clearly

"it stung like a violent wind that our memories depend on a faulty camera in our minds" -Death Cab For Cutie

simple

"Really great moral teachers never do introduce new moralities: it is quacks and cranks who do that... The real job of every moral teacher is to keep on bringing us back, time after time, to the old simple principles which we are all so anxious not to see." -C.S. Lewis

love

"Love, in the Christian sense, does not mean an emotion. It is a state not of the feelings but of the will; that state of the will which we have naturally about ourselves, and must learn to have about other people." -C.S. Lewis

extraordinary

"when St. Joseph finally accepted the view that his fiancee's pregnancy was due not to unchastity but to a miracle, he accepted the miracle as something contrary to the known order of nature. All records of miracles teach the same thing.... If they were not known to be contrary to the laws of nature how could they suggest the presence of the supernatural? How could they be surprising unless they were seen to be exceptions to the rules?... Nothing can seem extraordinary until you have discovered what is ordinary." -C.S. Lewis

"I waited patiently for the Lord; he turned to me and heard my cry. He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand. He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God. Many will see and fear and put their trust in the Lord." Psalm 40:1-3

to see

"The whole point of seeing through something is to see something through it." -C.S. Lewis

true

"be true to your work, your word, and your friend." -Henry David Thoreau

commitment

"the irony of commitment is that it's deeply liberating - in work, in play, in love. The act frees you from the tyranny of your internal critic, from the fear that likes to dress itself up and parade around as rational hesitation. To commit is to remove your head as the barrier to your life." -Anne Morriss

life

"some people live long lives, some die very young. Is a long life better than a short life? What truly counts is not the length of our lives but their quality. Jesus was in his early thirties when he was killed. Therese de Lisieux was in her twenties when she died. Anne Frank was a teenager when she lost her life. But their short lives continue to bear fruit long after thier deaths.

a long life is a blessing when it is well lived and leads to gratitude, wisdom, and sanctity. But some people can live truly full lives even when their years are few. As we see so many people die of cancer and AIDS, let us do everything possible to show our friends that, though their lives be short, they are of infinite value." -Henri J.M. Nouwen

still

"be still and acknowledge that I am God" Psalm 46:10

"these are words to take with us in our busy lives. We may think about stillness in contrast to our noisy world. But perhaps we can go further and keeep an inner stillness even while we carry on business, teach, work in construction, make music, or organize meetings.

It is important to keep a still place in the "marketplace." This still place is where God can dwell and speak to us. It also is the place from which we can speak in a healing way to all people we meet in our busy days. Without that still place we start spinning. We become driven people, running all over the place without much direction. But with that stillness God can be our gentle guide in everything we think, say or do." -Henri J.M. Nouwen

shining like the sun

"Thank God! Thank God! I am only another member of the human race, like all the rest of them. I have the immense joy of being man, a member of a race in which God Himself became incarnate. As if the sorrows and stupidities of the human condition could overwhelm me, now that I realize what we all are. And if only everybody could realize this! But it cannot be explained. There is no way to telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun." -Thomas Merton

men that I love

our house was a very, very, very fine house...
the man behind the camera, "Sea Bass"

Creth & Cory playin' the frisbee golf (the morning before the rehearsal dinner)

from left to right- Brian, (Brian's brother) Jeremy, Joe, Rusty, Cory, Creth

once again- Creth, Joe, Rusty, Cory

Brian Moss, standing in front of Mrs. Brian Moss (or "Becky" as we like to call her)

being led

"He went out, not knowing where he was going" Hebrews 11:8

"Living a life of faith means never knowing where you are being led. But it does mean loving and knowing the One who is leading. It is literally a life of faith, not of understanding and reason— a life of knowing Him who calls us to go." -Oswald Chambers

what you want

"You can't, in most things, get what you want if you want it too desperately; anyway, you can't get the best out of it." -C.S. Lewis

stranger

"All my natural alienation from Thee, Thy grace has effectually removed; and now, in fellowship with Thyself, I walk through this sinful world as a pilgrim in a foreign country. Thou art a stranger in Thine own world. Man forgets Thee, dishonours Thee, sets up new laws and alien customs, and knows Thee not. When Thy dear Son came unto His own, His own received Him not. He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not." -C.H. Spurgeon

numb

"One of the penalties of sin is our acceptance of it." -Oswald Chambers

"take away my foolish desires and let me find life by walking with You." Psalm 119:37

presence

"if we are able to be fully present to our friends when we are with them, our absence too will bear many fruits. Our friends will say, 'he visited me' or 'she visited me,' and discover in our absence the lasting grace of our presence." -Henri J.M. Nouwen

