From Anderson, Advance Report of Final Morbidity Statistics, 1995", Monthly Vital Statistics Report, (1995) at page 45:
While suicide rates are highest among people age 65 or older, suicide in the young has at least tripled over the past forty-five years.
From Kay Redfield Jamison, Night Falls Fast, (Vintage, Oct 10, 2000), p.24:
Many more Americans die each year from suicide than from homicide. Many more young men die each year from suicide than from AIDS. RefMgr field[22]: 2
From Kay Redfield Jamison, Night Falls Fast, (Vintage, Oct 10, 2000), p.24:
30,000 Americans kill themselves every year and nearly 500,000 make a serious suicide attempt. RefMgr field[22]: 2
From William A. Evertsberg, All Worthy Things in Peril", (September 30, 2001):
“Look, I know this is a challenging time to be reminding you of the tithe. Times are uncertain. People are out of work. A trillion dollars of paper value has vanished in 6 months. But times aren’t as rough for most of us as they are for many others. God says give 10%, but I know you have many other charitable commitments that need your support. And so I ask, can you give at least 3% of your income to the work of God’s church?”
1917
From John Wesley, Works (August 4, 1786) vii, at pages 315-317:
John Wesley, the great founder of Methodism, noted this dynamic over two hundred years ago. He wrote that he was quite pessmistic about the durability of religious movements. Wesley saw that heart-felt attachment and obedience to God almost always led to well ordered, and energized lives. And well-ordered, energized lives almost always led to prosperity. And sooner or later prosperity funded a press of material abundance that almost always led to an attachment to things and a diminishing trust and reliance on God. Which, then led to frivolous and dissolute living and a loss of religious rigor. Which led Wesley to cry out, What way then can we take that our money may not sink us to the nethermost hell?” And, folks, you and I want to lean forward right about now to hear Wesley’s answer, because, after all, we live in a most prosperous generation in history. And so Wesley answered himself, proclaiming, “There is one way, and there is no other under heaven.” And that one way is the grace of God. For all things are possible by the grace of God. And it is possible for God’s grace to sweep into a single heart or a community’s hearts and stir up a sense of gratitude – a sense of gratitude that reverses the cycle and leads the heart back to God. Wesley’s ultimate prescription was simple and direct. If you have been enabled by God to make money, then make all you can! Go ahead, make all you can! But then, if you have made money, then save all you can. Give all you can. In that way, and in that way only, said Wesley, “the more you gain the more you will flow in grace and the more treasure you will lay up in heaven.”
From Carroll E. Simcox, The Saints and Their Checkbooks:
Philip Guerdella, the great biographer of the Duke of Wellington, was giving a seminar on biography to a young group of writers. He taught that the key to the biographer’s craft was to discover the essence, the deepest commitments of the subject’s life; and he explained that he had uncovered the deepest values of Wellington’s life by researching every bank draft, every check, every payment Wellington ever authorized. We all tend to spend our money on what matters to us most.
From Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking: A Seeker's ABC at p. 38:
As Frederick Buechner put it, grace means, there’s nothing ‘you’ have to do. There’s nothing you ‘have’ to do. There’s nothing you have to ‘do’.” RefMgr field[22]: 2″
2000
From Harold Masback, The Salvation We Want/The Salvation We Need" (April 16, 2000) at pages 9-10:
But as Yale theologian David Kelsey reminded us in his lecture here two years ago, God’s love is unconditional, but it is not inconsequential – it demands a response from us. If we are to love the Lord our God with all our heart and all our soul and all our mind, and with all our strength, then it must follow that we must not let any other value, and other accomplishment, and other attachment become more important to us than our love of God. And, when Jesus comes to save, to heal our disordered lives, he comes not only to save us from all the bad things that threaten to undermine our flourishing – and there are a lot of them – not only to save us from bad things, but also to save us from everything valuable and admirable that threatens to displace our love of God. (Compare, Kelsey, “The Price of Salvation”, Yale Divinity School Lecture Series, October 7, 1998)
1919
From Dr. Hugh Eichelberger, The Quintessential Pilgrim" (March 23, 1996):
Jesus’ pilgrimage to Jerusalem went bad as soon as Jesus started making clear that “when God enters our lives he not only blesses, heals, teaches and leads, he also confronts, disturbs and remolds.”