Matt Mcmanus

“Compassion isn’t just about feeling the pain of others; it’s about bringing them in toward yourself. If we love what God loves, then, in compassion, margins get erased. “Be compassionate as God is compassionate,” means the dismantling of barriers that exclude.”
― Gregory Boyle, Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion

“We are so afraid of open spaces and empty places that we occupy them with our minds even before we are there. Our worries and concerns are expressions of our inability to leave unresolved questions unresolved and open-ended situations open-ended. They make us grab any possible solution and answer that seems to fit the occasion. They reveal our intolerance of the incomprehensibility of people and events and make us look for labels or classifications to fill the emptiness with self-created illusions.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, Reaching Out

“Symptoms of growth may look like breakdown or derangement; the more we are allowed by the love of others and by self-understanding to live through our derangement into the new arrangement, the luckier we are. It is unfortunate when our anxiety over what looks like personal confusion or dereliction blinds us to the forces of liberation at work.”
― Martin Laird, Into the Silent Land: A Guide to the Christian Practice of Contemplation

“So much of what he knew about religion struck him as total bullshit; he was disarmed when the fathers freely admitted that some stories were in fact pious fictions. But, judging his character, they dared him to cut through what he called the crap: to find the core of truth, carefully preserved and offered”
― Mary Doria Russell, The Sparrow