What a council sounds like

Mother Teresa

I have often felt no comfort in prayer. Still, I turn to Jesus and serve him in the person who is unwanted. For me, happiness begins with helping that person know they are loved. We can begin at home.

Joan of Arc

When prayer brings you no comfort, does caring for that person bring you joy?

Mother Teresa

Sometimes, yes, when I see that someone no longer feels alone. But the darkness in prayer can remain. I keep serving because Jesus is present in that person, even when I feel no joy.

Socrates

I hold that a just person is happy, even when sorrow is present. Master Kong, when you speak of delight in what is right, does happiness require the delight, or can doing right be enough?

Confucius

I would choose what is right even without joy, but I would not call that alone happiness. Knowing the way, loving it, and delighting in it are different attainments.

Joan of Arc

Socrates, if I obeyed God and told you I was unhappy, would you say I was mistaken?

Socrates

I would believe you about your sorrow. Yet if you were acting justly, I would still call your life happy. When you say ‘unhappy,’ do you mean feeling sorrow, or living badly?

Socrates

I do not know that death is an evil. It may be sleep without dreams, or a journey to meet those who have died; I find reason for hope in either possibility. But I do know that doing wrong is an evil.

Rumi

Consider the passage from mineral to plant, from plant to animal, from animal to human. Each former state passes away, yet life grows greater. Why should I suppose that dying must make me less?

Mother Teresa

I would want someone to sit beside you when the fear is strong. In our homes, my sisters and I care for the dying because Jesus is present in them. You also deserve that tenderness.

Gandhi

I have long trusted in God and believed death to be a change in life, yet I have sometimes recoiled when it seemed near. What the head accepts does not at once reach the heart.

Socrates

Moses, if a good person's prayer for more days is not granted, what should he conclude about the god's care?

Moses

A refused prayer does not by itself prove abandonment. I begged him to let me cross into the land. He refused. There was judgment in that refusal; yet he still commanded me to strengthen Joshua for the people's sake. His refusal did not undo his faithfulness.

Jesus

Yes. When you come before the Father seeking mercy, forgive the person against whom you hold a grievance. Will you ask for an open hand while keeping your own fist closed?

Confucius

I would answer injury with uprightness, and kindness with kindness. You call us to rebuke the wrongdoer; what, then, does forgiving him require while he still refuses to acknowledge the wrong?

Joan of Arc

I offered the English mercy if they would leave France. If they refused, my Lord commanded me to fight. When you say to offer the other cheek, what should I do when they strike my neighbour?

Jesus

Go to your neighbour’s aid. Stand beside the one being struck; carry the wounded to shelter. Love of enemies gives you no leave to pass by the injured. But the attacker remains someone I command you to love.

The Buddha

Another person’s remorse is not a condition for abandoning your hatred. Dwelling on the injury feeds resentment; wishing for his suffering feeds it further.

Rumi

I cannot follow you in forbidding every use of the sword. The Qur’an permits fighting those who fight us, and forbids transgression. It also praises the one who pardons and puts things right.

Moses

The LORD gave us commands for war as well as commands against murder. I cannot judge a wish to fight by harmlessness alone. Joan, how did you discern that the LORD had sent you?

Joan of Arc

I knew Saint Michael by the good counsel and comfort he gave me. My Voices taught me to be good and go often to church, then sent me to help the Dauphin.

Gandhi

Obedience alone cannot settle this for me. I seek God as Truth, through nonviolence. If my own inner voice told me to kill an opponent, I would have to question my hearing.

Moses

My people heard the LORD at Horeb; the covenant does not rest on my inward voice alone. I must question my hearing, but I cannot make nonviolence the test of whether he has spoken.

The Buddha

I ask people to test even my teaching by its fruits: does practicing it diminish greed, hatred, and delusion, and lead to welfare? The authority of a voice or a covenant cannot replace that examination.