their guns, or you either, sir! What I want is the Southside Railroad! ~ Philip Sheridan

I think if you love someone, you shouldn't care about her appearance at all. Loving someone because of her physical attribute isn't love. It's either lust or crush. ~ Rachel Van Dyken

My child, the troubles and temptations of your life are beginning, and may be many; but you can overcome and outlive them all if you learn to feel the strength and tenderness of your Heavenly Father as you do that of your earthly one. The more you love and trust Him, the nearer you will feel to Him, and the less you will depend on human power and wisdom. His love and care never tire or change, can never be taken from you, but may become the source of lifelong peace, happiness, and strength. Believe this heartily, and go to God with all your little cares, and hopes, and sins, and sorrows, as freely and confidingly as you come to your mother. ~ Louisa May Alcott

The use of great men is to serve the little men, to take care of the human race, and act as practical interpreters of justice and truth. ~ Theodore Parker

Standing at the edge of time
Almost falling down to the dark abyss
As I near the end of mine
I reminisce the things I will miss

The smiles and laughter
Running around without a care
The time when my grin will never falter
Being so free, willing my soul to bare

Heartaches, heartbreaks and tears
Now I know better and to myself I will never lie
Because in woe, I learned to love and never fear
Those were the best and worst moments of my life

As the memories rush back to me
I look down and now I feel relieved
Because when it is time
Everything will be fine when I leave ~ Isabelle Guzman

There is something about having someone take care of you, even when you don't need it - maybe especially when you don't need it. ~ Patricia Briggs

Minutes remain the same length whether they are held against the span of years or minutes themselves. Yet, when minutes are held against themselves, they seem so terribly brief. Therefore, we'd be wise to celebrate life before minutes are all that's left. ~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

They projected an illusion of warmth with their home-cooking and hand-stitched quilts, yet underneath the facade was an institutional rigidity, as if they were running an orphanage where children would be fed and cared for but never loved. Love was such a key ingredient in molding humans, yet it was inaccessible to kids inside of the system. ~ Renee Carlino

I think the best thing we can do is sell that idea of smaller government - of fiscal responsibility vs. the Obama record. Obama made promises, and on every promise in which he's actually delivered, things have gotten worse instead of better. He said if we get ObamaCare it'll help, but health care prices went up. ~ Richard Mourdock

As long as we decline to allow sick, uninsured people to just lie down and die on the side of the road, everybody has to have insurance for the health care system to work sanely. ~ Gail Collins

Who would care if I became pregnant, who would be scandalized? Aunty Eva, Anwar's flatmates. Omar would never know unless I wrote to him. Uncle Saleh was across the world. A few years back, getting pregnant would have shocked Khartoum society, given my father a heart attack, dealt a blow ti my mother's marriage, and mild, modern Omar, instead of beating me, would called me a slut. And now nothing, no one. This empty space was called freedom. ~ Leila Aboulela

Then in a moment, in that vast space of rocks and sky and scorching sun, I understood that he had not meant religious faith, not exactly. He was not urging me to become a Muslim or to believe in one interpretation of God rather than another. He knew me for what I was, an old, cold, cautious scientist. That was what I was then. And he was simply pointing out to me the first step to take. The word he had used was faith, but what he meant was belief. The first step was simple: it was to believe in belief itself. I had just taken that step. At long last I understood.

I had belief. I did not know, or for the moment care, what exactly it was I had to believe in. I only knew that belief in something was the first step away from believing in nothing, the first step away from a world which only recognised what it could count, measure, sell or buy. The people here still had that innocent power of belief: not the angry denial of other people's belief of religious fanatics, but a quiet affirmation. That was what I sensed here, in this land and in this place, which made it so different from home. It was not the clothes, not the language, not the customs, not the sense of being in another century. It was none of these. It was the pervading presence of belief.

I believed in belief. I didn't exactly feel as if I was on the road to Damascus, and I was aware I could not think straight because of the power of the sun, but now I knew what the Yemen salmon project was all ab ~ Paul Torday

It doesn't matter what else is going on. When you walk into your arena or your - whatever you excel at, you're there to take care of the job that you have to do. ~ Michael Phelps

My job is - I make socks. That's all I do. I don't necessarily care about the show. I would rather film this - me doing what I do - than being around my family. ~ Rob Kardashian

Any astronaut can tell you you've got to do everything you can to learn about your life support system and then do everything you can to take care of it. ~ Sylvia Earle

I was so much more powerful than anyone knew. I was an animal learning to fight back, instinctively, fiercely. I was a brave girl. I was a fit fox.

