Bonaro W. Overstreet Quotes

Perhaps the most important thing we can undertake toward the reduction of fear is to make it easier for people to accept themselves; to like themselves.

No emotional crisis is wholly the product of outward circumstances. These may precipitate it. But what turns an objective situation into a subjectively critical one is the interpretation the individual puts upon it -- the meaning it has in his emotional economy; the way it affects his self-image.

Feast of Perpetua, Felicity & their Companions, Martyrs at Carthage, 203 We may look into a church, almost any church, and discover someone who, though he is offered a gospel of love, must subtly convert it into a gospel of hate before he can receive it. The gospel of love -- with its emphasis upon brotherhood, equality before God, the dignity of every human being, and man's social responsibility toward man -- does not satisfy the lack that he urgently feels. That calls for something altogether different, for an assurance that he is superior, that he is right where others are wrong -- a kind of cosmic teacher's pet.

Perhaps the most important thing we can undertake toward the reduction of fear is to make it easier for people to accept themselves, to like themselves.

October is a symphony of permanence and change.