In the Shelter Quotes

“It has taken years to continue to live into the truth that if I believe we are from God and for God, then we are from Goodness and for Goodness. To greet sorrow today does not mean that sorrow will be there tomorrow. Happiness comes too, and grief, and tiredness, disappointment, surprise and energy. Chaos and fulfilment will be named as well as delight and despair. This is the truth of being here, wherever here is today. It may not be permanent but it is here. I will probably leave here, and I will probably return. To deny here is to harrow the heart. Hello to here.”
― Pádraig Ó Tuama, In the Shelter: Finding a Home in the World

“The Christian story of incarnation in the body of a boy- a boy whose ancestors were both famous and infamous – is one that can spur us towards living with the courage that is indigenous to us. To be human is to be in the image of something good, and image comes from imagination. To be human is to be in the imagination of God, and the imagination is the source of integrity as well as cracks. To be born is to be born into a story of possibility, a story of failure, a story of imagination and the failure of imagination. To be born is to be born with the possibility of courage. Hello to courage.”
― Pádraig Ó Tuama, In the Shelter: Finding a Home in the World

“The only place to begin is where I am, and whether by desire or disaster, I am here. My being here is not dependent on my recognition of the fact. I am here anyway. But it might help if I could learn to look around.”
― Pádraig Ó Tuama, In the Shelter: Finding a Home in the World

“When we are in a moment of courage – whether we call that God’s voice, or indigenous bravery – it is the body that tells us a deep truth; it is the body that speaks to us, and it is from the body that the courage comes. I have a friend, Kellie, and when she speaks courageously – and she speaks courageously often – you can read the truth from her body. Her fingers shake a little bit, and her mouth, while it is shaping strong words, is also shaking with the fear that demonstrates the depth of her courage. Hello to fear. Hello to the courage that comes from the same place as fear. Hello to the truth of the body.”
― Pádraig Ó Tuama, In the Shelter: Finding a Home in the World

“Neither I nor the poets I love found the keys to the kingdom of prayer and we cannot force god to stumble over us where we sit. But I know that it's a good idea to sit anyway. So every morning I sit, I kneel, waiting, making friends with the habit of listening, hoping that I'm being listened to. There, I greet God in my own disorder. I say hello to my chaos, my unmade decisions, my unmade bed, my desire and my trouble. I say hello to distraction and privilege, I greet the day and I greet my beloved and bewildering Jesus. I recognize and greet my burdens, my luck, my controlled and uncontrollable story. I greet my untold stories, my unfolding story, my unloved body, my own love, my own body. I greet the things I think will happen and I say hello to everything I do not know about the day. I greet my own small world and I hope that I can meet the bigger world someday. I greet my story and hope that I can forget my story during the day, and hope that I can hear some stories, and greet some surprising stories during the long day ahead. I greet God, and I greet the God who is more God than the God I greet. Hello to you all, I say, as the sun rises above the chimneys of North Belfast. Hello.”
― Pádraig Ó Tuama, In the Shelter: Finding a Home in the World

“It occurs to me that courage comes from the same place as fear, and where there is fear, there is the possibility of courage.”
― Pádraig Ó Tuama, In the Shelter: Finding a Home in the World

“The man here tells us a truth that is awful - we baptise ourselves with names that are far from the only truth about ourselves.”
― Pádraig Ó Tuama, In the Shelter: Finding a Home in the World

“To name a place requires us to be in a place. It requires us to resist dreaming of where we should be and look around where we are.”
― Pádraig Ó Tuama, In the Shelter: Finding a Home in the World

“What I do know is that it can help to find the words to tell the truth of where you are now. If you can find the courage to name “here”—especially in the place where you do not wish to be—it can help you be there. Instead of resenting another’s words of gladness or pain, it may be possible to hear it as simply another location. They are there and I am here. At another point, we will be in different locations, and everybody will pass by many locations in their life. The pain is only deepened when the location is resented or, even worse, unnamed. Hello to here.”
― Pádraig Ó Tuama, In the Shelter: Finding a Home in the World

“you can find the courage to name “here”—especially in the place where you do not wish to be—it can help you be there.”
― Pádraig Ó Tuama, In the Shelter: Finding a Home in the World

“But testimony, if told or heard unwisely, can be a colonization of a single experience into a universal requirement.”
― Pádraig Ó Tuama, In the Shelter: Finding a Home in the World

“When we are towards the end of ourselves, we begin to believe that we are only what we struggle with. The man here tells us a truth that is awful - we baptize ourselves with names that are far from the only truth about ourselves.”
― Pádraig Ó Tuama, In the Shelter: Finding a Home in the World

“Hello to the courage that comes from the same place as fear.”
― Pádraig Ó Tuama, In the Shelter: Finding a Home in the World

“is convenient, particularly convenient, to tell stories of the past lives—especially our own past lives—that create a strong distinction between good and evil. The genealogy of Matthew’s Gospel shows us that what may have once been considered scandalous is, with the greater wisdom of hindsight, demonstrated to have been motivated by courage.”
― Pádraig Ó Tuama, In the Shelter: Finding a Home in the World

“The practice of courage is needed most in situations where it is most threatened, and it is often those who have the most to lose who are the ones from whom the most courage is needed.”
― Pádraig Ó Tuama, In the Shelter: Finding a Home in the World

“If it’s true that it helped, does it finally matter how it happened?”
― Pádraig Ó Tuama, In the Shelter: Finding a Home in the World

“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. Annie Dillard”
― Pádraig Ó Tuama, In the Shelter: Finding a Home in the World

“The man here tells us a truth that is awful—we baptize ourselves with names that are far from the only truth about ourselves.”
― Pádraig Ó Tuama, In the Shelter: Finding a Home in the World

“To be forgotten is one thing. To be remembered with disgrace is another.”
― Pádraig Ó Tuama, In the Shelter: Finding a Home in the World

“knew that somehow, if I could only settle into a different reading of truth, I could find in prayer words both generous and fierce.”
― Pádraig Ó Tuama, In the Shelter: Finding a Home in the World