Days of Awe and Wonder Quotes

“Days pass, and the years vanish, and we walk sightless among miracles. Fill our eyes with seeing and our minds with knowing. Let there be moments when your Presence, like lightning, illumines the darkness in which we walk. Help us to see, wherever we gaze, that the bush burns, unconsumed. And we, clay touched by God, will reach out for holiness and exclaim in wonder, “How filled with awe is this place . . .”
― Marcus J. Borg, Days of Awe and Wonder: How to Be a Christian in the Twenty-first Century

“The roots of the word “repent” are very interesting and suggest something quite different—not intensification of guilt and contrition. When we look at the Greek roots of the word “repentance,” the verb is metanoata. The noun is metanoia. Meta means “beyond.” The noun from which the second part of the word “repent” is derived is nous in Greek, and it means “mind.” Putting that together, “to repent” means “to go beyond the mind that you have.”
― Marcus J. Borg, Days of Awe and Wonder: How to Be a Christian in the Twenty-first Century

“To put that threefold summary into three phases, there was to Jesus, first, a Spirit dimension, second, a wisdom dimension, and, third, a justice dimension.”
― Marcus J. Borg, Days of Awe and Wonder: How to Be a Christian in the Twenty-first Century

“the classic and traditional Christian affirmation about Jesus, namely, that Jesus is for us as Christians the decisive revelation of what a life full of God is like.”
― Marcus J. Borg, Days of Awe and Wonder: How to Be a Christian in the Twenty-first Century

“The conflict among Christians about whether or not Jesus was God is grounded in two different understandings of the Gospels—and the New Testament and the Bible as a whole.”
― Marcus J. Borg, Days of Awe and Wonder: How to Be a Christian in the Twenty-first Century

“A theology that takes mystical experiences seriously leads to a very different understanding of the referent of the word “God.” The word no longer refers to a being separate from the universe, but to a reality, a “more,” a radiant and luminous presence that permeates everything that is. This way of thinking about God is now most often called “panentheism.” Though the word is modern, only about two centuries old, it names a very ancient as well as biblical way of thinking about God. Its”
― Marcus J. Borg, Days of Awe and Wonder: How to Be a Christian in the Twenty-first Century

“And yet another word for infidelity in the biblical tradition is idolatry, namely, to be faithful to something other than God.”
― Marcus J. Borg, Days of Awe and Wonder: How to Be a Christian in the Twenty-first Century

“And faith came to mean what Bishop Robinson called it some thirty-five years ago: believing forty-nine impossible things before breakfast.”
― Marcus J. Borg, Days of Awe and Wonder: How to Be a Christian in the Twenty-first Century

“William Sloane Coffin said when his son Alex died in a car wreck at the age of twenty-four. Ten days later, Coffin delivered Alex’s eulogy at Riverside Church in New York City, where he was senior minister. Among many other things, he said this:”
― Marcus J. Borg, Days of Awe and Wonder: How to Be a Christian in the Twenty-first Century

“back in 1999 when lists were being compiled of the most important books of the twentieth century, William James’s The Varieties of Religious Experience appeared at number two on the list of the one hundred most important nonfiction”
― Marcus J. Borg, Days of Awe and Wonder: How to Be a Christian in the Twenty-first Century

“Williams James, in his magnificent book The Varieties of Religious Experience—now one hundred years old.”
― Marcus J. Borg, Days of Awe and Wonder: How to Be a Christian in the Twenty-first Century

“Diana Eck, a professor at Harvard University and director of the Pluralism Project. The title of the book is A New Religious America.”
― Marcus J. Borg, Days of Awe and Wonder: How to Be a Christian in the Twenty-first Century

“Huston Smith’s book Why Religion Matters”
― Marcus J. Borg, Days of Awe and Wonder: How to Be a Christian in the Twenty-first Century

“theologian Dorothee Soelle, who died in April 2003. It’s a book I really commend to you. The main title is The Silent Cry. The subtitle is Mysticism and Resistance. The”
― Marcus J. Borg, Days of Awe and Wonder: How to Be a Christian in the Twenty-first Century

“I need both of these words, “compassion” and “justice,” for compassion without justice easily gets individualized or sentimentalized, and justice without compassion easily sounds like politics.”
― Marcus J. Borg, Days of Awe and Wonder: How to Be a Christian in the Twenty-first Century

“The religious form of conventional wisdom with its excessive certitude blinds us to the mystery and wonder of life.”
― Marcus J. Borg, Days of Awe and Wonder: How to Be a Christian in the Twenty-first Century

“The human Jesus is the Word made flesh. The human Jesus is the wisdom of God. The human Jesus is the Spirit of God embodied in human life. In short, the meaning of all the statements about Jesus show us what a life full of God is like.”
― Marcus J. Borg, Days of Awe and Wonder: How to Be a Christian in the Twenty-first Century

“South African Jesus scholar Albert Nolan makes the same point when he says in a quotation that I’ve grown very fond of: “Jesus is a much underrated man. When we deprive him of his humanity, we deprive him of his greatness.”
― Marcus J. Borg, Days of Awe and Wonder: How to Be a Christian in the Twenty-first Century

