Chapter 2 - Lines

All page references are from the above pictured book

Ch. 2  The Wonder of Oneness

p. 29 ... people will admit to being lonely in anonymous polls, but when asked to give their names they will say they are independent and self-sufficient.

Loneliness, said Mother Teresa, is the leprosy of modern society.  And no one wants anybody to know they're a leper.

p. 30  Albert Schweitzer said, "We are all so much together, but we are dying of loneliness."

[Edward} Hallowell points out that our society is increasingly devoted to, obsessed with, and enslaved by achieving, and increasingly bankrupt and impoverished when it comes to connecting.

p. 31  No matter how little money we have, no matter what rung we occupy on anybody's corporate ladder of success, in the end what everybody discovers is that what matters is other people.  Human beings who give themselves to relational greatness - who have friends they laugh with, cry with, learn with, fight with, dance with, live and love and grow old and die with - these are the human beings who lead magnificent lives.

We were made to know oneness. That is why loneliness is so painful.

p. 33 [Robert Putnam] and a team of researchers documented that for twenty-five years American society has experienced a steady decline of what sociologists call 'social capital' - a sense of connectedness and community.

p. 34 ... the idea of the Trinity turns out to be vitally important because it tells us that God himself has been experiencing community throughout eternity.   **I find this idea fascinating!

p. 37  Dallas Willard states, "Ultimately, every human circle is doomed to dissolution if it is not caught up in the life of the only genuinely self-sufficient circle of sufficiency, that of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. For that circle is the only one that is truly and totally self-sufficient.  And all the broken circles must ultimately find their healing there, if anywhere."

p. 38 The Trinity is "a self-sufficing community of unspeakably magnificent personal beings of boundless love, knowledge, and power," as Dallas Willard puts it.

p. 40 What is most amazing is that God invites us into the Fellowship of the Trinity.

p. 41 When Jesus prays for us (John 17:20-21) to be invited into the divine circle, it is not a casual request. There is an enormous price to be paid for our admittance. The Son will go to the cross. The Father - who had known nothing from all eternity but the perfect intimacy with His Son - will now see his Beloved suffer the anguish and alienation of sin. The Spirit will come to earth and allow himself to be quenched and grieved by human beings.  At enormous cost to every member of the Trinity, you and I have been welcomed to the eternal circle, to be held in the heart of the Father, Son, Spirit.
*** I had never considered it quite this way before... what sacrifice!  How can I not have ever realized the enormity of what transpired - not just at the cross, but from the Father, and the continuing work of the Holy Spirit?  Staggering...