-
In seminary he had been taught that God had completely stopped any overt communication with moderns, preferring to have them only listen to and follow sacred Scripture, properly interpreted, of course. God's voice had been reduced to paper, and even that paper had to be moderated and deciphered by the proper authorities and intellects. It seemed that direct communication with God was something exclusively for the ancients and uncivilized, while educated Westerner's access to God was mediated and controlled by the intelligentsia. Nobody wanted God in a box, just in a book.
William P. Young
-
Something in the heart of most human beings simply cannot abide pain inflicted on the innocent, especially children. Even broken men serving in the worst correctional facilities will often first take out their own rage on those who have caused suffering to children. Even in such a world of relative morality, causing harm to a child is still considered absolutely wrong. Period!
William P. Young
-
You have to take the time to prepare the soil if you want to embrace the seed.
William P. Young
-
I had a very angry father and was disconnected from my family.
William P. Young
-
Much as I venerate the name of Newton, I am not obliged to believe that he was infallible. I see ... with regret that he was liable to err, and that his authority has, perhaps, sometimes even retarded the progress of science.
William P. Young
-
religion is about having the right answers, and some of their answers are right... but i am about the process that takes you to the living answer... it will change you from the inside. there are a lot of smart people who are able to say a lot of right things from their brain because they have been told what the right answers are, but they don't know me at all.
William P. Young
-
Part of my journey is to say that the soul of the human being must be a massively intricate, wonderful creation that God has a respect for in ways that we do not and that leaves a huge amount of space to go explore.
William P. Young
-
Every human being is a universe within themselves. Your mother and father participated with God to create a soul who would never cease to exist. Your parents, as co-creators, supplied the stuff, genetics and more, uniquely combined to form a masterpiece, not flawless but still astounding; and we took from their hands what they brought to us, submitting to their timing and history and added what only we could bring to them -- life. You were conceived, a living wonder who exploded into being.
William P. Young
-
Jesus was always challenging the dogma of religion. So, you know, it's not like I'm out there by myself.
William P. Young
-
Responsibilites and expectations are the basis of guilt and shame and judgement, and they provide the essential framework that promotes performance as the basis for identity and value.
William P. Young
-
True love never forces.
William P. Young
-
It grants you the power to judge others and feel superior to them. You believe you are living to a higher standard than those you judge. Enforcing rules, especially in more subtle expressions like responsibility and expectation, is a vain attempt to create certainly out of uncertainty. And contrary to what you might think, I have a great fondness for uncertainty. Rules cannot bring freedom; they only have the power to accuse.
William P. Young
-
The ability to choose is at the essential core of our grandeur. Even evil exists because God respects our ability to choose.
William P. Young
-
The intricacy and the inherent beautiful fragility of the human soul is such that it is uniquely damaged and only God knows how to heal it, and it's going to take time.
William P. Young
-
All I want from you is to trust me with what little you can, and grow in loving people around you with the same love I share with you. It's not your job to change them, or to convince them. You are free to love without an agenda.
William P. Young
-
Even though you can't finally grasp me, guess what? I still want to be known.
William P. Young
-
Paradigms power perception and perceptions power emotions. Most emotions are responses to perception - what you think is true about a given situation. If your perception is false, then your emotional response to it will be false too. So check your perceptions, and beyond that check the truthfulness of your paradigms - what you believe. Just because you believe something firmly doesn't make it true. Be willing to reexamine what you believe.
William P. Young
-
If you and I are friends, there is an expectancy that exists within our relationship. When we see each other or are apart, there is an expectancy of being together, of laughing and talking. The expectancy has no concrete definition; it is alive and dynamic and everything that emerges from our being together is a unique gift shared by no one else.
William P. Young
-
Lies are a little fortress; inside them you can feel safe and powerful. Through your little fortress of lies you try to run your life and manipulate others. But the fortress needs walls, so you build some. These are the justifications for your lies. You know, like you are doing this to protect someone you love, to keep them from feeling pain. Whatever works, just so you feel okay about the lies.
William P. Young
-
You may have to declare your forgiveness a hundred times the first day and the second day, but the third day will be less and each day after, until one day you will realize that you have forgiven completely. And then one day you will pray for his wholeness and give him over to me so that my love will burn from his life every vestige of corruption.
William P. Young
-
If a rainbow makes a sound, or a flower as it grows, that was the sound of her laughter.
William P. Young
-
And the Law that once contained impossible demands -- Thou Shalt Not... -- actually becomes a promise we fulfill in you.
William P. Young
-
Forgiveness is first for you, the forgiver...to release you from something that will eat you alive; that will destroy your joy and your ability to love fully and openly. Do you think this man cares about the pain and torment you have gone through? If anything, he feeds on that knowledge. Don't you want to cut that off? And in doing so, you'll release him from a burden that he carries whether he knows it or not--acknowledges it or not.
William P. Young
-
Somehow the pain, the losses, the hurt, the bad, God is able to transform these into something they could have never been, icons and monuments of grace and love. It is the deep mystery how wounds and scars can become precious, or a ravaging and terrifying cross the essential symbol of relentless affection.” “Is it worth it?” whispered Tony. “Wrong question, son. There is no ‘it.’ The question is and has always been, ‘Are you worth it?’ and the answer is and always, ‘Yes!’
William P. Young
