True Wit is Nature to advantage dress'd What oft was thought, but ne'er so well express'd; Something whose truth convinced at sight we find, That gives us back the image of our mind. As shades more sweetly recommend the light, So modest plainness set...
God never loses any part of our past for his future when we surrender ourselves to him. Every mistake, sin, and detour we take in the journey of life is taken by God and becomes his gift for a future of blessing.
Some of us will admit to a simple fascination with the inner world for its own sake, a fascination with no further goal than the thrill of discovery, the pleasure of engaging the mysterious, dark ground of our own nature.
Our ailing planet needs spiritual warriors, ones capable of standing up to the Western materialism machine, so we can create sustainable societies that care for their citizens, harmonize with the cycles of nature, and receive and honor the vast heali...
To know God begins with knowing ourselves, our true selves, whom we uncover as we make choices that help us step beyond the influence of the ego.
Time and again I hear how important the darker environment is to those at our vintage-faith worship gathering. Attenders feel they can freely pray in a corner by themselves without feeling that everyone is staring at them.
There are no coincidences and no mistakes. Every role has a purpose and every path has merit. Everything we do and experience is for learning to remember our connection with God.
When tea becomes ritual, it takes its place at the heart of our ability to see greatness in small things. Where is beauty to be found? In great things that, like everything else, are doomed to die, or in small things that aspire to nothing, yet know ...
Because the culture we breathe and work in rushes against rest. It equates our worth with production and wealth and fame. The more we work toward those goals, the more society assigns us worth.
Jesus tends to his people individually. He personally sees to our needs. We all receive Jesus' touch. We experience his care.
It is the tenderness that breaks our hearts. The loveliness that leaves us stranded on the shore, watching the boats sail away. It is the sweetness that makes us want to reach out and touch the soft skin of another person. And it is the grace that co...
This is what rituals are for. We do spiritual ceremonies as human beings in order to create a safe resting place for our most complicated feelings of joy or trauma, so that we don't have to haul those feelings around with us forever, weighing us down...
Our prayer is not simply, ‘Dear God, please send me a better job,’ but, ‘Dear God, enable me to see this situation differently, that this area of apparent lack might be healed inside my mind.
When we meet someone and fall in love, we have a sense that the whole universe is on our side. And yet if something goes wrong, there is nothing left! How is it possible for the beauty that was there only minutes before to vanish so quickly? Life mov...
The sensation of the ocean bearing my weight was the most carefree lightness I’d ever experienced. When we were halfway across the strait, the sound of an engine approached from a distance—it was probably the police coast guard. We quickly ducked...
I used to go to church. I even went through a rather intense religious period when I was sixteen. But the idea of an everlasting life -- a never-ending banquet, as a stupid visiting minister to our church once appallingly described it -- filled me wi...
I believe this. When we meet those we fall in love with, there is an aspect of our spirit that is historian, a bit of a pedant who reminisces or remembers a meeting when the other has passed by innocently…but all parts of the body must be ready for...
God's ways are higher than our ways not because he is less compassionate than we are but because he is more compassionate than we can ever imagine.
And yet, far off, I can hear something whispering that this compulsion to do, to intrude ourselves, to improve on what is--even when wholly well intentioned, when wholly well intentioned--is the source of all our troubles.
It is merely an accident of history that it is considered normal in our society to believe that the Creator of the universe can hear your thoughts while it is demonstrative of mental illness to believe that he is communicating with you by having the ...
Everyday in the heat, rain and cold, I ran, alone in the woods...in the hills near our home. There I felt the gentle touch of God. And I heard His whisper, You're stronger now. It's time to tell the truth of what happened. Tell your story to give som...