Finding More Than We Seek.

"Wherever we go in the mountains, or indeed in any of God's wild fields, we find more than we seek."

(John Muir. My First Summer In The Sierras)

Over Supplied

"..... the deadly habit of endless hoarding for the future is formed, which smothers all real life, and is continued long after every reasonable need has been over-supplied."

(John Muir. My First Summer In The Sierras)

Taking the Pain For Freedom.

"Gladly, if I could, I would live forever on pine buds, however full of turpentine and pitch, for the sake of this grand independence."

(John Muir. My First Summer In The Sierras)

The Art of Leaving

"The life of faith is, in many ways, about “learning the sacred art of departing.” It is about learning how to leave the dominant narratives of our culture."

(Walter Brueggemann: during series of lectures at Regent College)

Not my Tribe? I Kill You.

"When you are at the tribal level of consciousness.  Everything is; is he in our group or not."

(Richard Rohr. Part #3 on Newsworthy With Norsworthy )

Rejected Past

"For a few days I pack around another little weight as I walk the streets of Rio. The sudden appearance of my father into my thoughts tend to confuse and complicate my perceptions of Brazil. There is a new connection here that I don't immediately make, which I am not really very interested in making. I have rejected almost all of my past that is not involved with Ecuador and want to feel that my life only began to turn intense and interesting after I had decided in middle-aged to leave my country, to reject if I could my middle-class prejudices, and to be remade by confronting a strange and uncertain culture. I want to feel that if I am now facing a kind of crisis in my life that all its causes will be found in the immediate past. But something strange that I resist is coming to life. When I stroll through the more disreputable parts of town - the wharves, the cheap hotels, bars, and whore houses across from the docks where the steamships lie, I have the funny feeling that I am somehow walking in the footsteps of my father, moving behind him on the rundown tree-shaded streets. I resent the arrival of the uninvited guest, there is nothing left for us to say, and I walk away from him when I spy him ahead of me sadly standing before a monument or coming out of a restaurant. In the day it is easy to channel my thoughts to other things when my father suddenly appears, brought back to life out of the most trivial things."

(Moritz Thomsen. The Saddest Pleasure: A Journey on Two Rivers)

Seeking Loneliness

"I had come seeking loneliness for what I might learn from it and thought that having names to fall back on my delay or protect me from the full implications of the experience. I had figured that it would be like taking an Air Force survival course with bars of chocolate hidden in your pockets. I was, I hope, like a man going into a surgery that would leave him, after a time of difficult recuperation, cured."

(Moritz Thomsen. The Saddest Pleasure: A Journey on Two Rivers)

Bag Of Flesh Ineptly Translates My Qualities

"I catch sight of a stern figure staring at me from the mirrors of store fronts. Amazed, I peer closely, for it is someone I scarcely recognize. I am not happy with his bag of flesh that so ineptly translates my qualities."

(Moritz Thomsen. The Saddest Pleasure : A Journey on Two Rivers)

Black And White Disillusionment

"The normal magnificence of black people makes white people too boring to contemplate, My eyes find no mystery in their pale skins, in the familiar symptoms of their disintegration or their mediocrity They are as invisible to me for their color as I am to them for my age. And so many of the blancos are old; they look like
first-generation European immigrants, their faces sullen with failure or disillusion. I do not want to look at old people and recognise myself."

( Moritz Thomsen. The Saddest Pleasure: A Journey on Two Rivers)

Your "Christian" False God

If your conception of God is radically false, then the more devout you are the worse it will be for you.  You are opening your soul to be moulded by something else. You had much better be an atheist.

-- William Temple

Religious Authority And Power Went Down Wrong

“Creation has been taken down a very different path than we desired. In your world the value of the individual is constantly weighed against the survival of the system, whether political, economic, social, or religious—any system actually. First one person, and then a few, and finally even many are easily sacrificed for the good and ongoing existence of that system. In one form or another this lies behind every struggle for power, every prejudice, every war, and every abuse of relationship. The ‘will to power and independence’ has become so ubiquitous that it is now considered normal.”“It’s not?”“It is the human paradigm,” added Papa,"
(William P. Young. The Shack)

Leadership Abuse, Control, And Manipulation

“When you chose independence over relationship, you became a danger to each other. Others became objects to be manipulated or managed for your own happiness. Authority, as you usually think of it, is merely the excuse the strong use to make others conform to what they want.”
~ Sarayu

(William P. Young. The Shack)

Human Leadership Hierarchy Hollow

“Mackenzie, we have no concept of final authority among us, only unity. We are in a circle of relationship, not a chain of command or ‘great chain of being’ as your ancestors termed it. What you’re seeing here is relationship without any overlay of power. We don’t need power over the other because we are always looking out for the best. Hierarchy would make no sense among us. Actually, this is your problem, not ours.”

“Really? How so?”
“Humans are so lost and damaged that to you it is almost incomprehensible that people could work or live together without someone being in charge.”

“But every human institution that I can think of, from political to business, even down to marriage, is governed by this kind of thinking; it is the web of our social fabric,” Mack asserted.

“Such a waste!” said Papa, picking up the empty dish and heading for the kitchen.

