'When Does Your Song Sing?'
Don't bear trouble, use it.... Take whatever happens--justice and injustice, pleasure and pain, compliment and criticism--take it up into the purpose of your life and make something out of it. Turn it into a testimony. Don't explain evil; exploit evil; make it serve you. Just as the lotus flower reaches down and takes up the mud and mire into the purposes of its life and produces the lotus flower out of them, so you are to take whatever happens and make something out of it(p. 180).
'The Ashram Note in Our Song'
When people ask what are the qualifications for becoming a member of the Ashram group, our reply is, "We have one qualification and only one. Do you want to be different? If you want to be different, come on. But if you don't want to be different, we can do nothing for you." The crux of the problem of being made different is in self-surrender. Apart from self-surrender all our surrenders to God are marginal and unimportant. This is it, and it carries all the lesser surrenders with it. To try to cultivate the spiritual life around an unsurrendered self is like trying to keep healthy around a malignant cancer. Only when the self is surrendered can you cultivate your spiritual life around the new Center--Christ, and Christ in control. Then everything falls into its place (pp. 230-231).
'Will the Church Sing a New Song?'
Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ alone, is the center of our unity. Everyone who belongs to Christ belongs to everyone who belongs to Christ. You do not have to seek for unity. You have it--in Christ. All you have to do is proclaim that unity. A service of mutual recognition by the giving of "the right hand of fellowship" would proclaim that unity. It would be honest and sincere and open--and Christian (p. 284).
'The Note of Caring in My Song'
The future of the world is in the hands of those who care, not on a limited scale--myself, my family, may class, my race, my party--but in the hands of those who care with unlimited caring. If the Christian movement becomes a society of universal caring, it wins. If it becomes the society of limited caring, it loses. No matter how good its doctrines, beautiful its liturgy, strong its preaching, and loud its claims, if it isn't the society of universal caring, it ultimately loses (pp. 293-294).
'I Sing of Freedom and Discipline'
The deepest conviction of my life is this: Self-surrender is the way to self-expression. You realize yourself only as you renounce yourself. You find God when you renounce yourself as God. The self is trying to play God, trying to organize life around it as God, and it simply doesn't work. The universe doesn't back it. None of your sums add up, except to nonsense. You have to lose your life to find it. You have to lose your life in a higher will and work out that will, and then you find your life again (p. 297).
'I Sing of the Divine Yes'
The future of the world is in the hands of those whose Yes corresponds to and coincides with the Divine Yes. The Holy Spirit backs, sustains, and furthers them. His power is at their disposal, for his plans are in their proposals. Take Ananias, an unknown layman in Damascus. When Paul came into Damascus blinded, Jesus called in a vision, "Ananias." And the response was immediate: "Here am I, Lord."I'm at your disposal. He was God's minuteman, standing at attention. A striking figure representing man's Yes to Christ's Yes. (Incidentally, I quoted that over the radio: "Here I am, Lord," and an alcoholic woman told me afterward she repeated it after me, "Here am I, Lord," and that moment she was delivered from her alcoholism.) But Ananias did not realize what was involved in Christ's Yes. When told the errand, he pulled back.... But the Divine Yes said "Go." He went; trembled bravely and went.... Yes, he went beyond his commission. ...He became a creative center of Yes.... And then to cap it all, Ananias went the third mile. He took Paul into the fellowship: "Brother Saul." ...Ananias opened the gates of life to the greatest Christian of the centuries... (pp. 311,312).
'I Sing of Failures'
..The lesson I've learned from my failures is this: I don't have to succeed or fail. I have to do the right thing under his guidance and leave success and failure in the hands of God. The right thing is the thing to do. So I've learned by his grace to sing my Song of Ascents when I fail and when I succeed--one in spite of, the other on account of. For I'm not on the way to success,. I'm on the Way, fail or succeed. I'd rather fail with Jesus than succeed with anyone or anything else..... The Christian can always say through success or failure, through conquest or collapse, through pleasure or pain: "We've still got each other." And when that Other is is no other than Jesus, then in him failure is success, collapse is conquest, pain is pleasure, for that Other is the man of the cross--the world's greatest failure and the world's greatest success (p. 328).
'I Sing of Health'
I've learned...not to pay too much attention to health. Obey the laws of God, get a creative task, have a physical checkup once a year, and for the rest of the time be absorbed in helping other people. Nature will take care of the rest if you don't interfere too much.... (p. 338).
'My Song of Laughter'
I'm a happy man because my happiness is not dependent on happenings, but upon the joy of belonging to [Christ] whatever happens. That is an invincible joy. The funny thing about it all is that I am getting gayer as I get grayer. I'm happier at eighty-three than I was at twenty-three. I was happy at twenty-three because I had Jesus; I'm happier at eighty-three because I have Jesus, but the Jesus who has the sum total of reality behind him. So I have a cosmic laughter because I have a cosmic Christ. He fills me and the universe (p. 349).
