I included songs which were aimed at making listeners think a little more deeply about faith in general. People of The Boxes for example, is not just a fable with implied reference to Jews and Christians, but it also points out that we who call ourselves "Muslims" are also living in a box sometimes. I wanted to help myself and the listeners realise our own faults too - to stop being so judgmental of others and to get ourselves out of the dogmatic boxes we have trapped ourselves in.
Dawud WharnsbyRelated topics
box call dogmatic example fable faith general help living making people reference stop think trap others pointsRelated quotes
No matter how "right” you may be on various points, you must be diplomatic also. The first and important thing is not "rightness” at all, but Christian love and harmony. Most "crazy converts” have been "right” in the criticisms that led to their downfall; but they were lacking in Christian love and charity and so went off the deep end, needlessly alienating people around them and finally finding themselves all alone in their rightness and self-righteousness. Don't you follow them!...
Seraphim Rose
Be kinder than necessary because everyone is fighting their war or battle and suffering losses. Live simply, love generously, care deeply for the needs of your neighbour, speak softly... And leave the rest to the Lord. It is not faith, nor dogmatics, nor mysticism, nor ascetism, nor fasting, nor long prayers, but love that makes one a true Christian.
Everything becomes pointless without this fundamental thing - love for our neighbour.
Luke (Voyno-Yasenetsky)
Know that the figures employed by prophets are of two kinds: first, where every word which occurs in the simile represents a certain idea: and secondly, where the simile, as a whole, represents a general idea, but has a great many points which have no reference whatever to that idea: they are simply required to give to the simile its proper form and order, or better to conceal the idea: the simile is therefore continued as far as necessary, according to its literal sense. Consider this well.
Maimonides
Our preaching does not stop with the law. That would lead to wounding without binding up, striking down and not healing, killing and not making alive, driving down to hell and not bringing back up, humbling and not exalting. Therefore, we must also preach grace and the promise of forgiveness - this is the means by which faith is awakened and properly taught. Without this word of grace, the law, contrition, penitence, and everything else are done and taught in vain.
Martin Luther
Of the various executive abilities, no one excited more anxious concern than that of placing the interests of our fellow-citizens in the hands of honest men, with understanding sufficient for their stations. No duty is at the same time more difficult to fulfil. The knowledge of character possessed by a single individual is of necessity limited. To seek out the best through the whole Union, we must resort to the information which from the best of men, acting disinterestedly and with the purest motives, is sometimes incorrect.
Thomas Jefferson
