Tim Mackie > Quotes

“Prayer means the risk of facing silence where we’re addicted to noise. It’s the risk of facing a God we’ve mastered talking about, singing about, reading about, and learning about. It means risking real interaction with that God, and the longer we’ve gotten used to settling for the noise around God, the higher the stakes. What if it’s awkward or disappointing or boring, or what if God stands me up altogether?”
― Tim Mackie, Praying Like Monks, Living Like Fools: An Invitation to the Wonder and Mystery of Prayer

“Solitude is the furnace of transformation,” says Henri Nouwen. “Without solitude we remain victims of our society and continue to be entangled in the illusions of the false self . . . Solitude is the place of the great struggle and the great encounter—the struggle against the compulsions of the false self, and the encounter with the loving God who offers himself as the substance of the new self.”
― Tim Mackie, Praying Like Monks, Living Like Fools: An Invitation to the Wonder and Mystery of Prayer