• “Some periods of our growth are so confusing that we don’t even recognize that growth is happening. We may feel hostile or angry or weepy and hysterical, or we may feel depressed. It would never occur to us, unless we stumbled on a book or a person who explained to us, that we were in fact in the process of change, of actually becoming larger than we were before.

    Whenever we grow, we tend to feel it, as a young seed must feel the weight and inertia of the earth as it seeks to break out of its shell on its way to becoming a plant. Often the feeling is anything but pleasant.

    But what is most unpleasant is the not knowing what is happening. Those long periods when something inside ourselves seems to be waiting, holding its breath, unsure about what the next step should be… for it is in those periods that we realize that we are being prepared for the next phase of our life and that, in all probability, a new level of the personality is about to be revealed.”

    Alice Walker, Living by the Word: Essays

  • People who do not know where they are going or what kind of world they are heading toward, who wonder if bringing forth children into this chaotic world is not an act of cruelty rather than love, will often be tempted to be sarcastic or even cynical. They laugh at their busy friends, but have nothing to offer in place of their activity. They protest against many things, but do not know what to witness for.

    —Henri Nouwen, The Wounded Healer

  • It is hard to live in the present. The past and the future keep harassing us. The past with guilt, the future with worries. So many things have happened in our lives about which we feel uneasy, regretful, angry, confused, or, at least, ambivalent. And all these feelings are often colored by guilt. Guilt that says: “You ought to have done something other than what you did; you ought to have said something other than what you said.” These “oughts” keep us feeling guilty about the past and prevent us from being fully present to the moment.

    Worse, however, than our guilt are our worries. Our worries fill our lives with “What ifs”: “What if I lose my job, what if my father dies, what if there is not enough money, what if the economy goes down, what if a war breaks out?” These many “ifs” can so fill our mind that we become blind to the flowers in the garden and the smiling children on the streets, or deaf to the grateful voice of a friend.

    The real enemies of our life are the “oughts” and the “ifs.” They pull us backward into the unalterable past and forward into the unpredictable future. But real life takes place in the here and the now. God is a God of the present. God is always in the moment, be that moment hard or easy, joyful or painful. When Jesus spoke about God, he always spoke about God as being where and when we are. “When you see me, you see God. When you hear me you hear God.” God is not someone who was or will be, but the One who is, and who is for me in the present moment. That’s why Jesus came to wipe away the burden of the past and the worries for the future. He wants us to discover God right where we are, here and now.

    —Henri Nouwen

  • The feelings that hurt most, the emotions that sting most, are those that are absurd: the longing for impossible things; nostalgia for what never was; the desire for what could have been; regret over not being someone else.

    —Fernando Pessoa (Book: The Book of Disquiet)

  • “I have never felt a sense of home anywhere I am. In fact, all I feel is a sense of longing for another place. A place I cannot name.”

    —Karolina Waclawiak

  • Most people are afraid to die because they’ve never lived. It’s actually the fear of life that paralyzes us. So we come to the end of our life and we feel like we never did what we’re supposed to do.

    —Erwin McManus

  • There are two realities to which you must cling.  First, God has promised that you will receive the love you have been searching for. And second, God is faithful to that promise.

    So stop wandering around. Instead, come home and trust that God will bring you what you need. Your whole life you have been running about, seeking the love you desire. Now it is time to end that search. Trust that God will give you that all-fulfilling love and will give it in a human way.

    —Henri Nouwen, The Inner Voice of Love: A Journey Through Anguish to Freedom

  • It happens in an instant. It is all one long day, one endless afternoon, friends leave, we stand on the shore. Yes, he thought, I am ready, I have always been ready, I am ready at last.

    Light Years
    James Salter

  • Until finally there are almost no others, you are left alone like one flower in a great meadow, and it is autumn, yes, the days are growing shorter, the grass bends beneath the wind. And the sun comes and shines on you still, alone in that great field, the last flower, beautiful, yes, because of that, and there you are in the long, endless afternoons, waiting, waiting …

    Light Years
    James Salter

  • Such is our life! Calm and tempest alternate with each other; and time passes, passes, seeking to plunge into the abyss of eternity. Blessed is that swimmer in the sea of life, who often directs his gaze heavenward.

    —St. Ignatius (Brianchaninov)