There is a quote I came across some years ago that struck me as so true that it has become a firm part of my spiritual understanding of life.<\/p>\n\n\n
Although the internet has collectively decided that G.K. Chesterton said it, I recently discovered the quote originated in a 1945 novel by Scottish author Bruce Marshall called The World, the Flesh and Father Smith<\/i>.<\/p>\n\n\n
In one scene in the book, Father Smith is confronted by a worldly woman looking to confirm her skepticism about faith. In the course of their conversation about his vows of celibacy, the woman concludes that “Religion is only a substitute for sex”.<\/p>\n\n\n
Father Smith’s response encapsulates a truth worth contemplating and holding onto:\u00a0\u201cI still prefer to believe that sex is a substitute for religion and that the young man who rings the bell at the brothel is unconsciously looking for God.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n \u201cBe appalled at this, O heavens, and shudder with great horror,\u201d declares the Lord. \u201cMy people have committed two sins:\u00a0<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n They have forsaken me, the spring of living water,<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n And have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.\u201d\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/i><\/span>\u00a0– Jeremiah 2:12-14<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" There is a quote I came across some years ago that struck me as so true that it has become a firm part of my spiritual understanding of life. Although the internet has collectively decided that G.K. Chesterton said it, I recently discovered the quote originated in a 1945 novel by Scottish author Bruce Marshall […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10685","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10685"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10685\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10686,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10685\/revisions\/10686"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}