Quotation Saturday ~ More to think about

Eph. 1:4 “According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love:”

HEALING 

“The emotion that can break your heart is sometimes the very one that heals it...” 
― Nicholas Sparks

Pain feels like a fast stab wound to the heart. But then healing feels like the wind against your face when you are spreading your wings and flying through the air! We may not have wings growing out of our backs, but healing is the closest thing that will give us that wind against our faces.” 
― C. JoyBell C.

“Each of us has a unique part to play in the healing of the world.” 
― Marianne Williamson

“Change, like healing, takes time.” 
― Veronica Roth

BULLIES

“People who love themselves, don’t hurt other people. The more we hate ourselves, the more we want others to suffer.” 
― Dan Pearce

“Haters and bullies are always cowards, you know. They like to pick on little guys.” 
― Scylar Tyberius

“They will hate you if you are beautiful. They will hate you if you are successful. They will hate you if you are right. They will hate you if you are popular. They will hate you when you get attention. They will hate you when people in their life like you. They will hate you if you worship a different version of their God. They will hate you if you are spiritual. They will hate you if you have courage. They will hate you if you have an opinion. They will hate you when people support you. They will hate you when they see you happy. Heck, they will hate you while they post prayers and religious quotes on Pinterest and Facebook. They just hate. However, remember this: They hate you because you represent something they feel they don’t have. It really isn’t about you. It is about the hatred they have for themselves. So smile today because there is something you are doing right that has a lot of people thinking about you.” 
― Shannon L. Alder

BLAME

“We cultivate love when we allow our most vulnerable and powerful selves to be deeply seen and known, and when we honor the spiritual connection that grows from that offering with trust, respect, kindness and affection.

Love is not something we give or get; it is something that we nurture and grow, a connection that can only be cultivated between two people when it exists within each one of them – we can only love others as much as we love ourselves.

Shame, blame, disrespect, betrayal, and the withholding of affection damage the roots from which love grows. Love can only survive these injuries if they are acknowledged, healed and rare.” 
― Brené Brown

“We habitually erect a barrier called blame that keeps us from communicating genuinely with others, and we fortify it with our concepts of who's right and who's wrong. We do that with the people who are closest to us and we do it with political systems, with all kinds of things that we don't like about our associates or our society. 

It is a very common, ancient, well-perfected device for trying to feel better. Blame others....Blaming is a way to protect your heart, trying to protect what is soft and open and tender in yourself. Rather than own that pain, we scramble to find some comfortable ground.” 
― Pema Chödrön

“If the soul is left in darkness, sins will be committed. The guilty one is not he who commits the sin, but the one who causes the darkness. (Monseigneur Bienvenu in _Les Miserables_)”
― Victor Hugo

MOVING ON

“It happens to everyone as they grow up. You find out who you are and what you want, and then you realize that people you've known forever don't see things the way you do. So you keep the wonderful memories, but find yourself moving on.” 
― Nicholas Sparks

“Letting go means to come to the realization that some people are a part of your history, but not a part of your destiny.” 
― Steve Maraboli

“Moving on is easy. It's staying moved on that's trickier.” 
― Katerina Stoykova Klemer

“Yesterday is not ours to recover, but tomorrow is ours to win or lose.” 
― Lyndon B. Johnson

Quotation Saturday

Pss. 74:20 “Have respect unto the covenant: for the dark places of the earth are full of the habitations of cruelty.”

OFFEND

“We cannot choose who offends us, but we can choose how to respond when we are offended.” 
― Moffat Machingura

“You may not be able to do anything about how you feel; but you can do something about how you act. People will definitely offend you willing or unwilling by their words and actions...but you can choose to let that offence sink you down or not....” 
― Israelmore Ayivor

“Some old wounds never truly heal, and bleed again at the slightest word.” 
― George R.R. Martin

