Sometimes the center to which our centering prayer calls us is smack dab in the middle of the world’s decentered, disoriented, disabled and dysfunctional life.
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Annie Dillard
I am a frayed and nibbled survivor in a fallen world, and I am getting along. I am aging and eaten and have done my share of eating too. I am not washed and beautiful, in control of a shining world in which everything fits, but instead am wandering awed about on a splintered wreck I've come to care for, whose gnawed trees breathe delicate air, whose bloodied and scarred creatures are my dearest companions, and whose beauty beats and shines not in its imperfections, but overwhelmingly in spite of them. — Annie Dillard
Anthony de Mello
To find the kingdom is the easiest thing in the world but also the most difficult. Easy because it is all around you and within you, and all you have to do is reach out and take possession of it. Difficult because if you wish to possess the kingdom you may possess nothing else. — Anthony de Mello
Bill Lane Doulos
The kingdom which was the theme of Jesus’ preaching and teaching is not a low-risk, blue-chip investment created for our consumption. It can’t be calmly considered and casually digested. It can’t be domesticated, nor can its leader be restrained from his continuous challenge to our way of life.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
It is very remarkable that we face the thought that God is coming so calmly, whereas previously peoples trembled at the day of God, whereas the world fell into trembling when Jesus Christ walked over the earth. That is why we find it so strange when we see the marks of God in the world so often together with the marks of human suffering. . . . We have become so accustomed to the idea of divine love and of God's coming at Christmas that we no longer feel the shiver of fear that God's coming should arouse in us. We are indifferent to the message, taking only the pleasant and agreeable out of it and forgetting the serious aspect, that the God of the world draws near to the people of our little earth and lays claim to us. The coming of God is truly not only glad tidings, but first of all frightening news for everyone who has a conscience. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Mary Oliver
Meditation is old and honorable, so why should I
not sit, every morning of my life, on the hillside,
looking into the shining world? . . . The gospel of
light is the crossroads of—indolence, or action.
Be ignited, or be gone.
Emmy Lou Harris
So weep not for me my friend When my time below does end For my life belongs to him Who will raise the dead again It don't matter where you bury me I'll be home and I'll be free It don't matter where I lay All my tears be washed away — Emmy Lou Harris
Theodore W. Jennings
An inward transformation must produce an outward one. It is one thing to hang a few apples on a pecan tree. It is quite another to grow apples on an apple tree. The latter is a more reliable source of apples. Thus the regeneration of the apple tree, which then produces apples of itself and of natural necessity, is the best, indeed the only way to get apples. But those who claim to be apple trees without producing apples are kidding themselves. — Theodore W. Jennings
William Faulkner
The past is never dead. It's not even past. — William Faulkner
Tom Friedman
[S]ustainable globalization still requires a stable, geopolitical power structure, which simply cannot be maintained without the active involvement of the United States. . . . The hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist—McDonald's cannot flourish without McDonnell Douglas, the builder of the F-15. — Tom Friedman