Presence and Encounter Quotes

“Simple being is a deep sigh of relief that comes from letting go of pretense. It is also the sigh that comes from releasing a heavy burden that results from creating and managing the false selves that are substitute centers for the truth of our being. It is the sigh of release as we exchange complexity for simplicity. It is the sigh of release as we let go of preoccupations, inordinate attachments, and disordered passions. Things in the depths of our beings get aligned when we let go of these things.”
― David G. Benner, Presence and Encounter: The Sacramental Possibilities of Everyday Life

“But the self we create is a persona—a mixture of the truth of our being and the fictions we spin as we attempt to create a self in the image of an inner fantasy. The simple truth of our being gets lost in the metanarratives we spin. We become the fictions we live. Consequently, our way of being in the world is so false and unnatural that our presence is thoroughly ambiguous. It is no wonder that we find the presence of most people so clouded as to be not worth noticing, and it is no wonder that a truly unclouded presence is so luminous and so compellingly noteworthy!”
― David G. Benner, Presence and Encounter: The Sacramental Possibilities of Everyday Life

“John O’Donohue, “Where there is a depth of awareness, there is a reverence for presence. Where consciousness is dulled, distant, or blind, presence grows faint and vanishes.”
― David G. Benner, Presence and Encounter: The Sacramental Possibilities of Everyday Life

“None of us is perfectly aligned with the truth of our being. All of us live with falsity, but the magnitude of the gap between inner reality and outer appearance will always be an indication of the magnitude of the clouding of presence.”
― David G. Benner, Presence and Encounter: The Sacramental Possibilities of Everyday Life

“Let me set them out in propositional form before we reflect on them together. Presence to anything starts with presence to self. Presence to anything is constrained by presence to everything. Presence to anything is a threshold to the Transcendent.”
― David G. Benner, Presence and Encounter: The Sacramental Possibilities of Everyday Life

“But presence is not merely a gift we receive. It is a gift we give to everything and everyone around us waiting for us to turn up for potential encounter.”
― David G. Benner, Presence and Encounter: The Sacramental Possibilities of Everyday Life

“Being present is an act of trust, hope, and hospitality.”
― David G. Benner, Presence and Encounter: The Sacramental Possibilities of Everyday Life

“It is releasing distractions, preoccupations, and prejudgments and being available for absorption.”
― David G. Benner, Presence and Encounter: The Sacramental Possibilities of Everyday Life

“The key word in this last paragraph is absorption. Presence is making one’s self available for temporary absorption by someone or something.”
― David G. Benner, Presence and Encounter: The Sacramental Possibilities of Everyday Life

“Presence to the present moment brings a sense of inner stillness and peace. This comes from releasing pressing inner agendas and the stress of obsessive remembering and anxious anticipation. It represents the fruit of the inner alignment that is yours when you do just one thing at a time and you do it with presence.”
― David G. Benner, Presence and Encounter: The Sacramental Possibilities of Everyday Life

“The absence of stable knowing of presence also manifests in the fear of solitude.”
― David G. Benner, Presence and Encounter: The Sacramental Possibilities of Everyday Life

“Tolerating absence is, in essence, trusting presence—even when the one who is present to us is not physically present.”
― David G. Benner, Presence and Encounter: The Sacramental Possibilities of Everyday Life

“This disconnection of being and doing represents a misalignment of our souls that clouds our presence to ourselves and others.”
― David G. Benner, Presence and Encounter: The Sacramental Possibilities of Everyday Life