“We have real difficulty here because everyone thinks of changing the world, but where, oh where, are those who think of changing themselves? People may genuinely want to be good, but seldom are they prepared to do what it takes to produce the inward life of goodness that can form the soul. Personal formation into the likeness of Christ is arduous and lifelong.”
-Richard Foster
“To love another person is to see the face of God.”
-Victor Hugo
Eternal God,
the light of the minds that know you,
the joy of the hearts that love you,
and the strength of the wills that serve you:
grant us so to know you that we may truly love you,
so to love you that we may truly serve you,
whose service is perfect freedom;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Augustine of Hippo (430)
O God our disturber,
whose speech is pregnant with power
and whose word will be fulfilled:
may we know ourselves unsatisfied
with all that distorts your truth,
and make our hearts attentive
to your liberating voice,
In Jesus Christ, Amen.
-Jane Morley, All Desires Known
God walks among the pots and pipkins.
-St. Teresa of Avila
“to put off your old self,
which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires,
and be renewed in the spirit of your minds,
and to put on the new self,
created after the likeness of God
in true righteousness and holiness.”
-Ephesians 4:22-24
‘In a very real sense not one of us is qualified, but it seems that God continually chooses the most unqualified to do his work, to bear his glory. If we are qualified, we tend to think that we have done the job ourselves. If we are forced to accept our evident lack of qualification, then there’s no danger that we will confuse God’s work with our own, or God’s glory with our own.’
-Madeleine L’Engle
“Do not come any closer,” God said.
“Take off your sandals,
for the place where you are standing is holy ground.”
–Exodus 3:5
“In one of his dialogues, Plato talks of all learning as remembering. The chief job of the teacher is to help us to remember all that we gave forgotten. This fits in well with Jung’s concept of racial memory, his belief that when we are enabled to dip into the intuitive, subconscious self, we remember more than we know.
One of the great sorrows which came to human beings when Adam and Eve left the Garden was the loss of memory,
memory of all that God’s children are meant to be.”
-Madeleine L’Engle, Walking on Water: Reflections of Faith and Art
“Be still, and know that I am God.
I will be exalted among the nations,
I will be exalted in the earth!”
-Psalm 46:10
peacocks for pilgrims 