God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength. Consider your own call, brothers and sisters; not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing the things that are. (1 Cor 1:25-28)
Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. – Romans 12:15
IF YOU BEHAVED badly in the past, if you have been destructive, you can do something about it. By touching the present deeply, you can transform the past. The wounds and injuries of the past are still there—they are within your reach. All you have to do is come back to the present moment, and you will recognize the wounds and injuries that you have caused in the past and those that other people have caused you.
You should be here for these wounds and injuries. You can say to them, “I am here for you,” with your mindful breathing, your deep looking, and your determination not to do the same thing again. Then transformation is possible.
– thich nhat hanh
People compelled by cravings crawl like snared rabbits.
– Dhammapada 24:9
(photo: Sat Manav Yoga Ashram – Industry, Maine, October 2019)
The word “grace” corresponds to a whole dimension of spiritual experience; it is unthinkable that this should be absent from one of the great religions of the world.
The function of grace…is to condition one’s homecoming to the center itself…which provides the incentive to start on the Way and the energy to face and overcome its many and various obstacles. Likewise grace is the welcoming hand into the center when one finds oneself at long last on the brink of the great divide where all familiar human landmarks have disappeared.
– Marco Pallis
I pray because I can’t help myself. I pray because I’m helpless. I pray because the need flows out of me all the time, waking and sleeping. It doesn’t change God. It changes me.
C.S. Lewis
In the cloud-grey mornings
I heard the herons flying;
And when I came into my garden,
My silken outer-garment
Trailed over withered leaves.
A dried leaf crumbles at a touch,
But I have seen many Autumns
With herons blowing like smoke
Across the sky.
What causes God pain, I believe, is not our sins as such (I don’t think God is easily offended), but the consequences of our sins that cause us so much pain: humiliation, frustration, guilt for harm done to others. In actual fact, the moment we accept negative feelings, sit with our despair, desolation, hopelessness or frustration, and the overwhelming sense of failure, God takes them all upon Himself, makes them His own, and joins us in our sufferings.
– Fr. Thomas Keating
Edge of Atlantic 