Quotes about Perception

Jesus wasn't so much handing out information as reshaping our imaginations.

God reveals himself, that is, in creation and in Christ, in ways we can see and hear and touch and taste, in place and person. Beauty is the term we apply to these hints of transcendence, these perceptions that there is more going on here than we can account for. And that is how we come to identify as apostles of the gospel the men and women and, yes, children, who use words and images and sounds and textures to wake us up to beauty latent and implicit all around us.

Ziklag: for me this became the premier biblical site for realizing that when we get serious about the Christian life, we eventually end up in a place and among people decidedly uncongenial to what we expected. At least uncongenial to what I expected. That place and people is often called a church. It is hard to get over the disappointment that God, having made an exception in my case, didn't seem to call nice, accomplished, courteous, alert people to worship.

I do not have more information after reading a poem; I have more experience.

But to those who can't see it yet, everything comes in stories, creating readiness, nudging them toward receptive insight.

Somehow, though he moves right in front of me, I don't see him; quietly but surely he's active, and I miss it.

Even though innocent, anything I say incriminates me; blameless as I am, my defense just makes me sound worse.

These labels are inevitable and in many ways useful but the common element to them is that they are impersonal and partial; when they become all-encompassing, which they too frequently do, they distort our core identity. They say almost nothing, or what is even worse, the wrong thing, about who we actually are.

It is not easy to convey a sense of wonder, let alone resurrection wonder, to another. It's the very nature of wonder to catch us off guard, to circumvent expectations and assumptions. Wonder can't be packaged, and it can't be worked up. It requires some sense of being there and some sense of engagement.

For the good, when praised, feel something of disgust, if to excess commended.

My first big disappointment is always, why don't I look like Julie Christie? Then I realise I don't look remotely like Julie Christie, and that's always a great sadness to me. Because I used to think I might have done, at one time. And I'm too fat. And I'm too old. You always see your faults, you see.

I'd like to grow up and be beautiful. I know it doesn't matter, but it doesn't hurt.