When I am not king, then THE Kingdom has its best chance of breaking through.
If we do not transform our pain, we will most assuredly transmit it.
If we don’t learn to mythologize our lives, inevitably we will pathologize them.
In terms of soul work, we dare not get rid of the pain before we have learned what it has to teach us.
Salvation is not a divine transaction that takes place because you are morally perfect, but much more is an organic unfolding, a becoming who you already are, an inborn sympathy with and capacity for the very One who created you.
Metaphor is the only possible language available to religion because it alone is honest about Mystery.
In solitude, at last, we’re able to let God define us the way we are always supposed to be defined – by relationship: the I-thou relationship, in relation to a Presence that demands nothing of us but presence itself. Not performance but presence.
Contemplation is an alternative consciousness that refuses to identify with or feed what are only passing shows. It is the absolute opposite of addiction, consumerism or any egoic consciousness.
Nature is the one song of praise that never stops singing.
The most courageous thing we will ever do is to bear humbly the mystery of our own reality.
It’s important to note that Jesus and Christ are two different faith affirmations. Hardly any Christians have been taught that – they think “Christ” is Jesus’s last name.
When ‘happiness’ eludes us – as, eventually, it always will – we have the invitation to examine our programmed responses and to exercise our power to choose again.
The movement toward gratitude, authenticity, and union is the natural and organic inner work of the second half of our lives.
Faith does not need to push the river because faith is able to trust that there is a river. The river is flowing. We are in it.
Religion was made to order to “save the world,” to use a phrase Christians use so much, but we really haven’t been doing a good job of it for centuries. It’s heartbreaking really.
Pain and suffering that are not transformed are usually projected onto others.
Today we need whatever methods or help we can receive to allow the Christian message to take us to a deeper level of transformation.
The spiritual world is hidden and perfectly revealed in the physical world.
Most women prefer circles of sharing to pyramids and hierarchies. They prefer conversation to construction. They will usually choose nurturance and empathy over competition and climbing. They will normally choose connection over simple performance games.
The important thing is the willingness to give back the gift that is you, not the perfection of the gift itself. Can you feel the difference?