“Sensitive people are the most genuine and honest people you will ever meet. There is nothing they won’t tell you about themselves if they trust your kindness. However, the moment you betray them, reject them or devalue them, they become the worse type of person. Unfortunately, they end up hurting themselves in the long run. They don’t want to hurt other people. It is against their very nature. They want to make amends and undo the wrong they did. Their life is a wave of highs and lows. They live with guilt and constant pain over unresolved situations and misunderstandings. They are tortured souls that are not able to live with hatred or being hated. This type of person needs the most love anyone can give them because their soul has been constantly bruised by others. However, despite the tragedy of what they have to go through in life, they remain the most compassionate people worth knowing, and the ones that often become activists for the broken hearted, forgotten and the misunderstood. They are angels with broken wings that only fly when loved.” 
― Shannon L. Alder

RESENT

Never judge someone's character based on the words of another. Instead, study the motives behind the words of the person casting the bad judgment.” 
― Suzy Kassem

“Only those who are in-charge are tackled and criticized by others so criticism is something desirable and should not be resented.” 
― Emmanuel Moore Abolo

“Beware of those who steer you away from your heart’s true happiness. It would make them happy to see you steer yourself right next to them, sitting with both your hearts bitter.” 
― Suzy Kassem

GOSSIP

“Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people.” 
― Socrates

“How would your life be different if…You walked away from gossip and verbal defamation? Let today be the day…You speak only the good you know of other people and encourage others to do the same.” 
― Steve Maraboli

“Isn't it kind of silly to think that tearing someone else down builds you up?” 
― Sean Covey

“Often those that criticise others reveal what he himself lacks.” 
― Shannon L. Alder

RESPECT

“The truest form of love is how you behave toward someone, not how you feel about them.” 
― Steve Hall

“If the traditional Rs (reading, writing, and arithmetic) are the basics that we want our children to master academically, then reverence, respect, and responsibility are the three Rs that our children need to master for the sake of their souls and the health of the world.” 
― Zoe Weil

“Respect for right conduct is felt by every body.” 
― Jane Austen

“After all, everyone may not start with the same financial opportunities; however everyone does start with the choice to live their life with integrity, trust, love, respect,understanding for each other and oneself.” 
― Tasha Hoggatt

Quotation Saturday ~ There Is Hope

Pss. 130:5  “I wait for the LORD, my soul doth wait, and in his word do I hope.”

ATHEIST

“I don't profess any religion; I don't think it’s possible that there is a God; I have the greatest difficulty in understanding what is meant by the words ‘spiritual’ or ‘spirituality.'”
[Interview, The New Yorker, Dec. 26, 2005] 
― Philip Pullman

“The Bible did not arrive by fax from heaven. The Bible is the product of man, my dear. Not of God. The Bible did not fall magically from the clouds. Man created it as a historical record of tumultuous times, and it has evolved through countless translations, additions, and revisions. History has never had a definitive version of the book.” 
― Dan Brown, The Da Vinci Code

“...it is not to be understood that I am with him [Jesus] in all his doctrines. I am a Materialist, he takes the side of spiritualism; he preaches the efficacy of repentance toward forgiveness of sin. I require a counterpoise of good works to redeem it... Among the sayings & discourses imputed to him by his biographers, I find many passages of fine imagination, correct morality, and of the most lovely benevolence: and others again of so much ignorance, so much absurdity, so much untruth, charlatanism, and imposture, as to pronounce it impossible that such contradictions should have proceeded from the same being."

[Letter to William Short, 13 April 1820]
― Thomas Jefferson,

AGNOSTIC

“As a philosopher, if I were speaking to a purely philosophic audience I should say that I ought to describe myself as an Agnostic, because I do not think that there is a conclusive argument by which one can prove that there is not a God. On the other hand, if I am to convey the right impression to the ordinary man in the street I think that I ought to say that I am an Atheist, because, when I say that I cannot prove that there is not a God, I ought to add equally that I cannot prove that there are not the Homeric gods.” 
― Bertrand Russell

“You could just as well say that an agnostic is a deeply religious person with at least a rudimentary knowledge of human fallibility.” 
― Carl Sagan

