Man and nature belong together in their created glory - in their tragedy and in their salvation.

Tillich described God as The Ground of All Being, and he saw the interconnection of people to all of creation, with everyone and everything linked to God as the final reality. Tillich believed that all people are damaged when even a few people anywhere are victimized or persecuted. He also believed that people injure themselves when they damage the holiness of creation, since people and creation together are parts of Gods whole. Tillich would have believed that people in Hart County can never be full and healthy creatures if our groundwater is tainted, our countryside is littered and our cave waters run with sewage.

The first duty of love is to listen.

In a world where people in families, or at traffic lights, in the midst of political discussions and on television yell at one another as a first resort, Tillich reminds us that it is a healthy, healing course of action simply to listen to one another (at least if we want to exhibit any semblance of the love of God in our lives).

Loneliness is a word to express the pain of being alonesolitude is a word to express the glory of being alone.

Tillich realized that healthy people all need times for connection to one another but also times for undisturbed reflection. Being alone can be terribly destructive - or tremendously healing. A good life contains a balance between being with others and being alone.Paul Tillich was a wise man worth noting on his birthday as well as on other days. His few words noted here, like the words chiseled into the boulders at Tillich Park, are only a faint indication of his profundity. But even these sparse phrases are a useful pathway into a serious consideration of who we are and how we can become more complete as children of God right here and right now.