Quotes about Connection

The Russian mystics describe prayer as descending with the mind into the heart and standing there in the presence of God. Prayer takes place where heart speaks to heart, that is, where the heart of God is united with the heart that prays. Thus knowing God becomes loving God, just as being known by God is being loved by God.

People who read your ideas tend to think that your writings reflect your life.

We have probably wondered in our many lonesome moments if there is one corner in this competitive, demanding world where it is safe to be relaxed, to expose ourselves to someone else, and to give unconditionally. It might be very small and hidden, but if this corner exists, it calls for a search through the complexities of our human relationships in order to find it.

When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives means the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand.

Compassion- which means, literally, to suffer with- is the way to the truth that we are most ourselves, not when we differ from others, but when we are the same. Indeed the main spiritual question is not, What difference do you make? but What do you have in common? It is not excelling but serving that makes us most human. It is not proving ourselves to be better than others but confessing to be just like others that is the way to healing and reconciliation.

A good death is a death in solidarity with others. To prepare ourselves for a good death, we must develop or deepen this sense of solidarity.

Spiritual formation is not about steps or stages on the way to perfection. It's about the movements from the mind to the heart through prayer in its many forms that reunite us with God, each other, and our truest selves.

To pray, that is, to listen to the voice of the One who calls us the beloved, is to learn that that voice excludes no one. Where I dwell, God dwells with me and where God dwells with me I find all my sisters and brothers. And so intimacy with God and solidarity with all people are two aspects of dwelling in the present moment that can never be separated.

One thing is becoming clear to me: God became flesh for us to show us that the way to come in touch with God's love is the human way, in which the limited ad partial affection that people can give offers access to the unlimited and complete love that God has poured into the human heart. God's love cannot be found outside this human affection, even when that human affection is tainted by the brokenness of our time.

The children of God have more in common then they have differences.

Whether or not you choose to keep your covenant to always remember Him, He always remembers you.

Friends... they cherish one another's hopes. They are kind to one another's dreams.