41 quotes
American Franciscan spiritual teacher
“You cannot contain evil by shaming it, or making people feel guilty, but only by revealing it toward it is, and then seeing the good as better.”
"We are usually on bended knee before laws or angrily reacting against them, both immature responses."
on Law
"Pain and suffering that are not transformed are usually projected onto others."
on Relationships
"All great spirituality is about what we do with our pain."
on Faith
"People who know how to creatively break the rules also know why the rules were there in the first place."
on Wisdom
"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."
"God created us for love, for union, for forgiveness and compassion and, yet, that has not been our storyline. That has not been our history."
on Love
"The soul needs meaning as much as the body needs food."
on Philosophy
"If we don't learn to mythologize our lives, inevitably we will pathologize them."
on Life
"The human art form is in uniting fruitful activity with a contemplative stance, not one or the other, but always both at the same time."
on Creativity
"If you do not acquire good training in detachment, you may attach to all the wrong things."
on Self Awareness
"You know after any truly initiating experience that you are part of a much bigger whole. Life is not about you henceforward, but you are about life."
"You can unlock spiritual things only from within."
on Spirituality
"The Church, as Jesus seems to be defining it, is the gathering of accepted brokenness. It’s not the gathering of the saved."
"every time God forgives us, God is saying that God's own rules do not matter as much as the relationship that God wants to create with us."
"Life is all about practicing for heaven." p 101."
"Self-help courses will only help you if they teach you to pay attention to life itself."
on Mindfulness
"It's true all the time everywhere or it's not true! And that one truth is always Mystery."
on Truth
"Our wounds are the only thing humbling enough to break our attachment to our false self."
"We do not handle suffering. Suffering handles us."
"It is no surprise that the first and always unwelcome message of male initiation rites is LIFE – IS – HARD."
