Without Stories

"Without stories, the land turns into real estate."

Mark Agley

Disqualify Truth

"We routinely disqualify testimony that would plead for extenuation. That is, we are so persuaded of the rightness of our judgment as to invalidate evidence that does not confirm us in it. Nothing that deserves to be called truth could ever be arrived at by such means."

—Marilynne Robinson, The Death of Adam

Cloistered Spirituality

"He realized he was stuck, and Sunday prayers and hymns weren’t cutting it anymore, if they ever really had. Cloistered spirituality seemed to change nothing in the lives of the people he knew, except maybe Nan. But she was special. God might really love her. She wasn’t a screw-up like him. He was sick of God and God’s religion, sick of all the little religious social clubs that didn’t seem to make any real difference or affect any real changes. Yes, Mack wanted more, and he was about to get much more than he bargained for."

(Paul Young. The Shack )

Deciphered By the Proper Religious Authorities.

".... the thought of God passing notes did not fit well with his theological training. In seminary he had been taught that God had completely stopped any overt communication with moderns, preferring to have them only listen to and follow sacred Scripture, properly interpreted, of course. God’s voice had been reduced to paper, and even that paper had to be moderated and deciphered by the proper authorities and intellects."

(Paul Young. The Shack)

Muslims Took Me In

"You need to know that this is deeply personal. I live among Muslims who have taken me in, fed me, given up their bed for me, cared for me when I wrecked my motorcycle, and have patiently listened to me massacre their language until I could communicate and be a friend."

(K. Hoch. Friend Working in a West African Country)

When Its Too Easy

"It's hard to be a Christian where it is easy to be a Christian & it is easy to be Christian where it's hard to be one"

Richard John Neuhaus

What Is Necessary?

"Because I always believed that the spiritual doesn’t necessarily involve sacrifice and pain. But, as someone I met on this journey said, one must learn what is necessary, not what one wishes."

( Paulo Coelho )

Guide Book Pilgrimage

:..... one can often ruin a good pilgrimage by reading all the leaflets, books, guidelines on the Internet, friends’ comments, and arrive at the place knowing everything one ought to be discovering for oneself, not allowing room for the most important element of any journey - the unexpected."

(Paulo Coelho: Warrior Of The Light Volume 1)

Serving The Big Something Awful?

"Reading and writing I enjoyed, but religion not so much. When I was a boy, God was a stained-glass ceiling, a deity way up and out there, remote, big, and harsh. There is a descriptive phrase I’ve used for my early view of God, taken from Flannery O’Connor’s “Turkey” story: God was the “Something Awful.”

( Brennan Manning. All Is Grace)

Your Shame On Me

"She grew angry. “Stop that! Stop saying that. You stop that now!”
My mother then stormed toward me and began punching me, over and over, to the point where I fell on the floor. She straddled me and continued to punch me, screaming, “Shut up! Shut up!”
My grandmother then entered the room, and her calm voice halted things. “Amy, you better stop. You’re going to hurt him.”This is what I meant about disarming: She didn’t come in shouting at my mother, as one would imagine she would do. She was calm and somehow knew that her gentle approach would make my mother stop. Whether it was immediate or gradual, I don’t remember. All I know is that the punching stopped. There had been occasions before that moment when I questioned my value as a person, but that experience, when I was eight years old, confirmed my unworthiness. I felt like I would disappear into a pile of ashes.
Shame—what happened when my mother, the dragon, huffed and puffed and blew my self down....

... so was the childhood of my parents and probably their parents. As my friend Richard Rohr said, “If we don’t learn to transform the pain, we’ll transfer it.” I realized my mother wasn’t the dragon; she was another victim of the dragon. But the dragon doesn’t die easily, so the shame just kept passing down the generations. I fear I’ve passed it along as well.

(Brennan Manning. All Is Grace)

Transfer Your Pain

“If we don’t learn to transform the pain, we’ll transfer it.”

(Richard Rohr)

Forgiveness

"Where did Christians ever get the idea that we could hold forgiveness ransom to an apology?"

- Karl Ingersoll

The Great Sadness

The Great Sadness had draped itself around Mack’s shoulders like some invisible but almost tangibly heavy quilt. The weight of its presence dulled his eyes and stooped his shoulders. Even his efforts to shake it off were exhausting, as if his arms were sewn into its bleak folds of despair and he had somehow become part of it. He ate, worked, loved, dreamed and played in this garment of heaviness, weighed down as if he were wearing a leaden bathrobe—trudging daily through the murky despondency that sucked the color out of everything."

