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Barbara Fairbanks

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“God has to undo our illusions secretly, as it were, when we are not watching and not in perfect control, say the mystics. That is perhaps why the best word for God is actually Mystery. We move forward in ways that we do not even understand and through the quiet workings of time and grace. When we get there, we are never sure just how it happened, and God does not seem to care who gets the credit, as long as our growth continues. As St. Gregory of Nyssa already said in the fourth century, “Sin happens whenever we refuse to keep growing.”
― Richard Rohr, Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life

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“Christ is the artist, tenderly wiping away all the grime of sin that disfigures the human face and restoring God's image to its full beauty.”
― Gregory of Nyssa

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“The soul’s desire is fulfilled by the very fact of its remaining unsatisfied, for really to see God is never to have had one’s fill of desiring him.” —Saint Gregory of Nyssa”
― Donald Haggerty, Contemplative Provocations: Brief, Concentrated Observations on Aspects of a Life with God

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“Moses’ vision of God began with light; afterwards God spoke to him in a cloud. But when Moses rose higher and became more perfect, he saw God in the darkness.”
― Gregory of Nyssa, The Life of Moses

tags: christianity, darkness, god, light, moses, religion, spirituality, theology

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“Soon there was a much bigger world than the United States and the Roman Catholic Church, which I eventually realized were also paradoxes. The e pluribus unum (“out of many, one”) on American coinage did not include very “many” of its own people (blacks, gays, Native Americans, poor folks, and so on), and as a Christian I finally had to be either Roman or catholic, and I continue to choose the catholic end of that spectrum. Either Jesus is the “savior of the world” (John 4:42), or he is not much of a savior at all. Either America treats the rest of the world democratically, or it does not really believe in democracy at all. That is the way I see it.”
― Richard Rohr, Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life

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