life on planet earth on Correction

Gracious God, you call us to draw near but we keep our distance. We are afraid of your direction and discipline, so we avoid honesty and confession. Father, help us trust in your goodness and your gra...

Above all, Christians are not allowed to correct with violence.

Anxiety sparks when a perspective we value bumps into another perspective that challenges it in some way. If we find this new perspective to be unacceptable, that’s when our “Someone is wrong on the i...

We know mistakes were made.

A coach is someone who can give correction without causing resentment.

Holy Comforter, You are near when my dream dies. You are near the brokenhearted. Thanks be to you for a new dream and a future beyond my imagining. Maker of Miracle, You are near when I cannot see yo...

In the silence, we raise our voice before you. We wonder aloud why you are so far from us when we call. In the agony of our cry, we are reminded that it is we who have wandered from your fold, from th...

The practice of confession in the context of a liturgy or in a private ecclesiastical setting has declined drastically over the past fifty years, and in particular since the Protestant Reformation in ...

The book of Proverbs is, in ways, a treatise on talk. I would summarize it this way: words give life; words bring death—you choose. What does this mean? It means you have never spoken a neutral word i...

On a cold January day, a forty-three-year-old man was sworn in as the chief executive of his country. By his side stood his predecessor, a famous general who, fifteen years earlier, had commanded his ...

Lord Jesus, for our sake you were condemned as a criminal: Visit our jails and prisons with your pity and judgment. Remember all prisoners, and bring the guilty to repentance and amendment of life acc...

Error, by force of contrast, enhances the triumph of Truth.

This prayer may be offered with or without the congregational response. Due to its length, consider using two or more liturgists to lead the prayer. VOICE ONE: Almighty God, Maker of Heaven and Eart...

What does true forgiveness and reconciliation look like? The world was given such an image the day Nelson Mandela was sworn in as President of South Africa. What was so significant was not just that a...

Christ saw his afflictions. Afflictions did not blind him, not stupefy him. Afflictions did not make him insensible to affliction (which is a frequent, but a desperate condition). He saw it. And he ma...

"A step backward, after making a wrong turn, is a step in the right direction."

To err is human; to admit it, superhuman.

There is something to be said for every error; but, whatever may be said for it, the most important thing to be said about it is that it is erroneous.

Lord, where we are wrong, make us willing to change; where we are right, make us easy to live with.

All men make mistakes, but a good man yields when he knows his course is wrong, and repairs the evil. The only crime is pride.

Our errors are surely not such awfully solemn things. In a world where we are so certain to incur them in spite of all our caution, a certain lightness of heart seems healthier than this excessive ner...

It is not strange... to mistake change for progress.

It is human to err, it is devilish to remain willfully in error.

To err isn’t human after all. To err is, cosmically speaking, an anomaly. That’s why we can’t bear the imperfection in ourselves and in others.

A man must be big enough to admit his mistakes, smart enough to profit from them, and strong enough to correct them.

“It is a comfort not to be mistaken at all points."

That was excellently observed’, say I, when I read a passage in an author, where his opinion agrees with mine. When we differ, there I pronounce him to be mistaken.

Gladly we desire to make other men perfect, but we will not amend our own fault.

I never made a mistake in my life; at least, never one that I couldn’t explain away afterwards.

Computers give rise to many amusing salutations that could also offend. Humorous examples include the legendary Mr. Obe, a fine old West African name that didn’t happen to belong to the recipient (OBE...