Quotes about Transcendence

It is natural indeed. However it's not the only thing God has in mind for us. We are not meant to live merely by what is natural. We need to learn to live by the supernatural. Ordinary fare will not fill the emptiness in our hearts...

And yet I know that in her death, she has found the freedom she could not find in life. She is no longer confined to a room, a bed, and a body that no longer works.

It would seem that unless we see through and beyond the physical, we shall not even see the physical as we ought to see it: as the very vehicle for the glory of God

Half light, half shade,She stood, a sight to make an old man young.

The great world's altar-stairs,That slope through darkness up to God.

You will not be in heaven two seconds before you cry out, "Why did I place so much importance on things that were so temporary? What was I thinking? Why did I waste so much time, energy, and concern on what wasn't going to last?

Whatever we say about God always rests within the larger reality of what we can't say; meaning always resides within a larger mystery; knowing always takes place within unknowing; whatever has been revealed to us surrounded by that which hasn't been revealed to us.

If there is a divine being who made everything, including us, what would our experiences with this being look like? The moment God is figured out with nice neat lines and definitions, we are no longer dealing with God. We are dealing with somebody we made up. And if we made him up, then we are in control. And so in passage after passage, we find God reminding people that he is beyond and bigger and more.

This is a book about seeing, about becoming more and more alive and aware, orienting ourselves around the God who I believe is the ground of our being, the electricity that lights up the whole house, the transcendent presence in our tastes, sights, and sensations of the depth and dimension and fullness of life, from joy to agony to everything else.

So when we talk about God we're using language, language that employs a vast array of words and phrases and forms to describe a reality that is fundamentally beyond words and phrases and forms.

An image of God doesn't contain God, in the same way a word about God or a doctrine or a dogma about God isn't God; it only points to God.

God is not a question about what may or may not be up there or above or out there— God is what we're unquestionably in.