I know, it's the old Wade-Giles transliteration, the one that I'm comfortable with--but I'm just stealing a quotation from The Western Confucian anyway:
To put the world in order, we must first put the nation in order; to put the nation in order, we must put the family in order; to put the family in order, we must cultivate our personal life; and to cultivate our personal life, we must first set our hearts right.
We have much to learn from our brothers and sisters outside of the faith--and too often we forget it. Our lives are made immeasurably richer by the depth and the beauty of those, who not knowing Christ, nevertheless were granted to hear his voice:
"My sheep hear my voice and they know me."
Steven--
Oh, boy, are you ever on a roll! That is so true. And so often shot down without consideration. I have, for instance, often heard Thomas Merton dismissed as irrelevant (or worse) because of his interest in non-Christian religious wisdom. What self-inflicted blindness!
I once quoted a Sufi master to support a point I was making (on a blog that shall remain nameless), using a perfectly Christianity-compatible passage because it said perfectly what I was trying to point out, and I got ripped a new one for my efforts (the point being lost in the process). Sometimes we are so into our own bag that we can't love and respect our brother *even when he agrees with us*!
I would add a caveat: That we be very careful about whether it is His voice we are listening to or the counsels and dictates of our own hearts. If His sheep saunter over to the outer limits of the meadow to nibble on some of the luscious-looking grass they might be tempted to wander even further and become hopelessly lost.
Lots of good stuff here, Steven. Thank you and God bless.
Not only a great quote but nice to see someone else who likes the Wade-Giles transliterations ... working on Chinese is killing me with the newer one.
After years of being a Pinyinist, I've switched to Wade-Giles as my preferred system of Romanization.
You are very correct. There is nothing wrong in quoting Confucius, a Sufi master, or even Karl Marx. I'd be worried if they showed up as readings at Mass, though.