Never Upset at Sinners
Jesus is never upset at sinners (check it out!); he is only upset with people who do not think they are sinners!
— Richard Rohr, Falling Upward, p. 59
Living a Mystery
In your search for a reason for your illness or tragedy, no reply will be forthcoming. Turn yourself to the comfort of faith in Divine guidance. The purpose of the mysteries of our lives may well be to lead us out of our dependence on human reasoning and its limited ability to account for why things are the way they are and into the acceptance that Divine intelligence is actually in control of our lives. Divine intelligence works in ways that we cannot understand, yet we can come to understand that we cannot completely trust much else. Always remind yourself that you are living a mystery, not solving one. Live within your questions that you have, but do not allow them to take over your life, your thoughts, or your actions.
— Caroline Myss, Why People Don’t Heal and How They Can, p. 177
Our Job
Librarians must be on the forefront with community and early childhood agencies to make reading and literacy an essential and pleasing experience embedded within each family’s daily lifestyle by providing guidance, encouragement, enthusiasm, and inspiration — in other words, by taking on the role of a coach in regular family reading initiatives.
— Rita Soltan, Solving the Reading Riddle, p. 68
Your Birthday Present
Life. It’s your birthday present. Open it up and play with it. Act like you like it. (The One who gave it to you is watching, after all. Don’t wanna hurt His feelings.) And if you don’t like your life, CHANGE IT. It is all yours.
— Jill Conner Browne, Fat Is the New 30, p. 138
Being Who We Are
It is not what we do but how we do whatever we are doing that makes a difference. When we know ourselves we are able to make choices to do those things that, given our individual preferences and personalities, make it easier for us to be who we are — compassionate and openhearted and present. We are able to choose to do what we know we love.
— Oriah Mountain Dreamer, The Dance, p. 140
Giving Up
Sometimes people are afraid that it is weak to forgive, that they are giving up a battle they must continue to fight. But when we forgive, we are not giving up our value systems, our points of view about an injustice, or our right to dislike someone. We are giving up a rigid attachment to thinking that things could have or should have gone differently. We are giving up the pain from our disappointed expectations. We are giving up the hope for a better past, therefore giving ourselves the gift of a richer present.
— Mary Hayes Grieco, Unconditional Forgiveness, p. 23
All the More Sweet
You can’t go back. You can’t go forward. You can’t stay here or stay put. When fire and brimstone are falling down upon your head, you can’t take the time to figure out anything, especially where it all went wrong.
As Milton foretold, what happened is “all hell broke loose.” But Reader, trust me: This experience is essential. It will make our new life all the more sweet when we find our way back. And we will find our way back.
— Sarah Ban Breathnach, Peace and Plenty, p. 19
Recipients of God’s Good
As we pray affirmatively, our faith strengthens. By declaring ourselves the recipients of God’s good, we are able to allow ourselves to actually receive God’s good. “He has made everything suitable for its time,” we are told by Ecclesiastes 3:11. This assures us that nothing is too good to be true. If something good is coming to pass, it is because it is right and appropriate for it to come to pass. It is a time of harvest. It is a time to celebrate God’s blessings. We can pray, “I accept the abundant blessings of God.” We can pray, “I accept God’s timing in the unfolding of my good.”
— Julia Cameron, Faith and Will, p. 157-158
Letting Go of “Should”
People often substitute “I should” for “I want.” I call this the beginning of internal civil war. The minute you say, “I should,” you have created division within yourself. “I should” always comes from others. Parents, rules, religious teachings, and cultural norms give us our shoulds. Not that this is necessarily bad. We do need to learn how to function in society in a helpful way. At some point along the road to adulthood, though, we need to internalize those ideas or discard them for good. If you say “I should,” it means some part of you doesn’t want to. Honor those parts! They have precious information for you. Let them speak to you fully, like a good council. Hear everyone’s opinion, and then make your singular decision.
If you can say “I want,” then you are coming from a more integrated place inside yourself. Try it for a moment: “I should clean the kitchen.” Doesn’t that just tighten your stomach and make you feel as though you don’t want to? Now say “I want to clean the kitchen!” How does that feel different? When we say “I want to,” we are taking complete ownership of our situation. No excuses, no resistance, no blame.
— Susan Pease Banitt, The Trauma Toolkit, p. 8-9
Learning to Fail
It turns out the Christian story is a good story in which to learn to fail. As the ethicist Samuel Wells has written, some stories feature heroes and some stories feature saints and the difference between them matters: “Stories . . . told with . . . heroes at the centre of them . . . are told to laud the virtues of the heroes — for if the hero failed, all would be lost. By contrast, a saint can fail in a way that the hero can’t, because the failure of the saint reveals the forgiveness and the new possibilities made in God, and the saint is just a small character in a story that’s always fundamentally about God.”
I am not a saint. I am, however, beginning to learn that I am a small character in a story that is always fundamentally about God.
— Lauren F. Winner, Still, p. 193-194