Matt Mcmanus

“Here the highest knowledge Is unbounded. That which gives things Their thusness cannot be delimited by things. So when we speak of ‘limits,’ we remain confined To limited things. The limit of the unlimited is called ‘fullness.’ The limitlessness of the limited is called ‘emptiness.’ Tao is the source of both. But it is itself Neither fullness nor emptiness. Tao produces both renewal and decay, But is neither renewal or decay. It causes being and non-being But is neither being nor non-being. Tao assembles and it destroys, But it is neither the Totality nor the Void.”
― Thomas Merton, The Way of Chuang Tzu

“The more limited our language is, the more limited we are; the more limited the literature we give to our children, the more limited their capacity to respond, and therefore, in their turn, to create. The more our vocabulary is controlled, the less we will be able to think for ourselves. We do think in words, and the fewer words we know, the more restricted our thoughts. As our vocabulary expands, so does our power to think.”
― Madeleine L'Engle, Madeleine L'Engle Herself: Reflections on a Writing Life

“Every single moment of our lives asks us to be charmed, captivated, enticed, thrilled, and pleased. We don’t wait for such moments to fall out of the sky; we just put ourselves on high alert to catch these moments as they happen. After all, like certain bodily functions, discovering the holy in all things is indeed a process. It is also an impulse, like smiling, which does not await the arrival of joy but actually precedes and hastens it. Being alert to the sacred in our midst is a choice that gets more meaningful as we practice it.”
― Gregory Boyle, Barking to the Choir: The Power of Radical Kinship

“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