“It’s one reason why experiencing true relationship is so difficult for you,” Jesus added. “Once you have a hierarchy you need rules to protect and administer it, and then you need law and the enforcement of the rules, and you end up with some kind of chain of command or a system of order that destroys relationship rather than promotes it. You rarely see or experience relationship apart from power. Hierarchy imposes laws and rules and you end up missing the wonder of relationship that we intended for you.”

(William P. Young. The Shack)

God's Cure..... Not Punishment

"But he asked anyway, “Honestly, don’t you enjoy punishing those who disappoint you?” At that, Papa stopped her preparations and turned toward Mack. He could see a deep sadness in her eyes. “I am not who you think I am, Mackenzie. I don’t need to punish people for sin. Sin is its own punishment, devouring you from the inside. It’s not my purpose to punish it; it’s my joy to cure it.”

(William P. Young. The Shack)

God is Especially Fond Of You

She stopped and looked at him. “Mackenzie, I have no favorites; I am just especially fond of him.”“You seem to be especially fond of a lot of people,”Mack observed with a suspicious look. “Are there any who you are not especially fond of?”She lifted her head and rolled her eyes as if she were mentally going through the catalog of every being ever created. “Nope, I haven’t been able to find any. Guess that’s jes’ the way I is.”
~Papa
( William P. Young. The Shack )

Life is Precious - Because We Die

"... my father once looked at a dying bird lying on its side against the curb near our house....

"Is it dead papa?" I was six and could not bring myself to look at it.
"Yes," I heard him say in a sad and distant way.
"Why did it die?"
"Everything that lives must die."
"Everything?"
"Yes."
"You, too, papa? And Mama?"
"Yes."
"And me?"
"Yes," he said. Then he added a Yiddish "But may it be only after you live a long and good life, my Asher."

I couldn't grasp it. I forced myself to look at the bird. Everything alive would one day be as still is that bird?
"Why?" I asked......
Why?"
"So life would be precious, Asher. Something that is yours forever is never precious."

(My name is Asher Lev. Chaim Potok)

Words Make Us Feel Illuminated

"The bad thing about words is that they make us feel as if we were illuminated and understanding everything. But, when we turn and face the world, we see that reality is completely different from that which we discussed or heard. Because of this, a warrior seeks to act, and not waste time in useless conversation. Through action, he discovers the meaning of that which occurs in his day-to-day life, and takes creative and original decisions."

(Paulo Coelho: Warrior Of The Light - Vol 2 )

Believing What We Were Told

"From the moment we are born, people tell us that the world is like this and like that, this way, that way. It is natural that - for a certain period of time - we end up believing what we are told. But we must soon push these ideas aside and discover our own way of living reality."

(Paulo Coelho: Warrior Of The Light vol 2)

A Thousand Year Tree

"Wish I could live, like these junipers, on sunshine and snow, and stand beside them on the shore of Lake Tenaya for a thousand years. How much I should see, and how delightful it would be!"

(John Muir. My First Summer In The Sierras)

A Terrestrial Eternity

"The west is flaming in gold and purple, ready for the ceremony of the sunset, and back I go to camp with my notes and pictures, the best of them printed in my mind as dreams. A fruitful day, without measured beginning or ending. A terrestrial eternity. A gift of good God."

(John Muir. My First Summer In The Sierras)

Holiness, of Cold, Or Beauty?

"Something simple, warm, intimate, genuine; this was holy. Holiness had always been a cold and sterile concept to Mack, but this was neither. Concerned that any movement on his part might shatter the moment, he simply closed his eyes and folded his hands in front of him."

( William P. Young. The Shack )

Waiting for Me

"A man can keep his sanity and stay alive as long as there is at least one person who is waiting for him."
(Henri Nouwen. The wounded Healer)

Innovation Doesn't Ask Your Permission

"Innovation doesn’t ask for approval.
It just happens—much to the annoyance of existing power structures, which tend to be about preserving what has been."

(Carey Nieuwhof)

Almost None Kind Of Faith

"As much as you are able, rest in what trust you have in me, no matter how small, okay?
Mack had lowered his head and was looking at the floor. “She knows,” he thought. Small? His “little” must be barely to the right of none."

(William P. Young. The Shack)

I Don't Understand God! Good!

“To begin with, that you can’t grasp the wonder of my nature is rather a good thing. Who wants to worship a God who can be fully comprehended, eh? Not much mystery in that.”

( William P. Young. The Shack)

Yours Signs Don't Guide Others

"Many masters have made the mistake of using their signs in order to guide their disciples.
What happens is that when people begin the spiritual search, they enter unknown waters, and feel insecure. So they try grabbing hold of the first thing held out to them - and in doing this, they abandon the aspect of adventure, only to become slaves to the hand guiding them."

(Paulo Coelho : Warrior Of The Light Vol 2 )

Pain Clips Wings.

"Mack, pain has a way of clipping our wings and keeping us from being able to fly.” She waited a moment, allowing her words to settle. “And if left unresolved for very long, you can almost forget that you were ever created to fly in the first place.” ~God to Mack

(William P. Young. The Shack)