Ezekiel 2: 1-7

My younger son was playing coach-pitch baseball. They weren’t a very good team, losing a lot more often than they won. They were 7 years old, and most of them had the attention span of a gnat. They spent most of their time jostling and picking on each other. They seldom knew much about what was going on, even when they themselves were at bat or in the field. After each game was over, as they lined up to shake hands with the other team, I would hear the boys ask the coach, “Did we win? Did we win?” If the coach said “yes,” they would cheer; if the coach said “no,” they would kick the ground. Then they would say, “What’s for snack?”...

("Blasé Pascal pointed out that all of the miseries of life stemmed from a single cause: Our inability to remain quietly in our room. He asked, 'Why must a man with sufficient to live on feel drawn to divert himself on long sea voyages? To dwell in another town? To go off in search of peppercorn?'...")

("Bob Smith was quoted in the Observer as saying, 'It seems to me we are living in the last days of the church as we know it. . . the church finds itself being judged, but at the same time sustained by the grace of God...")