Love More, Pray More, Golf More

Dear Bishop Wright

I do tend to think that one can be content without being satisfied (now is that an oxymoron?) - meaning that one can be content in the present about what one has achieved so far without being satisfied about what one would like to achieve in the future.

With eighteen months left to go before your sixtieth birthday, you have a long long way to go yet - by the standards of Dom Bede Griffiths, that would be nearly another thirty years! I'm sure you have plenty of time to do all the things you feel you need to get done. And if you should die earlier and don't get to do it all, so what? Children who die young don't get much done, and yet I'm sure their lives have fulfilled the purpose for which God created them.

Thank you for all that you have done and continue to do. God speaks to us in your person as no one else has or ever will. That is enough to feel satisfied about.

Soja John Thaikattil
Sydney, Australia

More power to your pen, Your "For everyone" series is for our generation what Wm Barclay's NT Daily Study bible was for a previous generation.
Keep up the excellent work.

really looking forward to the 4th book. The first three gave me and so many other so much to chew on.

Bishop Wright,

You might want to consider a Buddhist point of view:

Your imagined accomplishments and your satisfaction in them are illusory and impermanent and already dissolving. They have no inherent identity.

If you were fully aware and present in the present moment you would know that your "accomplishments" and your "satisfaction" in them are merely impediments on your path to enlightenment.

I wish you clear sight and enlightenment as soon as may be.

This is actually about where I usually say, "Would you like some attention?"

I'm thinking it's not about what you say it's about.

Yes, Frank, there are people out there in the world who think they actually have every right to kill you. Some take it a step further and think everything else they do to you is great mercy cause they *stopped short* of killing you.

Then call you 'ungrateful' ('unspiritual,' thus more undeserving of their tender mercies,) for not 'forgiving' (endorsing) their actions.

Sometimes people like that do very bad things against our persons, in the belief that those sorts of violations will force one to accept the authority by which they are done, or else accept that there's a world in which unjust things happen... which they also try to teach us is unacceptable to *think* because that, by the same 'logic' would mean there is no hope or meaning at all.

Yes, it's lies.

Yes, it's not safe out here.
But it's not all that horrible, either.

Would you like some attention?

Cause, frankly, this guy's talking about an Oh-so-Anglican life and you just can't seem to turn your eyes away from the mirror that Koran would seem to be for ya. :)

So.... Again with ....what, Frank?

Have you heard the Divine Word of the Bush and want a pre-emptive war of some kind?

its not enough if you follow this:
The Hadith No. 284, The Muslim, volume one, says that any Jew or Christian, who heard of Muhammad but did not convert to Islam, and died in disbelief, would rot in hell! Thus Islam withdraws from all Jews and Christians the right to believe in their faiths, and pratice them as such.
"The unbelievers of the People of the Book and the idolators shall be in the Fire of Hell therein dwelling for ever; those are the worst of creatures. But those who believe, and do righteous deeds, those are the best of creatures..." (XCVIII: The Clear Sign: 5)
Here those Jews and Christians, who spurn Islam, have been lumped together with the idolators such as the Hindus, and classified as 'the worst of creatures'. Therefore the Koran commands:
"O believers, take not as your friends those of them, who were given the Book before you, and the unbelievers, who take your religion in mockery and as a sport..." (V: The Table: 60)
"The true believers say: Has not God ordered a chapter that commands the holy war" (Sura 47:22); or elsewhere: "Kill the idolaters wherever you find them, imprison them, besiege them, ambush them" (Sura 9:5); and, "Make war on unbelievers" (Sura 9:29). "When you come upon unbelievers, massacre them, tighten the bands of the captives that you will have taken. Then you will set them free, or you will release them for a ransom" (Sura 8:57).
"To Allah, there are no animals viler than those who do not believe and remain unbelievers" (Sura 8:57). That is why it is necessary to Islamize them by force and by humiliation. And those who resist Islam and its founder must be chastised, according to the Koran: "Here is the fate of those who fight Allah and his messenger: you will put them to death or you will make them suffer the torture of the cross; you will cut their hands and their feet alternately. They will be driven from the country" (Sura 5:37).
"Do not display cowardice, and do not call the infidels to peace when you are superior to them" (Sura 47:22). THIS ALLOWS THEM TO MAKE PEACE SO THAT THEY CAN MAKE WAR AGAIN LATER.
4.89": They desire that you should disbelieve as they have disbelieved, so that you might be (all) alike; therefore take not from among them friends until they fly (their homes) in Allah's way; but if they turn back, then seize them and kill them wherever you find them, and take not from among them a friend or a helper.
"4.90": Except those who reach a people between whom and you there is an alliance, or who come to you, their hearts shrinking from fighting you or fighting their own people; and if Allah had pleased, He would have given them power over you, so that they should have certainly fought you; therefore if they withdraw from you and do not fight you and offer you peace, then Allah has not given you a way against them.
"4.91": You will find others who desire that they should be safe from you and secure from their own people; as often as they are sent back to the mischief they get thrown into it headlong; therefore if they do not withdraw from you, and (do not) offer you peace and restrain their hands, then seize them and kill them wherever you find them; and against these We have given you a clear authority."

Love More,Pray More,...

They pray 150 times in a month,1800 times in a year.
Isnt it enough?
Do they learn what Love is??

Imagine the hubris that would be required to be so self-satisfied that you felt no need for improvement. I'm still working on it, but I don't speak or read Hebrew, my Latin is fading fast, and I'm often in the grip of one or more of the seven deadly sins.
On the other hand I have a great family and an enjoyable home life, and a job that enables me to help others.
Maybe it's all a balancing act.