"Mark the passages that go deep into my heart, that move me deeply, that make sense, that express something which is already within my experience."
Thomas Merton
"For myself I have only one desire, and that is the desire for solitude. To disappear into God; to be submerged in His peace; to be lost in the secret of His face."
Pat DeWitt Thomas
"We say we are celebrating Jesus' birthday but then we don't even invite him to the party. What's wrong with this picture?"
A.W. Tozer
"What I can explain will never overawe me, will never fill me with astonishment, wonder or admiration."
A.W. Tozer
" When the eyes of the soul looking out meet the eyes of God looking in, heaven has begun right here on this earth."
Richard Rohr
" True participation in God liberates us each from our central control towers and for the compelling and overarching vision of the Reign of God, where there are no liberals or conservatives."
T.S. Eliot
"You are not here to verify, instruct yourself, or inform curiosity or carry report. You are here to kneel."
John Wesley
"Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as you ever can."
G.K. Chesterton
"I don't deny that there should be priests to remind men that they will one day die. I can only say it is necessary to have another kind of priests, called poets, actually to remind men that they are not dead yet."
Richard Rohr
"The sign of Jonah: We must release ourselves into a belly of darkness before we can know what is essential. The spiritual journey is more like giving up control than taking control."
Pat DeWitt thomas
"Christianity isn't a job or a way to make a living. It is a life lived. That life lived well will attract and draw others to do the same."
Gandi
"Gandi's 7 Dangers to Human Virtue:"
1. wealth without work
2. pleasure without conscience
3. knowledge without character
4. business without ethics
5. science without humanity
6. religion without sacrifice
7. politics without principle
1. wealth without work
2. pleasure without conscience
3. knowledge without character
4. business without ethics
5. science without humanity
6. religion without sacrifice
7. politics without principle
Richard Rohr
"Read the Scriptures through a primary lens of littleness instead of some possible bigness."
Dougie McLean
"But all who wander are not lost
We just like the wind in our faces
Once the raging river's crossed
We will return to, return to this place."
We just like the wind in our faces
Once the raging river's crossed
We will return to, return to this place."
Richard Rohr
"It's a gift to joyfully recognize and accept our own smallness and ordinariness. Then you are free with nothing to live up to, nothing to prove, and nothing to protect. Such freedom is my best description of Christian maturity, because once you know that your "I" is great and one with God, you can, ironically, be quite content with a small and ordinary "I"."
C.H. Spurgeon
"A Christian ought to be a comforter, with kind words on her lips and sympathy in her heart; she should carry sunshine wherever she goes and diffuse happiness all around her."
Thomas Merton
"Be still: There is no longer any need of comment.
It was a lucky wind
That blew away his halo with his cares;
A lucky sea that drowned his reputation"
It was a lucky wind
That blew away his halo with his cares;
A lucky sea that drowned his reputation"
Richard Rohr
"You access Great Truth by absorption and digestion, almost never by analysis or argumentation."
Richard Rohr
"We have to let go of who we think we are, and who we think we need to be. We have to let go of the passing names by which we have tried to name ourselves and become the naked self before the naked God."
Pat DeWitt Thomas
"The secret of
God’s rest is not in the absence of problems or turmoil. The secret is knowing that the Sovereign God
is at the Center and to find that Center and to know its place of refuge. The center of the hurricane is a place of
quiet. God has told us many times we
would not be free from problems, difficult times, heartaches, and winds of
adversity. We are to live surrounded by
them, in the midst of them, yet untouched by them, safe in the Center of our
Refuge and our Fortress."
Mark Driscoll
"The Bible is not a book about principles to live by. The Bible is a book about a Person to live for."
Albert Einstein
"I make it a rule not to clutter my mind with simple information that I can find in a book in five minutes."
A.W. Tozer
"If you would follow on to know the Lord, come at once to the open Bible expecting it to speak to you. Do not come with the notion that it is a thing which you may push around at your convenience. It is more than a thing; it is a voice, a word, the very Word of the living God."
