notes from Governor Winter (cont.)

Most of this isn't new, but I like the way Governor Winter words it.

"Did you ever ask yourself the sobering question: Why am I who I am rather than a starving peasant in China or a waif in a Latin American ghetto? And if this is not sobering enough, have you ever contemplated further the kind of responsibility that rests on you and me to try to justify this accident of birth?"

"We don't attract those outside the church to come in by sitting around on our hands telling each other how good we all are. The quality of the lives of church members as reflected in what they do outside has always been one of the strongest bases on which God has drawn people to himself."

"If we had spent as much of our time supporting our saints as we have in hunting heretics...."

"Jesus said, 'Love one another,' and He intended no denominational nor geographical limits on his command. But he said more than that. He said not only are we to love one another, but we are to help one another."

"But it is not enough that we be against sin. We must be for the salvation of men -- the salvation of men not only from their sinful lives but from the conditions that aided and abetted their sins -- from ignorance and indignity and indolence. To accomplish this, we cannot do it just from a comfortable pew on Sunday morning."

"There is no one of us who has such a monopoly on truth that we can stand on our little one square foot of earth and be assured of the eternal and everlasting righteousness of our position."

"The first and obvious fact that tells us that we have a special role to play is the fact that in God's magnificent scheme of things he has seen fit to endow us with special privilege. By any standard you and I are the most privileged people on the face of the earth -- in education, in economic affluence, in social standing, in opportunity for achievement and service. This fact of privilege then speaks too loudly to be ignored. And so it is the first measure of the basis of God's purpose for our lives."

"I would hope that he would learn how to lead but also how to serve. I would want him to be a conservative in the assertion of his own rights, but I would want him to be a liberal in the extension of those same rights to others. In short, I would teach him, if I could, how to live with the confidence and self-assurance and compassion that are the true measure of a mature man or woman." (from a speech titled, "What I Would Tell My Grandson")