Bernardine W.

“Your desire for more of God than you have right now, your longing for love, your need for deeper levels of spiritual transformation than you have experienced so far is the truest thing about you. You might think that your woundedness or your sinfulness is the truest thing about you or that your giftedness or your personality type or your job title or your identity as husband or wife, mother or father, somehow defines you. But, in reality, it is your desire for God and your capacity to reach for more of God than you have right now that is the deepest essence of who you are.”
― Ruth Haley Barton, Sacred Rhythms: Arranging Our Lives for Spiritual Transformation

“Almighty God, whose Son our Savior Jesus Christ was lifted high upon the cross that he might draw the whole world to himself: Mercifully grant that we who glory in the mystery of our redemption may have the grace to take up our cross and follow him; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen.”
― Phyllis A. Tickle, The Divine Hours (Volume One): Prayers for Summertime: A Manual for Prayer

“The truth dazzles gradually,” wrote Emily Dickinson, “or else the world would go blind.”
― Robert Benson, In Constant Prayer

“Because we do not rest we lose our way.... Poisoned by the hypnotic belief that good things come only through unceasing determination and tireless effort, we can never truly rest. And for want of rest our lives are in danger.”
― Ruth Haley Barton, Invitation to Solitude and Silence: Experiencing God's Transforming Presence