Quotations

The world is not a place but the vastness of the soul. And the soul is nothing more than love, limitless, all that moves us toward knowing what is true. I once thought love was supposed to be nothing but bliss. I now know it is also worry and grief, hope and trust. ... If people we love die, then they are lost only to our ordinary senses. If we remember, we can find them anytime with our hundred secret senses.

I am not sure at what point I realized that the man whom I had seen as my all-powerful and invincible father not only wanted me as I am, but also needed me to stand by him through the long journey into his own death. My father needed my friendship. It still seems to me to be an astonishing gift of God's grace that in the last years of his life I was able to stand with him as his friend who was his adult child.

The only way to avoid death is not to be born in the first place. In death there is union with the Beloved. The real skill is to reach the secret of death before dying.

We prepare for death, or rather eternity, by consciously adjusting the focus of our life so that it is not upon our personality and the flowing world that spawns upon it, but instead upon our individuality and the Great Fullness with which we are one. This process of focusing our attention is called meditation. In meditation we die to the personality and are reborn as something much greater. That rebirth is not a sudden or one-time event, but is a gradual process in which we become ever more focused on who and what we really are behind the mask of personality ... the process of dying to death by being reborn to reality.

Naturally, most of us would like to die a peaceful death, but it is clear that we cannot hope to die peacefully if our lives have been full of violence, or if our minds have mostly been agitated by emotions like anger, attachment, or fear.  So if we wish to die well, we must learn how to live well: Hoping for a peaceful death, we must cultivate peace in our mind, and in our way of life.

Teach me to treat my death as an act of communion.

Our society has forgotten that all of life can be a work of art, even the most mundane-seeming tasks... There is great beauty in cleanliness and order and bringing it into being. Watering the plants is as necessary as cleaning the stove, and vice versa. All these tasks bespeak care for oneself and others, and appreciation of the opportunity to create a temenos -- a sanctuary, a safe and sacred place.

Let us, like a painter, take time to stand back from our work, to be still, and thus to see what's what... True repose is standing back to survey the activities that fill our days.

For a long time it had seemed to me that life was about to begin -- real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way, something to be got through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to be paid. Then life would begin. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life.

The true prophetic message always calls us to stretch our arms out wide and embrace the whole world. In holy boldness we cover the earth with the grace and mercy of God. This is a great task, a noble task... Helmut Thielicke writes, "The globe itself lives and is upheld as by Atlas arms through the prayers of those who love has not grown cold. The world lives by these uplifted hands, and by nothing else!"

O God, that at all times You may find me as You desire me and where You would have me be, that You may lay hold on me fully, both by the Within and the Without of myself, grant that I may never break the double thread of my life.

The universe is my way.
Love is my law.
Peace is my shelter.
Experience is my school.
Obstacle is my lesson.
Difficulty is my stimulant.
Pain is my warning.
Work is my blessing.
Balance is my attitude.
(The Voice of Silence is my guide.)

We receive according to the emptiness of our hearts and hands.

When a young man in Uganda, a great soccer player, had his knee purposely blown out by someone in a soccer game, ending his professional career, he could have chosen bitterness. But instead, he began to help other young men who were aimless and without directions, who were on drugs, in gangs, doing nothing.

First he gave himself to building them up by teaching them to be soccer players. Once that relationship was established, he helped them develop skills and crafts, so that they could make a living and then become responsible fathers and community contributors...You could see how his own soul was nurtured by his desire to contribute, to focus outside himself.

The journey to the self is hard work, not so much because of its periodic intensity, but because it demands superhuman honesty and a lot of attention... But the unconscious had spoken:

Can you really walk what you talk?
Why are you afraid to live your passion?
Can you live from your heart and not be afraid of who you are?
Can you create out of your flesh rather than your intellect?

Live what you know! There are no obstacles that can't be overcome on this journey!

Now and again, it is necessary to seclude yourself among deep mountains and hidden valleys to restore your link to the source of life. Breath in and let yourself soar to the ends of the universe; breath out and bring the cosmos back inside. Next, breathe up all the fecundity and vibrancy of the earth. Finally, blend the breath of heaven and the breath of earth with that of your own, becoming the breath of Life itself.

At a certain point you say to the woods, to the sea, to the mountains, the world: Now I am ready. Now I will stop and be wholly attentive. You empty yourself and wait, listening ... you wait, you give your life's length to listening.

Learn to be still in the midst of activity and to be vibrantly alive in repose.

We cannot expect answers from God after only five minutes of silence... Meister Eckhart emphasized the importance of the listening heart that listens to God alone ... that God desires nothing more than a heart that detaches itself in silence from everything and turns and listens.

To survive in the world, you need spiritual strength, you need solitude.

Perhaps the reason angels can fly is because they take themselves lightly.

May you
Learn to be at home with yourself without a hand to hold.
Learn to endure isolation with only starts for friends.

For,

Happiness comes from understanding unity.
Love arrives on the footprints of your fear.
Beauty arrives from ashes of despair.
Solitude brings the clarity of still waters.
Wisdom completes the circle of your dreams.

So shall I sing my song. The melody winds through creation and forms the Name of the deepest Mystery and Being ... is unspeakable and as simple as the bee and the hummingbird and flower, is as constant and as changing as the cosmos. The Name is Now. With each moment the song is new. Each call of the Holy in and to me releases a surprise of melody I never knew I knew before. I didn't. Awareness. The Holy One makes all things new -- always, all ways, now. I must be attentive to my singing. I am new. I can always be a song fuller than could be imagined yesterday. I sing my life and I sing creation. Your Name is the song.

The aim and final reason of all music should be nothing else but the glory of God and the refreshment of the Spirit.