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Notes and

Quotes

The Scoop

at City Hall

One of the presents under our tree this past Christmas, labeled "To Sue From Al," was a book entitled The Benedict Option by Rod Dreher. I finished it in early January.

It's a book I heard about some time ago, a New York Times best seller that has won several awards. It was named book of the year with reviews and commentary everywhere, it seems. I was interested to know what the populace was devouring and hopefully learn something at the same time. Allan obliged with the gift.

I learned that The Benedict Option tells us about the past and the present and also what the future most likely holds. I found it helpful, as it includes advice about how to deal with our increasingly dangerous world. Some of the chapters are comforting. Many of them are not. But I find freedom and peace in the truth of things, which gives me courage and confidence if not comfort.

I will include here a few of the many sentences I highlighted as I went along, and I'm going to go from back to front. I appreciated the back of the book more than the front of the book.

Maybe some of the following quotes will also resonate with you or, at the very least, give you something to consider as we live through these challenging times together.

♥"Nothing we make in this life will be eternal, but we have to build them as if they will be eternal." (p. 240)

♥"We have to go forward in confidence that the little things we do might, in time, grow into mighty works." (p. 240)

♥"If you don't control your own attention, there are plenty of people eager to do it for you." (p. 227)

♥"Only those things which I notice shape my mind. Our thoughts really do control our lives." (p. 226)

♥"At the neurological level, the internet's constant distractions alter the physiological structure of our brain. It conditions us to crave the repetitive jolts that come with novelty." (p. 225)

♥"The most radical, disruptive, and transformative technology ever created is the internet. It conditions the way we experience life." (p. 224)

♥"If Christianity is a true story, then the story the world tells about sexual freedom is a grand deception. It's fake." (p. 210)

♥"Better to be a plumber with a clean conscience than a corporate lawyer with a compromised one." (p. 192)

♥"Switching from working with one's mind to working with one's hands might be more spiritually profitable." (p. 190)

♥"If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men. Silence does not always mean acquiescence, and in some cases it may be a wiser and more loving approach." (p. 184)

♥"Neutrality is not an option. Neither is polite half-acceptance. Nor is avoiding the subject. Hide as you might, the issue will come find you." (p. 181)

♥"The definitive and distinctive goal of education for over two millennia was to produce another generation with the same ideals and values, based on the vision of what a human being was." (p. 149).

♥"The separation of learning from virtue creates a society that esteems people for their success in manipulating science, law, money, images, words, and so forth. Whether or not their accomplishments are morally worthy is a secondary question." (p. 149)

♥"It's important that your kids have a good peer group that shares the same strong moral beliefs. Though parental influence is critical, research shows that nothing forms a young person's character like their peers." (p. 127)

♥"You need to make sure you live in a community that shares your faith and your values. When your child leaves home to go play with neighborhood kids, you have to be able to trust that the values in your home are not undermined by the company they keep." (p. 122)

♥"The most effective way to evangelize is by helping others to experience beauty and goodness." (p. 119)

♥"The deep cultural forces that have been separating the West from God for centuries will not be halted or reversed by a single election, or any election." (p. 99)

♥"The point of life -- for the individual person, for the church, and for the state -- is to pursue harmony with the transcendent eternal order." (p. 54)

♥"The awe we feel in the presence of nature, beauty, or goodness, is a reasonable intuition. It tells us we are not imagining things. Someone is there." (p. 27)

♥"Our scientists, judges, scholars, and scribes today are at work demolishing the faith, the family, gender, even what it means to be human." (p. 17)

♥"We live in a culture today where our beliefs make increasingly little sense. We speak a language that the world more and more either cannot hear or finds offensive to its ears." (p. 12).

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