I realized that the most empowering important thing was actually simply taking care of myself. ~ Aspen Matis

Even the most elitist director or author who claims that he doesn't care if his works are seen or not, then I have to think that he's either a liar or a hypocrite. ~ Michael Haneke

right" will have little to do with being found out. Ironically, you'll find that as you care less about what others think of you, you will care more about what others think of themselves and their worlds, including their ~ Stephen R. Covey

Why would Acheron care about any of this? (M'Adoc)
Not him, his mother. Remember her? Tall angry blond bitch who seriously spanked her whole family into oblivion over a hangnail? (Deimos) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

When Christianity says that God loves man it means that God LOVES man: not that He has some 'disinterested'; because really indifferent, concern for our welfare, but that in awful and surprising truth, we are the objects of His love. You asked for a loving God: you have one. The great spirit you so lightly invoked, the 'lord of terrible aspect', is present: not a senile benevolence that drowsily wishes you to be happy in your own way, not the cold philanthropy of a conscientious magistrate, nor the care of a host who feels responsible for the comfort of his guests, but the consuming fire Himself, the Love that made the worlds...
...How this should be, I do not know: it passes reason to explain why any creatures, not to say creatures such as we should have a value so prodigious in their Creator's eyes. It is certainly a burden of glory, not only beyond our deserts but also, except in rare moments of grace, beyond our desiring; we are inclined, like the maidens in the old play, to deprecate the love of Zeus. ~ C.S. Lewis

How To Make A Human

Take the cat out of the sphinx
and what is left? Riddle Me That.

Take the horse from the centaur
and you take away the sleek grace,
the strength of harnessed power.
What is left can still run across fields,
after a fashion, but is easily winded;
what is left will therefore erect buildings
to divide the open plains so he no longer
must face the wide expanse where once
his equine legs raced the winds
and, sometimes, won.

Take the bull from the Minotaur
but what is left will still assemble
a herd for the sake of ruling over it.
What is left will kill for sport,
in an arena thronged with spectators
shouting "Ole" at each deadly thrust.

Take the fish from the Merman:
What is left can still swim,
if only with lots of splashing; gone
is the sleek sliding through the waves,
alert to the subtle changes in the current.
What is left will build ships
so he can cross the oceans without
getting his feet wet, what is left won't care
if his boats pollute the seas he can no
longer breathe so long as their passage
can keep him from sinking.

Take the goat from the satyr
but what is left will dance out of reach
before you have the chance
to get that Dionysian streak of myschief,
the love of music and wine, the rutting parts
that like to party all th ~ Lawrence Schimel

But I don't care. I don't care. I still want you. I will always want you, and I know you want me too. We just made mistakes. We can get past this and be together ... ~ Angela Richardson

Before old age I took care to live well; in old age I take care to die well; but to die well is to die willingly. ~ Seneca The Younger

A well-made turtleneck sweater will keep you warm, cozy, and protected from the cold. Your gums do the same thing for your teeth. ~ Nadine Artemis

I'll oil wells love you. I'll oil wells care. I'll oil wells need you. I want you oil wells dear. ~ Dolly Parton

pull yourself
out
of your flesh.
burn down those walls.
uncover your bones

and see
how fiercely you bloom
when you let your body
breathe.
________

raw. ~ Vinati Bhola

Remember to honor the hand which reached out for you when you needed it, by being that hand to someone else who is struggling. ~ Greg Dutilly

Somebody, crowd me with love. Somebody, force me to care. Somebody, make me come through, I'll always be there, as frightened as you, to help us survive being alive! ~ Stephen Sondheim

Sincerity increases willingness to care. ~ Toba Beta

It is futile to wish for a long life, and then to give so little care to living well. ~ Thomas A Kempis

Not many women left me with a hard-on. They always stayed and took care of me. ~ Kenya Wright

I work for perfection, for perfection's sake. I don't care what the external reasons are. And it's much more like a ballerina on opening night. You've done what you've got to do. When you go out, the purpose is to turn a perfect turn. You are not thinking about the future of the company, you are not thinking about your future, you're not thinking about the critics, it is you and the perfect turn. ~ Story Musgrave

So many are alive who don't seem to care. Casual, easy, they move in the world as though untouched. But you take pleasure in the faces of those who know they thirst. You cherish those who grip you for survival. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke

I find it actually the height of romance to legally bind yourself to someone because you're really taking care of someone, and letting them take care of you. I actually have no cynicism about that. ~ Jen Kirkman

Over time, the stories became precious inheritances that we assimilated into our lives. However, the value of stories is not in hoarding them but in telling them. You take what you need to learn, to grow, to heal, and then pass them on to others who also want to know themselves and the truth. Our stories make us all wealthy benefactors, enriching any who care to listen. There is no thinking one is too rich and famous, or average and mundane, or poor and inconsequential to tell his or her story, and I believe it is something we must all do. It can
be to millions, a roomful, a handful, or just one, but there is someone who needs help somewhere, and you are the only one who can make the difference. Tell your story. ~ Marta Maranda