Pete Seeger
"If you are a musician (artist), it means you're going to die unfulfilled...you'll spend the rest of your life on an upward learning curve, because you'll never be as good as you can be. You'll die an apprentice, a student, and there's nothing better than that. To have achieved the best you can ever be - that's a tragedy."
Garrison Keilor
"Even in a time of elephantine vanity and greed, one never has to look far to see the campfires of gentle people."
Amy Grant
"The love and mercy of God is attractive to everybody. It's important when you're communicating that with people not to clutter up the message with all of our own personal baggage."
Richard Rohr
"One thing for sure is that healthy religion is always telling 'us' to change ourselves instead of giving us ammunition to try to change others."
Benjamin Disraeli
"It is better to remain silent and have people say, 'I wonder what he is thinking', than to speak up and have people say, 'I wonder why he spoke'."
Jim Wallis
"Left and Right are political categories. When people try to fit their faith into those categories, it distorts their faith."
Abba Anthony
"A spiritual pilgrim should keep her lips from flapping loosely, even when the subject is scripture or religion, or theology. Silence is the better way."
Abba Anthony
"Whoever you may be always have God before your eyes; whatever you do, do it according to the testimony of the holy Scriptures; in whatever place you live, do not easily leave it."
Rumi
"We are born with wings. Why prefer to crawl through life?"
"Let what you love be what you do."
"Love is the goal of all other goals."
"Let what you love be what you do."
"Love is the goal of all other goals."
Amy Grant
"The community of faith brings us into community, but its really about one relationship. The journey of faith is just being willing and open to have a relationship with God. And everybody is welcome."
Amy Grant
"When you don't understand something, you can either default to judgment or you can default to compassion. Those take you down completely different roads."
Martin Luther
"My conscience is held captive to the Word of God. And to act against conscience is neither right or safe."
Deepak Chopra
"The quality of one's life depends on the quality of attention. Whatever you pay attention to will grow more important in your life."
Meister Eckhart
"Anyone who truly knows creatures may be excused from listening to sermons, for every creature is full of God, and is a book about God."
Henry Nouwen
"Solitude is the furnace of transformation. Without solitude we
remain victims of society and continue to be entangled in the illusions of the false self."
remain victims of society and continue to be entangled in the illusions of the false self."
Angeles Arrien
"In the sweet territory of silence we touch the mystery...
It's the place where we can connect with the deep knowing,
to the deep wisdom way."
It's the place where we can connect with the deep knowing,
to the deep wisdom way."
Richard Rohr
"Humans are like two way mirrors, both receiving and reflecting. Humans are like tuning forks that pick up a tone and hand it on as resonance."
Pat DeWitt Thomas
In the beginning of time the first question from God was,
"Where are you?"
In the end of time the last command from God is,
"Come!"
"Where are you?"
In the end of time the last command from God is,
"Come!"
Richard Rohr
"Too many people join a club instead of going on any journey toward God, love, or truth."
Albert Einstein
"The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he or she contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery everyday. Never lose a holy curiosity."
Pat DeWitt Thomas
"I don’ regret the
forty years in the wilderness but I am glad to be in a place of rest; where I
can simply BE what I AM! I feel like I
can take off my shoes, put on my comfortable clothes, and just be home. I feel like I can put down my swords, the
sword of self defense and the sword of righting all wrongs, for there are NO
swords in this place; they have been beaten into plowshares; instruments of
planting peace not wielding war."
Pat DeWitt Thomas
"How can one delight in feeding from and living off the fruit of a tree and then turn and despise, deny, and reject the tree?"
Richard Rohr
"Our over reliance upon words and formulations has caused most of the antagonism and violence in the history of religion, which is especially strange for the Christian religion which believes that "the word became flesh". We seldom burned people at the stake over correct or incorrect enfleshment, but almost always over what they said, wrote, or taught, in words."
