If we can exit a relationship, pressure to reconcile lessens; if we must live with those who have wronged us, we are pushed to reconcile.
Miroslav VolfRead
Every word and every deed, every thought and every gesture, even the simple act of paying attention can be a gift and therefore an echo of God’s life in us.
Interpretation
Everything we do and say can reflect a divine essence.
This quote emphasizes the significance of our actions, words, and even thoughts as manifestations of a higher spiritual presence. It suggests that by being mindful and intentional in our interactions and attentiveness, we can embody and express the divine life within us, making even the simplest gestures meaningful and profound.
In practice
This quote can be shared during a meditation retreat to inspire reflection on mindfulness.
If we can exit a relationship, pressure to reconcile lessens; if we must live with those who have wronged us, we are pushed to reconcile.
Forgiveness flounders because I exclude the enemy from the community of humans and myself from the community of sinners.
Love properly understood is God—the font of all creation and the ultimate goal of all desires; God properly understood is love.
If no one remembers a misdeed or names it publically, it remains invisible. To the observer, its victim is not a victim and its perpetrator is not a perpetrator; both are misperceived because the suffering of the one and the violence of the other go unseen. A double injustice occurs-the first when the original deed is done and the second when it disappears.
There is no space in which worship should not take place, no time when it should not occur, and no activity through which it should not happen.
To affirm that God is God is to want to live in a particular way.
You don't need organized religion to connect with the universe. Often a church is the only place you can go to find peace and quiet... But it shouldn't be confused with connecting with one's spirit.
When the church hears the cry of the oppressed it cannot but denounce the social structures that give rise to and perpetuate the misery from which the cry arises.
Beauty is that quality which, next to money, is generally the most attractive to the worst kinds of men; and, therefore, it is likely to entail a great deal of trouble on the possessor.
One of the many things I learned at the end of that Classics corridor down which I ventured at the age of 18, in search of something I could not then define, was this, written by the Greek author Plutarch: What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality. That is an astonishing statement and yet proven a thousand times every day of our lives. It expresses, in part, our inescapable connection with the outside world, the fact that we touch other people’s lives simply by existing.
To practice Aikido fully you must calm the spirit and go back to the origin.
The guarantee that our self enjoys an intended relation to the outer world is most, if not all, we ask from religion. God is the self projected onto reality by our natural and necessary optimism. He is the not-me personified.
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