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

“being angry is not the same thing as being called.”
― Ruth Haley Barton, Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership: Seeking God in the Crucible of Ministry

“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

“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