Radical Spirit Quotes

“Humility does not necessarily require me to agree and comply with everyone else’s position, but it does demand that I be willing to understand and respect the many sides of every issue.”
― Joan D. Chittister, Radical Spirit: 12 Ways to Live a Free and Authentic Life

“Any law that violates the will of God for the good of the world is a law to be questioned. Any law that puts my submission to a system over the law of God is a law to be resisted.”
― Joan D. Chittister, Radical Spirit: 12 Ways to Live a Free and Authentic Life

“Most significant of all, perhaps, is that, of the 613 laws in the Torah, Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks points out, not one uses the word obey. God, the rabbi says, does not impose the intractable on Israel. God uses the word shema. Attend to.”
― Joan D. Chittister, Radical Spirit: 12 Ways to Live a Free and Authentic Life

“My clear obligation now is to see that God’s will for people everywhere is not being deliberately thwarted, not being ignored in favor of our own. How can we enslave a people to make our shoes and our children’s toys and our clothes in sweatshops across the world? How can we agree to buy without protest foreign imports that pay their makers—often children under twelve years old—$0.70 a day to send us what we will sell here for $125.00? How can we allow the genetic manipulation of seeds that cannot reproduce so that we become the food basket of the world as well as the arms merchant of the world? How can we count our will to power and wealth a greater good than others’ will for a decent life? And how can we call ourselves humble—spiritual—if we do?”
― Joan D. Chittister, Radical Spirit: 12 Ways to Live a Free and Authentic Life

“Most important of all, perhaps, all the childhood images of God—God the Magician, God the Santa Claus, God the wrathful Judge, God the Puppeteer—disappear. We know now that the God of Creation has shared power with us and remains with us to help us see life through. Our role is to do our part, to do our best, to trust the path.”
― Joan D. Chittister, Radical Spirit: 12 Ways to Live a Free and Authentic Life