“Does that make him ordinary? No. I think he is one of the two most remarkable human beings who ever lived. I don’t really care who the other one was—my point is that what we see in Jesus is a human possibility. That’s what makes him so remarkable. If he was also divine, then he’s not all that remarkable. If he had the knowledge and power of God, he could have done so much more.”
― Marcus J. Borg, Days of Awe and Wonder: How to Be a Christian in the Twenty-first Century

“As a faithful Jew, he would have recited the Shema upon rising and retiring each day, the heart of which affirmed: “Hear, O Israel: The LORD is our God, the LORD alone. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might”
― Marcus J. Borg, Days of Awe and Wonder: How to Be a Christian in the Twenty-first Century

“The bottom line is it is going to get us all; we’re all going to die”—then your response is likely to be one of self-protection in various ways. You will try to find security against the devouring power that will consume us all.”
― Marcus J. Borg, Days of Awe and Wonder: How to Be a Christian in the Twenty-first Century

“The second of the ancient and authentic meanings of faith is fidelitas in Latin. The English, of course, is “fidelity.” This is faith as fidelity to a relationship, fidelity to the relationship with God, in other words faithfulness. Again, it has very little to do with what we believe with our heads; it’s faithfulness to that relationship. The opposite of faith as fidelity is not, once again, doubt. It is, to say the obvious, infidelity, unfaithfulness. In the biblical tradition, this was frequently referred to as adultery.”
― Marcus J. Borg, Days of Awe and Wonder: How to Be a Christian in the Twenty-first Century

“Jesus’s vivid experience of the reality of Spirit radically challenges our culture’s way of seeing reality.”
― Marcus J. Borg, Days of Awe and Wonder: How to Be a Christian in the Twenty-first Century

“To put this second claim somewhat differently, the world of Spirit and the world of ordinary experience are seen as not completely separate, but as intersecting at a number of points.”
― Marcus J. Borg, Days of Awe and Wonder: How to Be a Christian in the Twenty-first Century

“Jesus was deeply affected and concerned about the sufferings and inequities of his day. So much so that he dedicated his entire life to the welfare of others.”
― Marcus J. Borg, Days of Awe and Wonder: How to Be a Christian in the Twenty-first Century

“Given all of life’s ambiguities and the reality of impermanence and suffering, our existence is remarkable, wondrous. It evokes awe and amazement. We need to pay attention. Really pay attention. Lest we become blind to the awe and wonder that fills our days.”
― Marcus J. Borg, Days of Awe and Wonder: How to Be a Christian in the Twenty-first Century

“And here I return to Christianity. Why be a Christian in the twenty-first century? Because it gives us a vision. And a hope. And a way. The language of the New Testament talks about the “kingdom of God.” Which is here, now. Which is what this world would be like if God was king and Caesar was not. The vision of Christianity for a just, sane, nonviolent world is not utopian. It is within our capacity. And such capacity requires that we take up the crucible of transformation. Transformation, individually and collectively, is the key ingredient for liberation. Without our participation in transformation and embodying lives of compassion, the kingdom of God will not come. It is up to us, and we are not alone. . . . . As a benediction, I close with this passage from the Jewish Sabbath Prayer Book:

Days, pass, and the years vanish,
And we walk sightless among miracles.
Fill our eyes with seeing and our minds with knowing.
Let there be moments when your Presence,
Like lightening, illumines the darkness in which we walk.
Help us to see, wherever we gaze, that the bush burns, unconsumed.
And we, clay touched by God, will reach out for holiness and exclaim in wonder,
“How filled with awe is this place. . .”
Marianne Borg – intro to Days of Awe and Wonder, Marcus Borg.”
― Marcus J. Borg, Days of Awe and Wonder: How to Be a Christian in the Twenty-first Century

“And here I return to Christianity. Why be a Christian in the twenty-first century? Because it gives us a vision. And a hope. And a way. The language of the New Testament talks about the “kingdom of God.” Which is here, now. Which is what this world would be like if God was kind and Caesar was not. The vision of Christianity for a just, sane, nonviolent world is not utopian. It is within our capacity. And such capacity requires that we take up the crucible of transformation. Transformation, individually and collectively, is the key ingredient for liberation. Without our participation in transformation and embodying lives of compassion, the kingdom of God will not come. It is up to us, and we are not alone. . . . . As a benediction, I close with this passage from the Jewish Sabbath Prayer Book:

Days, pass, and the years vanish,
And we walk sightless among miracles.
Fill our eyes with seeing and our minds with knowing.
Let there be moments when your Presence,
Like lightening, illumines the darkness in which we walk.
Help us to see, wherever we gaze, that the bush burns, unconsumed.
And we, clay touched by God, will reach out for holiness and exclaim in wonder,
“How filled with awe is this place. . .”
Marianne Borg – intro to Days of Awe and Wonder, Marcus Borg.”
― Marcus J. Borg, Days of Awe and Wonder: How to Be a Christian in the Twenty-first Century