“The best listeners I know pause over words. ‘That’s an interesting way of putting it,’ they muse, or they ask. ‘What exactly do you mean by that?’ The consciousness that every word is a choice, that each word has its own resonance, nuance, emotional coloring, and weight informs their sense of what is being communicated. This kind of listening comes close to what we engage in when we listen to music...A good listener loves words, respects them, pays attention to them, and recognizes vague approximations as a kind of falsehood.”
Source: Caring for Words in a Culture of Lies
“But if roteness is a danger, it is also the way liturgy works. When you don't have to think all the time about what words you are going to say next, you are free to fully enter into the act of praying; you are free to participate in the life of God.”
Source: Mudhouse Sabbath
“Fasting turns each moment of craving into a prayer of intense dependence.”
Source: 21 Days of Prayer & Fasting: A fasting guide for spiritual breakthroughs
“Because we don't know yet how to act without an outer reason, we discover that we don't know what to do with ourselves, and then we begin to be increasingly bored. So first of all, you must learn to sit with yourselves and face boredom, drawing all the possible conclusions.”
Source: Beginning to Pray
“The rewards of fasting ultimately lead to a more intimate and satisfying experience with the God who made me.”
Source: 21 Days of Prayer & Fasting: A fasting guide for spiritual breakthroughs
“Fasting is an act of humility that spotlights our weaknesses and reveals dependence on things rather than on God.”
Source: 21 Days of Prayer & Fasting: A fasting guide for spiritual breakthroughs
“Treat rejections with utter contempt —like they don’t matter.”
“Fasting is a discipline that should be a holy habit.”
Source: 21 Days of Prayer & Fasting: A fasting guide for spiritual breakthroughs
“Sure, sometimes it is great when, in prayer, we can express to God just what we feel; but better still when, in the act of praying, our feelings change. Liturgy is not, in the end, open to our emotional whims. it re-points the person praying, taking him somewhere else.”
Source: Mudhouse Sabbath
“Fasting is meant to take you, temporarily, out of the realm of the physical and focus your attention heavenward; as one Jewish guide to fasting puts it, 'at the heart of this practice is a desire to shift our attention away from our immediate needs and to focus on more spiritual concerns.”
Source: Mudhouse Sabbath