Richard Rohr
"Some notion of a 'prayer beyond words' is the deepest meaning of prayer. Whatever we do, in conscious loving union with God and 'what is' is prayer...and the best prayer, for sure."
John Wesley
"Do all the good you can
By all the means you can
In all the ways you can
In all the places you can
To all the people you can
As long as ever you can."
By all the means you can
In all the ways you can
In all the places you can
To all the people you can
As long as ever you can."
Frances J. Roberts
" Tarry not for an opportunity to have more time to be alone with Me. Take it, though ye leave the tasks at hand. Nothing will suffer. Things are of less importance than ye think. Our time together is like a garden full of flowers, whereas the time ye give to things is as a field full of stubble."
Julie Keefer
"To the degree I lose touch with what is most spiritually enlivening for my soul is the degree to which I will suffer, including in my relations with all life."
Hafiz
"I am the hole on the flute that God's breath flows through."
"I am a hole on the flute that the Christ's breath moves through.
Listen to this music."
"I am a hole on the flute that the Christ's breath moves through.
Listen to this music."
Hafiz
"Listen: this world is the lunatic's sphere,
Don't always agree it's real,
Even with my feet upon it
And the postman knowing my door
My address is somewhere else."
Don't always agree it's real,
Even with my feet upon it
And the postman knowing my door
My address is somewhere else."
Pat DeWitt Thomas (*Rabbi Hillel)
My goal in all I think, do, and say is to hear God's voice and hear these words:
"This is my beloved daughter, with whom I am well pleased."
This is my heart's desire...'All else is just commentary'.*
"This is my beloved daughter, with whom I am well pleased."
This is my heart's desire...'All else is just commentary'.*
Meister Eckhart
"The love by which we love God is the very same love with which God has first loved us."
Pat DeWitt Thomas
"Mystics always color outside of the lines. Not because they are difficult and rebellious, but because they see the space beyond the lines."
Pat DeWitt Thomas
"Movements come and go like waves on the ocean, but the Sea remains the same forever. I am not a surfer looking for the perfect wave, for it is temporary and unsustainable. I am a seeker of the Source of the Sea, who is Eternal."
Quanah Parker
"The White man goes into his church and talks about Jesus. The Indian goes into his tipi and talks with Jesus."
Richard Rohr
"You do not think yourself into a new way of living as much as you live your way into a new way of thinking."
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
"Being a Christian is less about cautiously avoiding sin than about courageously and actively doing God's will."
Richard Rohr
"The mystic sits in the silence of the language until it silences him into the experience itself."
Pat DeWitt Thomas
"I wonder sometimes if telling those that we perceive as the enemy that they are always wrong is not in reality a seed of war that we are sowing."
Richard Rohr
" God always entices us through love."
"God loves you so that you can change. What empowers change, what makes you desirous of change, is the experience of love and acceptance itself. It is the engine of change."
"God loves you so that you can change. What empowers change, what makes you desirous of change, is the experience of love and acceptance itself. It is the engine of change."
Aldo Leopold
"There can be no doubt that a society rooted in the soil is more stable than one rooted in pavements."
Margaret Wheatley
"Without reflection, we go blindly on our way, creating more unintended consequences, and failing to achieve anything useful."
Margaret Wheatley
"Whatever life we have experienced, if we can tell our story to someone who listens, we find it easier to deal with our circumstances."
Margaret Wheatley
"When we begin listening to each other, and when we talk about things that matter to us, the world begins to change. Human conversation is the most ancient and easiest way to cultivate the conditions of change - personal change, community, and organizational change."
Thomas R. Kelly
"Lead a listening life. Order your outward life so that nothing drowns out the listening."
Richard Rohr
"Willful people use Scripture literally when it serves their purposes; willing people let the Scriptures change them instead of using them to change others."
Louis Agassiz
"The study of Nature is intercourse with the Highest Mind. You should never trifle with Nature."
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