pleasure

"my pleasure or the contentment that I may have experienced out of silence and solitude and freedom from all care does not matter." -Thomas Merton

perseverance

"perseverance, translated literally, means: remaining underneath, not throwing off the load, but bearing it. We know much too little in the church today about the peculiar blessing of bearing. Bearing, not shaking off; bearing, but not collapsing either; beaing as Christ bore the cross, remaining underneath, and there beneath it-to find Christ. If God imposes a load; then those who persevere bow their heads and believe that it is good for them to be humbled-remain underneath! But remaining underneath. For remaining steadfast, remaining strong is meant here too; not weak acquiescence or surrender, not masochism, but growing stronger under the load, as under God's grace, imperturbably preserving the peace of God. God's peace is found with those who persevere." -Dietrich Bonhoeffer

inviting

"every good relationship between two or more people, whether it is friendship, marriage, or community, creates a space where strangers can enter and become friends. Good relationships are hospitable. When we enter into a home and feel warmly welcomed, we will soon realize that the love among those who live in that home is what makes that welcome possible.

when there is conflict in the home, the guest is soon forced to choose sides. 'Are you for him or for her?' 'Do you agree with them or with us?' 'Do you like him more than you do me?' These questions prevent true hospitality - that is, an opportunity for the stranger to feel safe and discover his or her own gifts. Hospitality is more than an expression of love for the guest. It is also and foremost an expression of love between the hosts." -Henri J.M. Nouwen

who is the responsible Church?

"people say, 'the Church ought to give us a lead.' That is true if they mean it in the right way, but false if they mean it in the wrong way. By the Church they ought to mean the whole body of practising Christians. And when they say that the Church should give us a lead, they ought to mean that some Christians - those who happen to have the right talents - should be economists and statesmen, and that all economists and statesmen should be Christians, and that their whole efforts in politics and economics should be directed to putting 'Do as you would be done by' into action. If that happened, and if we others were really ready to take it, then we should find the Christian solution for our own social problems pretty quickly. But, of course, when they ask for a lead from the Church most people mean they want the clergy to put out a political programme. That is silly. The clergy are those particular people within the whole Church who have been specially trained and set aside to look after what concerns us as creatures who are going to live for ever: and we are asking them to do a quite different job for which they have not been trained. The job is really on us, on the laymen. The application of Christian principles, say, to trade unionism or education, must come from Christian trade unionists and Christian schoolmasters: just as Christian literature comes from Christian novelists and dramatists - not from the bench of bishops getting together and trying to write plays and novels in their spare time." -C.S. Lewis

the wizard

when I was a child, when I wasn't sure where my dad was, I would search for my dad and when I would find him, he would smile-

every time I came looking, he was happy to see me

Oz

I think that Americans are suspicious that God is an old man behind a curtain, performing tricks or illusions- a wizard of Oz

and we don't want to be tricked or fooled, in fact we imagine that the old man might just be our fathers

I wonder how we will react when we do see behind the curtain, and what will the wizard do?

easy

"it seems easier to be God than to love God, easier to control people than to love people, easier to own life than to love life." -Henri J.M. Nouwen

care for the shepherd

"how can people truly care for their shepherds and keep them faithful to their sacred task when they do not know them and so cannot deeply love them?" -Henri J.M. Nouwen

open

"I was suddenly faced with my naked self, open for affirmations and rejections, hugs and punches, smiles and tears, all dependent simply on how I was perceived at the moment." -Henri J.M. Nouwen

myself

"every book I write is a mirror of my own character and conscience. I always open the final printed job with a faint hope of finding myself agreeable, and I never do." -Thomas Merton

on the reading of old books

"It is a good rule, after reading a new book, never to allow yourself another new one till you have read an old one in between. If that is too much for you, you should at least read one old one to every three new ones." -C.S. Lewis

forgiveness

"the second remedy is really and truly to believe in the fogiveness of sins. A great deal of our anxiety to make excuses comes from not really believing in it: from thinking that God will not take us to Himself again unless He is satisfied that some sort of case can be made out in our favour. But that would not be forgiveness at all. Real forgiveness means looking steadily at the sin, the sin that is left over without any excuse, after all allowances have been made, and seeing it in all its horror, dirt, meanness and malice, and nevertheless being wholly reconciled to the man who has done it. That, and only that, is forgiveness; and that we can always have from God if we ask for it." -C.S. Lewis

love

"If what we call love doesn’t take us beyond ourselves, it is not really love. If we have the idea that love is characterized as cautious, wise, sensible, shrewd, and never taken to extremes, we have missed the true meaning. This may describe affection and it may bring us a warm feeling, but it is not a true and accurate description of love." -Oswald Chambers