One of the disconcerting facts about the spiritual life is that God takes you at your word.
We certainly can try to grow in love, and it is good practice, this giving what we’ve got, whether it is a cup of coffee or money to pay the grocery bill.
First of all, let it be remembered that I speak as an ex-Communist and one who has not testified before Congressional Committees, nor written works on the Communist conspiracy.
Certainly we disagree with the Communist Party, as we disagree with other political parties who are trying to maintain the American way of life.
Words are as strong and powerful as bombs, as napalm.
Freedom has its roots in religion...
Together with the Works of Mercy, feeding, clothing and sheltering our brothers, we must indoctrinate.
It is easier to have faith that God will support each House of Hospitality and Farming Commune and supply our needs in the way of food and money to pay bills, than it is to keep a strong, hearty, living faith in each individual around us – to see Christ in him.
When people are standing up for our present rotten system, they are being worse than Communists, it seems to me.
We also know that religion, as the Marxists have always insisted, has, too often, like an opiate, tended to put people to sleep to the reality and the need for the present struggle for peace and justice.
My whole life so far, my whole experience has been that our failure has been not to love enough. This conviction brought me to a rejection of the radical movement after my early membership in the Socialist Party, the Industrial Workers of the World, and the Communist affiliates I worked with.
Of all the charges made against the Communists these days of congressional investigations, the charge of loose morals is seldom heard, so very loose have become those of “Christian” people.
Tradition! We scarcely know the word anymore. We are afraid to be either proud of our ancestors or ashamed of them. We scorn nobility in name and in fact. We cling to a bourgeois mediocrity which would make it appear we are all Americans, made in the image and likeness of George Washington.
This is so rich a country that luxury has developed at the expense of necessities, and even the destitute partake of the luxury. We are the rich country of the world, like Dives at the feast. We must try hard, we must study to be poor like Lazarus at the gate, who was taken into Abraham’s bosom.
Idealism in the young, I guess I’m saying, is curiosity as well as goodness trying to express itself.
It is penance to work, to give oneself to others, to endure the pinpricks of community living.
Too much praise makes you feel you must be doing something terribly wrong.
We must recognize the fact that many Nazis, Marxists and Fascists believe passionately in their fundamental rightness, and allow nothing to hinder them from their goal in the pursuit of their mission.
I believe that we must reach our brother, never toning down our fundamental oppositions, but meeting him when he asks to be met, with a reason for the faith that is in us, as well as with a loving sympathy for them as brothers.
A conversion is a lonely experience.
If we had had the privilege of giving hospitality to a Ho Chi Minh, with what respect and interest we would have served him, as a man of vision, as a patriot, a rebel against foreign invaders.