“My lack of faith in God is not a dilapidated house.
It does not need to be razed to the ground or burned down to cinders.
I refuse to be the wounded woman on a cross
that you crucify with your disapproval like nails;
I will only be the woman who believes in thunderstorms
the same way lightning loves the tops of trees it strikes
every time it gets tired of being pent up in an unforgiving sky,
the only difference is that I believe these are natural weather phenomenons,
not God’s belly rumbling or synapses firing.
When my doorway is filled with groups of people
wielding religious conversion pamphlets like crossbows,
I will be the martyr who steps aside to let the arrows
crack through the plaster in my wall instead of piercing my chest.
This is not a eulogy to the believer I could have been.
This is a battle cry to the believer I always have been,
believer in sunsets like splashes of paint, handholding
like willow branches brushing one another, new mornings
after old nights spent drowning in despair, believer
in love as an entire language instead of a single word.
Just because my beliefs align themselves on a different spectrum
does not mean they are the wrong wavelength or color.
And even though I think the universe was created by the Big Bang
instead of a God with magic dust shooting from his fingertips,
my universe does not contain fewer stars.” 
― Meggie Royer

FAITH

“I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.” 
― C.S. Lewis

“God will not look you over for medals, degrees or diplomas but for scars.” 
― Elbert Hubbard

“Sometimes beautiful things come into our lives out of nowhere. We can't always understand them, but we have to trust in them. I know you want to question everything, but sometimes it pays to just have a little faith.” 
― Lauren Kate

“The function of prayer is not to influence God, but rather to change the nature of the one who prays.” 
― Søren Kierkegaard

BELIEF

“All I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen.” 
― Ralph Waldo Emerson

“To believe in something, and not to live it, is dishonest.” 
― Mahatma Gandhi

“Faith is about doing. You are how you act, not just how you believe.” 
― Mitch Albom

“For those who believe, no proof is necessary. For those who don't believe, no proof is possible.” 
― Stuart Chase

HOPE

“I have come to accept the feeling of not knowing where I am going. And I have trained myself to love it. Because it is only when we are suspended in mid-air with no landing in sight, that we force our wings to unravel and alas begin our flight. And as we fly, we still may not know where we are going to. But the miracle is in the unfolding of the wings. You may not know where you're going, but you know that so long as you spread your wings, the winds will carry you.” 
― C. JoyBell C.

“When we love, we always strive to become better than we are. When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too.” 
― Paulo Coelho

“Hope is the thing with feathers 
That perches in the soul 
And sings the tune without the words 
And never stops at all.” 
― Emily Dickinson

“The things you do for yourself are gone when you are gone, but the things you do for others remain as your legacy.” 
― Kalu Ndukwe Kalu

Quotation Saturday

Pss. 25:5 “Lead me in thy truth, and teach me: for thou art the God of my salvation; on thee do I wait all the day.”

FAKE

“A company of wolves, is better than a company of wolves in sheep's clothing.” 
~ Anthony Liccione

“What's the whole point of being pretty on the outside when you’re so ugly on the inside?” 
~ Jess C. Scott

“You will never find the real truth among people that are insecure or have egos to protect. Truth over time becomes either guarded or twisted as their perspective changes; it changes with the seasons of their shame, love, hope or pride.” 
~ Shannon L. Alder

“An open Facebook page is simply a psychiatric dry erase board that screams, “Look at me. I am insecure. I need your reaction to what I am doing, but you’re not cool enough to be my friend. Therefore, I will just pray you see this because the approval of God is not all I need.” 
~ Shannon L. Alder

PRETENSE

“That's what real love amounts to - letting a person be what he really is. Most people love you for who you pretend to be. To keep their love, you keep pretending - performing. You get to love your pretense. It's true, we're locked in an image, an act - and the sad thing is, people get so used to their image, they grow attached to their masks. They love their chains. They forget all about who they really are. And if you try to remind them, they hate you for it, they feel like you're trying to steal their most precious possession.” 
~ Jim Morrison

“Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth -- more than ruin, more even than death. Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible, thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habits; thought is anarchic and lawless, indifferent to authority, careless of the well-tried wisdom of the ages. Thought looks into the pit of hell and is not afraid ... Thought is great and swift and free, the light of the world, and the chief glory of man.” 
~ Bertrand Russell

“You wear a mask for so long, you forget who you were beneath it.” 
~ Alan Moore

“After all, what was adult life but one moment of weakness piled on top of another? Most people just fell in line like obedient little children, doing exactly what society expected of them at any given moment, all the while pretending that they’d actually made some sort of choice.” 
~ Tom Perrotta

