• “When you think of the mystical experience of many saints, you may ask yourself whether joy and suffering aren’t aspects of the same phenomenon on a very high level. An analogy, crazy for sure, comes to mind: extreme cold burns.  It seems nearly certain, no, it is certain, that we can only go to God through suffering and that this suffering becomes joy because it finally is the same thing.”

    —Jacques Maritain

  • It is surprising that many speak only of pains in sickness: without mentioning the blessings and benefits of sickness! Some could reach a state of grumble and distress, and even they could ask God “Why have you done all this to me?” But you should not be like that. But in your sickness you thank God for the blessings you received because of this sickness: Say to Him, I thank you God for this sickness, which gave me more time for prayer or repentance and granted me humbleness and broken heart and a feeling of my weakness. I thank you God for this sickness which made me feel the love of people. I thank you because this sickness gave me a period of isolation which I spent in bed – which was necessary to me – at least to search out my soul and be with you.

    —H.H. Pope Shenouda III, The Life of Thanksgiving

  • Frankl went on to say it wasn’t pleasure mankind was looking for, that men only sought pleasure when they couldn’t find meaning. If a man has no sense of meaning, Frankl argued, he will numb himself with pleasure.

    —Donald Miller, Scary Close: Dropping the Act and Finding True Intimacy

  • What if part of God’s message to the world was you? The true and real you?
    …
    The more fully we live into ourselves, the more impact we will have. Acting may get us the applause we want, but taking a risk on being ourselves is the only path toward true intimacy. And true intimacy, the exchange of affection between two people who are not lying, is transforming.

    —Donald Miller, Scary Close: Dropping the Act and Finding True Intimacy

  • MARTHA GRAHAM ONCE said, that each of us is unique and if we didn’t exist something in the world would have been lost. I wonder, then, why we are so quick to conform—and what the world has lost because we have.

    —Donald Miller, Scary Close: Dropping the Act and Finding True Intimacy

  • I always felt two whiskeys in while everybody I talked to was as polished as a news anchor.

    —Donald Miller, Scary Close: Dropping the Act and Finding True Intimacy

  • “So in every test, let us say: ‘Thank you, my God, because this was needed for my salvation.’”

    —Elder Paisios of Mount Athos

  • Almost without exception the most beautiful, selfless people I’ve met are ones who’ve experienced personal tragedy.

    —Donald Miller, Scary Close: Dropping the Act and Finding True Intimacy

  • I reminded him of all the people who love him and all the people he’s loved. I told him I thought it was unfair for a man to be judged by a moment, by a season. We are all more complicated than that. Certainly my friend will have to face the consequences of his actions, and those consequences will be severe. He is being pruned, as it were. His limbs are being cut back. But I hope he doesn’t live into his failures the way so many people do.

    —Donald Miller, Scary Close: Dropping the Act and Acquiring a Taste for True Intimacy

  • “The natural property of the lemon tree is such that it lifts its branches upwards when it has no fruit, but the more the branches bend down the more fruit they bear. Those who have the mind to understand will grasp the meaning of this.”

    —St. John Climacus, The Ladder of Divine Ascent