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

“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

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

“Parker Palmer observes, "A leader is a person who must take special responsibility for what's going on inside him or her self, inside his or her consciousness, lest the act of leadership create more harm than good.”
― Ruth Haley Barton, Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership: Seeking God in the Crucible of Ministry