CHOICE

“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.” 
~ Robert Frost

“In the space between yes and no, there's a lifetime. It's the difference between the path you walk and the one you leave behind; it's the gap between who you thought you could be and who you really are; its the legroom for the lies you'll tell yourself in the future.” 
~ Jodi Picoult

“Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself in your way of thinking.” 
~ Marcus Aurelius

“Plant seeds of happiness, hope, success, and love; it will all come back to you in abundance. This is the law of nature.” 
~ Steve Maraboli

TRUTH

“The truth is messy. It's raw and uncomfortable. You can't blame people for preferring lies.” 
~ Holly Black

“Above all, don't lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love.” 
~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

“The unexamined life is not worth living.” 
~ Socrates

“Never be afraid to raise your voice for honesty and truth and compassion against injustice and lying and greed. If people all over the world would do this, it would change the earth.” 
~ William Faulkner

Quotation Saturday

Rom. 12:2 And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.

DIFFERENT

“I existed on my own terms. I was different my entire life. Some called me divergent, wild, crazy, unpredictable and unconformed—an apostate to the rules of the majority. I called myself God’s creation and found purpose in the madness. When that day came, I didn’t allow other people to dictate how I should feel or act. I learned there was no shame in imperfection because history had shown being different had the power to change perspectives and eventually the world. This is when I realized that flaws had responsibility. This was the day that I learned I was truly BLESSED.”
― Shannon L. Alder

“God has a way of picking a “nobody” and turning their world upside down, in order to create a “somebody” that will remove the obstacles they encountered out of the pathway for others.”
― Shannon L. Alder

“If your not annoying somebody, you're not alive.”
― Margaret Atwood

“For a man who makes his salvation perfect through suffering, is more of a saint and a loving hero of nature.”
― Auliq Ice

NON-CONFORMITY

“My kids are starting to notice I'm a little different from the other dads. "Why don't you have a straight job like everyone else?" they asked me the other day.
I told them this story:
In the forest, there was a crooked tree and a straight tree. Every day, the straight tree would say to the crooked tree, "Look at me...I'm tall, and I'm straight, and I'm handsome. Look at you...you're all crooked and bent over. No one wants to look at you." And they grew up in that forest together. And then one day the loggers came, and they saw the crooked tree and the straight tree, and they said, "Just cut the straight trees and leave the rest." So the loggers turned all the straight trees into lumber and toothpicks and paper. And the crooked tree is still there, growing stronger and stranger every day.”
― Tom Waits

“But human beings are not machines, and however powerful the pressure to conform, they sometimes are so moved by what they see as injustice that they dare to declare their independence. In that historical possibility lies hope.”
― Howard Zinn

“to be nobody-but-yourself in a world which is doing its’ best, night and day, to make you just like everybody else – means to fight the hardest battle any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.”
― E.E. Cummings

“If, living in the world, you refuse to be a part of it, you will help others out of this chaos - not in the future, not tomorrow, but now.”
― Jiddu Krishnamurti

INDIVIDUAL

“The first duty of a man is to think for himself”
― José Martí

“Despair is typical of those who do not understand the causes of evil, see no way out, and are incapable of struggle.”
― Vladimir Ilich Lenin

“I have no right to call myself one who knows. I was one who seeks, and I still am, but I no longer seek in the stars or in books; I'm beginning to hear the teachings of my blood pulsing within me. My story isn't pleasant, it's not sweet and harmonious like the invented stories; it tastes of folly and bewilderment, of madness and dream, like the life of all people who no longer want to lie to themselves.”
― Hermann Hesse

“To know what you prefer instead of humbly saying Amen to what the world tells you you ought to prefer, is to have kept your soul alive.”
― Robert Louis Stevenson

INSPIRATION

“when you're a poet
you can dish out whatever's
on your mind and you don't have to
apologize for it”
― Shannon Lynette

“When we love, we always strive to become better than we are. When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too.”
― Paulo Coelho

“The flower that blooms in adversity is the rarest and most beautiful of all.”
― Walt Disney Company

“We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.”
― Maya Angelou

Quotation Saturday ~ Communication

Rom. 12:2 “And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.”

