There is nothing like the local church when the local church is working right.
Almost all fear is fear of the unknown. Therefore, what's the remedy? To become acquainted with the things you fear.
Anything you cannot relinquish when it has outlived its usefulness possesses you, and in this materialistic age a great many of us are possessed by our possessions.
The simplification of life is one of the steps to inner peace. A persistent simplification will create an inner and outer well-being that places harmony in one's life.
I pray without ceasing now. My personal prayer is: Make me an instrument which only truth can speak.
Prayer is a concentration of positive thoughts.
Unnecessary possessions are unnecessary burdens.
Turn on the faucet. Wash yourself with the emotion. It won’t hurt you. It will only help. If you let the fear inside, if you pull it on like a familiar shirt, then you can say to yourself, “All right, it’s just fear, I don’t have to let it control me. I see it for what it is".
When I find someone I respect writing about an edgy, nervous wine that dithered in the glass, I cringe. When I hear someone I don't respect talking about an austere, unforgiving wine, I turn a bit austere and unforgiving myself. When I come across stuff like that and remember about the figs and bananas, I want to snigger uneasily. You can call a wine red, and dry, and strong, and pleasant. After that, watch out.
You can't change a man, no-ways. By the time his mummy turns him loose and he takes up with some innocent woman and marries her, he's what he is.
Because that's what intimacy is: It's a willingness to be vulnerable, a willingness to bite my tongue and a willingness to set an example of what I believe in.