These are random quotations we like. We invite you to browse, opening yourself to any one which prompts reflection. It strikes me that religious thinking back at least as far as the Buddha and probably farther, has centered mostly on the idea that we become most fully human when we don't put ourselves at the center of everything. --Bill McKibben I love to think of nature as an unlimited broadcasting station, through which God speaks to us every hour, if we will only tune in. --George Washington Carver Forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair. --Kahlil Gibran Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished. --Lao Tzu I've always regarded nature as the clothing of God. --Alan Hovhaness If the sight of the blue skies fills you with joy, if a blade of grass springing up in the fields has power to move you, if the simple things of nature have a message that you understand, rejoice, for your soul is alive. --Eleonora Duse The moon is like a mystery novel, the sun like a motivational self-help book, and the stars a coffee table book of photography. The sky is the whole library, and God the librarian. --Pepper Giardino Live as if you liked yourself, and it may happen. The mind and body are famous for holding the heart ransom. At every crossroad be prepared to bump into wonder. …if heaven is any kind of a heaven at all Peace doesn't mean being in a place where there is no noise, trouble or hard work. It means being in the midst of those things and still being calm in your heart. We tend to think that work is the only activity we have in which we are using time well. If you want to rich, give; All streams flow to the sea because it is lower than they are. Humility gives it its power. In the torment of the insufficiency of everything attainable we come to understand that there, in this life, all symphonies remain unfinished. Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense regardless of how it turns out.
…the truth we all seek is found not in isolation from those who differ from us, but in dialogue with them.
We are challenged to live in the time between “no longer” and “not yet”.
We don’t need to learn to let go; we need to recognize when something is already gone.
God is patient with the slow pace of the soul’s change.
I wish you enough sun to keep your attitude bright. I wish you enough rain to appreciate the sun more. I wish you enough happiness to keep your spirit alive. I wish you enough pain so that the smallest joys in life appear much bigger. I wish you enough gain to satisfy your wanting. I wish you enough loss to appreciate all that you possess. I wish enough "Hello's" to get you through the final "Goodbye." We are closer to God when we are asking questions than when we think we have the answers.
There is no passion to be found playing small-in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living.
Dwell as near as possible to the channel in which your life flows. It is unlikely that we will deepen our relationship with God in a casual or haphazard manner. There will be a need for some intentional commitment and some reorganization in our own lives. But there is nothing that will enrich our lives more than a deeper and clearer perception of God's presence in the routine of daily living.
All human nature vigorously resists grace, because grace changes us and change is painful.
The most overlooked feature of genuine humility is the quiet acceptance of our strengths-those qualities God-given which are just as surely ours as our limitations and weaknesses.
We are waking up to the fact that we don't live in front of the earth as if it were a stage set. We are part of it. Its imbalances are being felt in our bodies and spirits.
Ultimately, our spiritual lives are a gift of grace that comes to us not only by our work and intent, but out of the pure love of God for creation.
The degree to which you get sick in your life is the degree to which what you say you believe and how you live your life differ from each other.
You Americans, you have mastered the art of living with the unacceptable.
We just have to realize we're all spiritual and any denial of that is denial.
We forget that "no" can be an answer.
If you can give up the sense that life is a linear journey and see there is another dimension to life where time is not linear but eternal, then you can begin to put the spiritual component back into your life.
God puts you where God needs you. You are where you are supposed to be.
All you need is deep within waiting to unfold and reveal itself.
The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.
We can be grateful because we are happy, but we can also be happy because we are grateful.
A good time is a taste of God.
The mystic is perpetually busy with thank-you notes No one can celebrate Friendship is the inexpressible comfort We join spokes together in a wheel, I've learned that you shouldn't go through life with a catcher's mitt on both hands. You need to be able to throw something back.
First keep the peace within yourself, then you can also bring peace to others.
If you want to make peace, you don't talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies.
To create peace, we have to be peaceful. We must do a personal disarmament. The only way to be peaceful is to concentrate on what brings us peace.
Once we characterize our adversaries as beyond the scope of God's mercy and grace, their lives lose all value.
"There is no way to peace; peace is the way."
We can begin to express love within our daily lives. When more and more of us awaken our hearts to universal love, harmony and peace will prevail on earth.
If you love peace then hate injustice, hate tyranny, hate greed-but hate these things inside yourself, not in another.
If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.
The earth is too small a star and we too brief a visitor upon it, for anything to matter more than the struggle for peace.
We who work for peace must not falter. We must continue to pray for peace and to act for peace in whatever way we can, we must continue to speak for peace and to live the way of peace; to inspire others, we must continue to think of peace and to know that peace is possible.
Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.
You must be the change you wish to see in the world.
…in the end we are all doomed to imitate the kind of God we believe in. If our god is tiny-spirited and mean, quick to be judgmental, easily disappointed, we have no choice but to be the same. If there is a no-matter-whatness to your love, and if that is how your God is, then you have no choice but to be that way with each other.
We are all exactly what God had in mind when God made us.
We don't think our way into a new way of living, We live our way into a new way of thinking.
"It is possible that the next Buddha will not take the form of an individual. The next Buddha may take the form of a community; a community practicing understanding and loving kindness, a community practicing mindful living. This may be the most important thing we can do for the survival of the Earth."
We can't be creative if we refuse to be confused. Change always starts with confusion; cherished interpretations must dissolve to make way for the new.
Let us walk where there is no road.
The road is made by walking.
Silence is the language God speaks and everything else is a bad translation.
It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: It would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad.
When we sense that God is asking us to serve in a new and unfamiliar way, we should never say no simply because we feel inadequate. We may say, "We have only a few loaves," but God replies, "Trust me. They are more than enough."
Spirituality is not a private search for what is highest in oneself but a communal search for the face of God.
"There are moments in life when all that we can bear is the sense that our friends are near; our wounds would wince at consoling words that would reveal the depths of our pain."
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