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Kindle Notes & Highlights
the Good, the force that is beyond our comprehension but that in our pain or supplication or relief we don’t need to define or have proof of or any established contact with.
Prayer means that, in some unique way, we believe we’re invited into a relationship with someone who hears us when we speak in silence.
even if we are bitter or insane or broken.
Prayer is taking a chance that against all odds and past history, we are loved and chosen, and do not have to get it together before we show up.
Light reveals us to ourselves, which is not always so great if you find yourself in a big disgusting mess, possibly of your own creation.
Air and light heal; they somehow get into those dark, musty places, like spiritual antibiotics.
life is much bigger than we give it credit for,
grace can be the experience of a second wind, when even though what you want is clarity and resolution, what you get is stamina and poignancy and the strength to hang on.
Stories to tell or hear—either way, it’s medicine.
“Thanks” is a huge mind-shift, from thinking that God wants our happy chatter and a public demonstration and is deeply interested in our opinions of the people we hate, to feeling quiet gratitude, humbly and amazingly, without shame at having been so blessed.
Rumi said, “There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground,”
Sin is not the adult bookstore on the corner. It is the hard heart, the lack of generosity, and all the isms, racism and sexism and so forth.
Gratitude is peace.
“Help me not be such an ass.” (This is actually the fourth great prayer, which perhaps we will address at another time.)
“Wow” means we are not dulled to wonder.
When we are stunned to the place beyond words, we’re finally starting to get somewhere.
Poetry is the official palace language of Wow.
The best works of art are like semaphores of our experience, signaling what we didn’t know was true but do now.
you ask your higher power for help, and then cause further need for help by procrastinating, or refusing to cooperate with simple instructions that follow sincere petition. And yet even so, grace, progress, blessings continue to be given to you,
So it is, when we do the best we can, and we leave the results in God’s good hands. Amen.
