Quotes about Connection

Relate to people as a conqueror and they will hide their real nature from you. Violence is the brother and distrust the sister of this way of life.

Prayer has meaning only if it is necessary and indispensable. Prayer is prayer only when we can say that without it, we cannot live.

When we become persons who transcend the limitations of our individual characters, the God who is love can reveal himself in our midst and bind us into a community.

If you see in me more than my function or job, then I can slowly communicate to you on a deeper level. I can become a person to you.

For Paul, praying is like breathing. It cannot be interrupted without mortal danger.

Pain suffered alone feels very different from pain suffered alongside another. Even when the pain stays, we know how great the difference if another draws close, if another shares with us in it.

If we do not know we are the beloved sons and daughters of God, we are going to expect someone in the community to make us feel that we are. We will expect someone to give us that perfect, unconditional love. They cannot.

The question is not "How am I to find God?" but "How am I to let myself be found by him?

There are many times when I cannot pray, when I am too tired to read the gospels, too restless to have spiritual thoughts, too depressed to find words for God, or too exhausted to do anything. But I can still look at these images so intimately connected with the experience of love.

When we dare to lift our cat and let our friends know what is in it, they will be encouraged to lift their cups and share with us their own anxiously hidden secrets. The greatest healing often takes place when we no longer feel isolated by our shame and guilt and discovered that others often feel what we feel and think what we think and have the fears, apprehensions, and preoccupations we have.

In and through solitude we do not move away from people. On the contrary, we move closer to them through compassionate ministry.

This invitation to a meal is an invitation to intimacy with God.