~ William P. Young. The Shack

Lonely Secrets

"Nothing makes us so lonely as our secrets."

—Paul Tournier

What God Uses To Teach?

The Warrior of the Light has learned that God uses solitude to teach us how to live with other people.
He uses rage to show us the infinite value of peace.
He uses boredom to underline the importance of adventure and spontaneity.
God uses silence to teach us to use words responsibly.
He uses tiredness so that we can understand the value of waking up.
He uses illness to underline the blessing of good health.
God uses fire to teach us about water.
He uses earth to explain the value of air.
He uses death to show us the importance of life."

(Paulo Coelho : Warrior Of The Light - Short Notes On Accepting Failure, Embracing Life )

Living Your Contradictions

It was dark by the time she finished speaking. The two of them sat watching the moon rising.
“Many of the things you told me contradict each other,” he said.

She got up.

“Goodbye,” she said. “You knew that the bells at the bottom of the sea were not just a legend, but you could only hear them when you realized that the wind, the seagulls, and the sound of the palm fronds were all part of the pealing of the bells.

“In just the same way, the Warrior of the Light knows that everything around him—his victories, his defeats, his enthusiasm,
and his despondency—form part of his Good Fight. And he will know which strategy to use when he needs it. A Warrior does not try to be coherent; he has learned to live with his contradictions.”

( Paulo Coelho : Warrior Of The Light - Short Notes On Accepting Failure, Embracing Life. )

The Command To Move On

"When the order to move on comes, the Warrior looks at all the friends he has made during the time that he followed the path.

He taught some to hear the bells of a drowned temple, he told others stories around the fire.

His heart is sad, but he knows that his sword is sacred and that he must obey the orders of the One to whom he offered up his struggle.

Then the Warrior thanks his traveling companions, takes a deep breath and continues on, laden with memories of an unforgettable journey."

( Paulo Coelho : Warrior Of The Light - Short Notes On Accepting Failure, Embracing Life. )

Commandments That Must Be Disobeyed

First: God is sacrifice. Suffer in this life and you will be happy in the next.

Second: People who have fun are childish. Remain tense at all times.

Third: Other people know what is best for us because they have more experience.

Fourth: Our duty is to make other people happy. We must please them even if that means making major sacrifices.

Fifth: We must not drink from the cup of happiness; we might get to like it and we won’t always have it in our hands.

Sixth: We must accept all punishments. We are guilty.

Seventh: Fear is a warning. We don’t want to take any risks.

These are the commandments that no Warrior of the Light can obey.

(Paulo Coelho : Warrior Of The Light - Short Notes On Accepting Failure, Embracing Life)

Sadly Alive

“You, however, are sad. That proves that your soul is still alive.”

( Paulo Coelho : Warrior Of The Light - Short Notes On Accepting Failure, Embracing Life)

Emotional Rubbish

"There is such a thing as emotional rubbish; it is produced in the factories of the mind. It consists of pain that has long since passed and is no longer useful. It consists of precautions that were important in the past, but that serve no purpose in the present."

~Paulo Coelho : Warrior Of The Light - Short Notes On Accepting Failure, Embracing Life.

A Boat

“The boat will show you that she is alive and loves life, just as humans do.”

(Greek Fisherman Alexandros Kritsalis in Parikia)

If You Believe In God

"He wanted a narrative to help him express to them not only the depth of his love, but also to help them understand what had been going on in his inside world. You know that place: where there is just you alone—and maybe God, if you believe in him. Of course, God might be there even if you don’t believe in him. That would be just like him. He hasn’t been called the Grand Interferer for nothing."

( William P. Young. The Shack )

In A World Of Talkers

"In a world of talkers, Mack is a thinker and doer. He doesn’t say much unless you ask him directly, which most folks have learned not to do. When he does speak you wonder if he isn’t some sort of alien who sees the landscape of human ideas and experiences differently than everybody else.

The thing is, he usually makes uncomfortable sense in a world where most folks would rather just hear what they are used to hearing, which is often not much of anything. Those who know him generally like him well enough, providing he keeps his thoughts mostly to himself. And when he does talk, it isn’t that they stop liking him—rather, they are not quite so satisfied with themselves."

(William P. Young. The Shack)

Treating Pain With Clichés

"I worry about people who know why bad things happen or think they can treat hurt with words and pain with clichés."

(Leonard Sweet. The Well Played Life)

Your Brutal Tips & Techniques Bible

"We must return to the scriptures for the story that it is and stop approaching it as if it is an encyclopedia, looking for "tips and techniques.""

(John Eldredge)