“The story is told of Mother Theresa that when an interviewer asked her. "What do you say when you pray?" she answered, "I listen." The reporters paused a moment, then asked, "Then what does God say?" and she replied, "He listens." It is hard to imagine a more succinct way to get at the intimacy of contemplative prayer.”
Source: Caring for Words in a Culture of Lies
“I choose my attitude. On many mornings, it can be difficult. Yet I choose to be a victor, not a victim. I choose to be better, not bitter. I select life over death. I pick blessings over brokenness.
...when I truly make my home in the presence of God Almighty -- through daily Scripture reading, prayer, and worship -- then I'm able to absolutely trust Him.”
Source: Into the Deep
“It was a happy day when I discovered that in the English of Chaucer's day - which was also the time of the Black Death - the word "silly" meant "blessed." I am not sure when we strayed away from its original meaning, when blessedness took on a churchy aura and silliness became the realm of Monty Python and fourth-grade eschatological humor. As hard-working adults we too often lose the gift for letting go, for delight in simply being. We persuade ourselves that every moment must be lived productively; like the busy little bee, we feel a holy obligation to improve each shining hour. We would do well to take very small children or big silly dogs as our teachers. I have learned much about holy uselessness form Perry, the dog...”
Source: At Home in the World: A Rule of Life for the Rest of Us
“We live in the world with you. We do not forsake forum or bath or workshop, or inn, or market, or any other place of commerce. We sail with you, fight with you, farm with you.”
Source: Tertullian: Apology, De Spectaculis, And, Minucius Felix
“Not only do I need friends who share in my desires and convictions, and not only do I need mentors who can support, encourage and advise me as I journey to God, but I also need a community with whom I can participate in the proclamation of the Word and the celebration of all that the Words means to me. Like the baby Jesus, I need a "holy family" to belong to. I need to belong to something bigger than myself. If I don't, then I run the risk of developing a sort of God-and-me spirituality with no support systems to hold me up when I am weak, no prophets to challenge me when I am wrong and no party-mates with whom I may celebrate the Lord's goodness in my life.”
Source: Armchair Mystic: Easing Into Contemplative Prayer
“To experience the richness of life in God's kingdom, we must reorder our lives. We need to see through the shallow promises of our culture, and we need rhythms, signposts, and practices that reorient us to another world.”
Source: Recapturing the Wonder: Transcendent Faith in a Disenchanted World
“It is a necessary part of a rule of life to cherish our bodies, care for them, and see the beauty in their intricate design. But too often, most of us - men and women both - come to dislike them as the years pass, or at the very least to feel that they need major remodeling... We fight to stave off aging or at least to disguise it. Yet in his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul reminds us of the sanctity of the body (1 Cor. 6:19-20)...”
Source: At Home in the World: A Rule of Life for the Rest of Us
“As I grow in my prayer life, my soul becomes a delightfully cluttered attic, filled with random graces that do not all fit together in some perfectly ordered system. The purpose of some graces will be immediately apparent in my life, but the meaning of others might evade me for a while. I must resist the temptation to clean up the messiness of my graces and must not try to come up with immediate answers for the questions that arise from them.”
Source: Armchair Mystic: Easing Into Contemplative Prayer
“Coach told the team, 'You're going to take a hit. How you respond is more important than taking the hit. Toughness is not what young players think it is. Its not just beating the hell of the guy across the line. That's why I talked about commitment and discipline before i got to the toughness.
The definition of toughness is not merely physical. You've got to be mentally tough on and off the field. Being committed to the process and having discipline and effort to do it is going to be tough. Being able to not look at the scoreboard is going to be tough. Being able to not talk back to coaches will be tough. Not ever talking to an official will be tough.”
Source: Skull Session: Mastering the Mental Game in Sports, Work, and Life
“Prayer is for listening; review of prayer is for discerning. It is important that I resist the temptation to analyze what is going on. During prayer, I will be tempted to play the sports commentator, reviewing every move with instant replay. I will be tempted to ask myself if the prayer is going well, if it is really God speaking or merely my imagination, if I'm handling this conversation well and so on. This ongoing analysis will only distract me from listening for God with my full attention....I may miss God's voice because I am too preoccupied with evaluating the prayer then and there. During the prayer itself, I must simply be present and listen attentively to whatever is said by whomever. There will be plenty of time to sort it all out later.”
Source: Armchair Mystic: Easing Into Contemplative Prayer