CYBER

“The problem with making a virtual world of oneself is akin to the problem with projecting ourselves onto a cyberworld: there’s no end of virtual spaces in which to seek stimulation, but their very endlessness, the perpetual stimulation without satisfaction, becomes imprisoning.”
~ Jonathan Franzen

“The separation between the cyber and the physical worlds was disappearing. Cyberbullying was just bullying, and cyberwar was just war - the true age of cyber began when we started removing it as a descriptor.”
~ Matthew Mather

“In this world where I sit at my desk writing these words, people die, they pass on, people are mortal. In the cyber world we inhabit they do not.”
~ Aysha Taryam

“I have to remember, the way we were is the way we are no more.”

~ Joni Zipp

COMMUNICATION

“You can talk with someone for years, everyday, and still, it won't mean as much as what you can have when you sit in front of someone, not saying a word, yet you feel that person with your heart, you feel like you have known the person for forever.... connections are made with the heart, not the tongue.”
~ C. JoyBell C.

“Wisdom cannot be imparted. Wisdom that a wise man attempts to impart always sounds like foolishness to someone else ... Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom. One can find it, live it, do wonders through it, but one cannot communicate and teach it.”
~ Hermann Hesse

“Anything that’s human is mentionable, and anything that is mentionable can be more manageable. When we can talk about our feelings, they become less overwhelming, less upsetting, and less scary. The people we trust with that important talk can help us know that we are not alone.”
~ Fred Rogers

“What’s not so great is that all this technology is destroying our social skills. Not only have we given up on writing letters to each other, we barely even talk to each other. People have become so accustomed to texting that they’re actually startled when the phone rings. It’s like we suddenly all have Batphones. If it rings, there must be danger.
Now we answer, “What happened? Is someone tied up in the old sawmill?”
“No, it’s Becky. I just called to say hi.”
“Well you scared me half to death. You can’t just pick up the phone and try to talk to me like that. Don’t the tips of your fingers work?”
~ Ellen DeGeneres, Seriously... I'm Kidding

SOCIALIZE

“Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social enviroment. Most people are incapable of forming such opinions."
(Essay to Leo Baeck, 1953)”
~ Albert Einstein

“Why play, lounge or labour in a social wasteland? It's toxicity is contagious, and no respecter of persons. Fall back!”
~ T.F. Hodge

“I don't know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.”
~ J.R.R. Tolkien

“A rumor is a social cancer: it is difficult to contain and it rots the brains of the masses. However, the real danger is that so many people find rumors enjoyable. That part causes the infection. And in such cases when a rumor is only partially made of truth, it is difficult to pinpoint exactly where the information may have gone wrong. It is passed on and on until some brave soul questions its validity; that brave soul refuses to bite the apple and let the apple eat him. Forced to start from scratch for the sake of purity and truth, that brave soul, figuratively speaking, fully amputates the information in order to protect his personal judgment. In other words, his ignorance is to be valued more than the lie believed to be true.”
~ Criss Jami

DISCONNECT

“I was already at one remove before the Internet came along. I need another remove? Now I have to spend the time that I'm not doing the thing they're doing reading about them doing it? Streaming the clips of them doing it, commenting on how lucky they are to be doing all those things, liking and digging and bookmarking and posting and tweeting all those things, and feeling more disconnected than ever? Where does this idea of greater connection come from? I've never in my life felt more disconnected. It's like how the rich get richer. The connected get more connected while the disconnected get more disconnected. No thanks man, I can't do it. The world was a sufficient trial, Betsy, before Facebook.”
~ Joshua Ferris

“Disconnect yourself from people who cannot add five to your ten words, because, sooner or later, you won't be able to say even a word.”
~ Michael Bassey Johnson

“It seems perverse that we can be more social than anyone would have thought possible when we are at our most anti-social, locked away from the world and silently staring at a computer screen, but that, as psychologists will tell you is the way we operate. When we are at the maximum of our disconnect we also are ready to connect and feel the need for interaction.”
~ David Amerland

“The worlds within and without the Veil of Color are changing, and changing rapidly, but not at the same rate, not in the same way; and this must produce a peculiar wrenching of the soul, a peculiar sense of doubt and bewilderment. Such a double life, with double thoughts, double duties, and double social classes, must give rise to double words and double ideals, and tempt the mind to pretence or revolt, to hypocrisy or radicalism.”
~ W.E.B. Du Bois

Quotation Saturday

1 Cor. 4:14 I write not these things to shame you, but as my beloved sons I warn you.

 CHARMING

All charming people have something to conceal, usually their total dependence on the appreciation of others.

