Tara Owens

“Often what we call “play” is competitive or compulsive, because the aesthetic dimension of true play, its holy uselessness, goes against our grain.”
― Margaret Guenther, Holy Listening: The Art of Spiritual Direction

“The critical issue on the journey with God is not “Am I happy?” but “Am I free?”
― Peter Scazzero, Emotionally Healthy Spirituality: It's Impossible to Be Spiritually Mature, While Remaining Emotionally Immature

“No act of virtue can be great if it is not followed by advantage for others. So, no matter how much time you spend fasting, no matter how much you sleep on a hard floor and eat ashes and sigh continually, if you do no good to others, you do nothing great.”
― John Chrysostom

“I want to beg you as much as I can . . . to be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves. . . . Do not now seek answers which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer. . . . Take whatever comes with great trust, and if only it comes out of your will, out of some need of your innermost being, take it upon yourself and hate nothing”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, Spiritual Direction: Wisdom for the Long Walk of Faith