Quotes
Quotes about Isolation
The Christian cell in a factory or a professional circle, funding its own activities, deciding its own pattern of work, studying the Bible and perhaps celebrating the Lord's supper as an entity on its own, comes very much closer to Independency as Robert Browne saw it than the unholy isolationism of a prosperous suburban church, with 200 members who scarcely know each other by sight. If a sizable proportion of the Free Church ministry were enabled to become itinerant once againânot necessarily itinerant in the geographical sense, but itinerant in the complex mazes of contemporary society, fathers in God to Christian organisms evolved by the lay men and women who spend their lives in these mazesânew heart would be put into both ministry and laity, and incidentally, new impetus given to the search for Christian unity.
What makes life worth living is the mutual enrichment of people through understanding, intelligence and affection. It is just here that our awareness that Jesus is our contemporary and that Calvary is relevant to our present human situation ought to help us greatly. And that is not merely because in his relationships with others during his earthly life in Palestine Jesus exemplified all that I have tried to say about human relationships. In every genuine human encounter with another person we may become aware of Jesus, and meet with him. This may sound fanciful, but there is much in the Scriptures and in Christian experience which suggests that Jesus is frequently met in the traffic of person with person, provided that there is a genuine encounter between them. Jesus himself showed that for this to happen demands courage and a willingness to move from a life that is centred in itself. So if we are to pass out of that lonely world of isolation then we must be prepared to take the risks that are always involved when we allow persons to confront us as persons and do not regard them as things. Yet, dangerous though it may be to live in this way, it is the only way to live.
The price for independence is often isolation and solitude.
The one happiness is to shut one's door upon a little room, with a table before one, and to create; to create life in that isolation from life.
At the moment of childbirth, every woman has the same aura of isolation, as though she were abandoned, alone.
There are many who find the burdens, the anxiety, and the isolation of an individual existence unbearable. This is particularly true when the opportunities for self-advancement are relatively meager, and one's individual interests and prospects do not seem worth living for. Such persons sooner or later turn their backs on an individual existence and strive to acquire a sense of worth and a purpose by an identification with a holy cause, a leader, or a movement. The faith and pride they derive from such an identification serve them as substitutes for the unattainable self-confidence and self-respect.
Domestic and social violence usually starts off with a few angry words and a few hurt feelings that don't get resolved, then escalates into feelings of betrayal, rage and revenge. Inner feelings of rage soon spill over into all aspects of society. Social stress multiplies daily with every new report of political upheaval, child abuse, drug abuse, workplace violence, children bringing guns to school, homelessness, ethnic wars or some other crisis. The root cause of a lot of these social stresses is the inner violence created by dysfunctional communication between the heart and the mind. As social stress increases, we're faced with a choice: Retreat into fear and isolation, become angry and bitter, try to ignore it all, or take responsibility for our own stress reactions. Bobby Jagdev For peace, we must prepare for war. Slade Whitfield -Doc Childre.