~ Cyril Connelly

“With mortal age comes the immense need for childish charms. Like a fine wine, sweetens with maturity.”
~ Rae Lori

“Don't rush to design your face to look beautiful, attractive and charming. Rather, be quicker to decorate your mind to appear as goal-oriented, passion-embedded and action-driven.”
~ Israelmore Ayivor

“If you look up "charming" in the dictionary, you'll see that it not only has references to strong attraction, but to spells and magic. Then again, what are liars if not great magicians?”
~ Deb Caletti

DECEITFUL

“It's discouraging to think how many people are shocked by honesty and how few by deceit.”
~ Noël Coward

“The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.”
~ William Shakespeare

“Mindfulness helps us get better at seeing the difference between what’s happening and the stories we tell ourselves about what’s happening, stories that get in the way of direct experience. Often such stories treat a fleeting state of mind as if it were our entire and permanent self.”
~ Sharon Salzberg, Real Happiness: The Power of Meditation

“Never pretend to be something you are not, especially to be accepted. Be loved for who you are, it will be tough at times but worth it.”
~ Isabella Poretsis

CONSCIENCE

“There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must take it because conscience tells him it is right.”
~ Martin Luther King Jr.

“Your conscience is the measure of the honesty of your selfishness.
Listen to it carefully.”
~ Richard Bach

“The Roots of Violence: Wealth without work, Pleasure without conscience, Knowledge without character, Commerce without morality, Science without humanity, Worship without sacrifice, Politics without principles."
(Young India, 22 October 1925)”
~ Mahatma Gandhi

“Through pride we are ever deceiving ourselves. But deep down below the surface of the average conscience a still, small voice says to us, something is out of tune. ”
~ C.G. Jung

PRIDE

“A proud man is always looking down on things and people; and, of course, as long as you are looking down, you cannot see something that is above you.”
~ C.S. Lewis

“Generosity is giving more than you can, and pride is taking less than you need. ”
~ Khalil Gibran

“All men make mistakes, but a good man yields when he knows his course is wrong, and repairs the evil. The only crime is pride.”
~ Sophocles

“When dealing with people, remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but with creatures bristling with prejudice and motivated by pride and vanity.”
~ Dale Carnegie

BELOVED

“Over the years, I have come to realize that the greatest trap in our life is not success, popularity, or power, but self-rejection. Success, popularity, and power can indeed present a great temptation, but their seductive quality often comes from the way they are part of the much larger temptation to self-rejection. When we have come to believe in the voices that call us worthless and unlovable, then success, popularity, and power are easily perceived as attractive solutions. The real trap, however, is self-rejection. As soon as someone accuses me or criticizes me, as soon as I am rejected, left alone, or abandoned, I find myself thinking, "Well, that proves once again that I am a nobody." ... [My dark side says,] I am no good... I deserve to be pushed aside, forgotten, rejected, and abandoned. Self-rejection is the greatest enemy of the spiritual life because it contradicts the sacred voice that calls us the "Beloved." Being the Beloved constitutes the core truth of our existence.”
~ Henri J.M. Nouwen

“Define yourself radically as one beloved by God. This is the true self. Every other identity is illusion.”
~ Brennan Manning

“To ignore, repress, or dismiss our feelings is to fail to listen to the stirrings of the Spirit within our emotional life. Jesus listened. In John's Gospel we are told that Jesus was moved with the deepest emotions (11:33)... The gospel portrait of the beloved Child of Abba is that of a man exquisitely attuned to His emotions and uninhibited in expressing them. The Son of Man did not scorn or reject feelings as fickle and unreliable. They were sensitive antennae to which He listened carefully and through which He perceived the will of His Father for congruent speech and action.”
~ Brennan Manning