All of us have problems, but where do we escape to during these problems? Do we run to people, do we run to priests, or do we run to God?
When we’re in a situation that requires saving, where do we go? We go to other saviors. I’m running to other things besides Christ.
Category: DISCERNMENT
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Such persons are so caught up in God’s love that everything else can only receive its meaning and purpose in the context of that love. They ask only one question: “What is pleasing to the Spirit of God?” And as soon as they have heard the sound of the Spirit in the silence and solitude of their hearts, they follow its promptings even if it upsets their friends, disrupts their environment, and confuses their admirers.
—Henri Nouwen, Discernment: Reading the Signs of Daily Life
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“The question of where to live and what to do is really insignificant compared to the question of how to keep the eyes of my heart focused on the Lord. I can be teaching at Yale, working in the bakery at the Genesee Abbey, walking with poor children in Peru, or writing a book, and still feel totally useless.”
—Henri Nouwen -
Whenever you feel a sense of “this is just the way it is”, there is probably some bad faith there. For years I assumed I can’t expect to get any writing done after 5pm — the energy or focus just isn’t there, so I’m practically sentenced to spend the evening reading, watching something on a screen, going out or otherwise not working.
This is an old, self-defeating lie, and there’s no telling what it’s cost me. There’s no barrier at 5pm. The line is completely imaginary. There’s just a strong aversion to my work when I get close to that time of day, and I pretend it’s some kind of natural law.
Our lives are riddled with imaginary lines. Bedtime isn’t a real thing. It’s a choice, every time. Going to work is a choice. Eating lunch is a choice. Letting ourselves down is a choice. Meeting a deadline is a choice, and missing it is a choice, as much as we’d like to believe each of those outcomes was inevitable all along.
Noticing bad faith doesn’t cure it, but it makes it harder to ignore. We can let ourselves suffer certain problems for years, if we think they’re happening to us the way weather does. But once you recognize a particular condition in your life as ultimately voluntary, its days are probably numbered.
I can’t describe to you how strong a feeling it is, but once it’s past 5pm, it truly feels like I can’t write. It seems like the part of my brain that does that is shuttered like a storefront on a Sunday evening.
But when I actually do sit down at six or seven or eight and start typing, the words come out like any other time. The door was always open, I just walked by it again and again and again.
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Some, I know not why (for I have not learned to pry conceitedly into the gifts of God) are by nature, I might say, prone to temperance, or silence, or purity, or modesty, or meekness, or contrition. But others, although almost their own nature itself resists them in this, to the best of their power force themselves; and though they occasionally suffer defeat yet, as men struggling with nature, they are in my opinion higher than the former.
St. John Climacus, The Ladder of Divine Ascent
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“Not only do my choices and their consequences effect those around me immediately, but my choices also effect those far away and those not yet born.”
—Fr. Michael Gillis
“Your lives in your homes are a responsibility, and have a deep effect in the generations coming after you.”
—H.H. Pope Shenouda III
“The life of each one of us does not end at death on this earth and birth into heaven. We place a seal on everyone we meet. This responsibility continues after death, and the living are related to the dead for whom they pray. In the dead we no longer belong completely to the world; in us the dead still belong to history. Prayer for the dead is vital; it expresses the totality of our common life.”
—Metropolitan Anthony Bloom
Every human being is an incalculable force, bearing within him something of the future. To the end of time, our daily words and actions will bear fruit, either good or bad; nothing that we have once given of ourselves will perish, but our words and works, handed on from one to another, will continue to do good or harm to remote generations. This is why life is a sacred thing, and we ought not to pass through it thoughtlessly, but to appreciate its value and use it so that, when we are gone, the sum total of good in the world may be greater.
—Servant of God Elisabeth Leseur -
In my life, wherever I was, I accepted everything as the Will of God and lived as if I were to stay in that place forever. This is the only way God wants us to be. Never a thought about the future. The future is His! The whole earth is but a waiting room for Eternity. Are we doing what we should at every moment of our life? Do we love according to the Commandments of God? Do we follow the example of Christ? …We must think always, “How would I behave if Christ were here, visible, near us, everywhere and at all times?” This should be the way of our life… Do not think about tomorrow, for “the morrow will take care of itself.” He Who has freed you from bondage will – if you believe – guide you, like Moses, to the Promised Land… Have no fear… If you have faith, follow the Good Shepherd and everything will be joy, peace, tranquility, and love for everyone and everything.
—Mother Gavrilia (The Ascetic of Love)
SO GOOD QUOTES 