Quotes from Sue Monk Kidd

Years later a friend said to me, "When a conventional wife with a conventional husband experiences a feminist awakening, there is bound to be a marital explosion.

In these last minutes, what did he most want to hear-that he'd been seen and heard in this world? That he'd accomplished what he'd set out to do? That he'd loved and been loved?

I'd forgotten how that sort of craving felt, how it rose suddenly and loudly from the pit of my stomach like a flock of startle birds, then floated back down in the slow, beguiling way of feathers.

How, though, could anyone be born while quarantined in this house?

Glancing behind me, I saw that the few who'd remained to walk with him were women. Where were these disciples of his? The fishermen? The men? Were women the only ones with hearts large enough to hold such anguish?

Once you wake up, can you wake up any more?

Were women the only ones with hearts large enough to hold such anguish?

THE PRACTICE OF MINDFULNESS That winter while in a bookstore I picked up a book on mindful meditation by Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh.

heard Jesus speak.

A gdy w proch siÄ™ obrócÄ™, zaÅ›piewaj nad ko??mi moimi sÅ'owa: Ona byÅ'a gÅ'osem.

Well, that's not what the Bible preaches. It says if you know the truth, it'll set you free.

I cannot ignore this murderous self: it is there. I smell it and feel it. . . . When it says: you shall not sleep, you cannot teach, I shall go on anyway, knocking its nose in. Its biggest weapon is and has been the image of myself as a perfect success: in writing, teaching and living. . . . My demon of negation will tempt me day by day, and I'll fight it, as something other than my essential self, which I am fighting to save.20

Solidarity is identifying with one another without feeling like you have to agree on every issue. It's unity, not uniformity. It's listening without rushing in to fix the problem. It's going deeper than typical ways of talking and sharing—going down to the place where souls meet and love comes, where separateness drops away and you know these women because you are these women.

She has been the keeper of home for me, and I have been the keeper of journey for her. And now we look for the lost portion in each other.

The day we gathered our daughter's bones, the valley was full of wild lilies. Do you remember? You told me to consider the lilies, that God takes care of them and will surely, then, care for us. Consider them now, my love. Consider the lilies.

I came to believe that my true identity goes beyond the outer roles I play. It transcends the ego. I came to understand that there is an Authentic 'I' within - an 'I am', or divine spark within the soul.

One day I pulled the slender volume Children's Letters to God from a bookshelf and came upon this letter from a little girl named Sylvia: "Dear God, Are boys better than girls, I know you are one but try to be fair. Sylvia."22

The words opened a raw, furious place in me. She wanted me to write? My daughter was dead. My writing was dead, too. One day had never come. I was the shattered pieces on the floor. Life had taken a mallet to me.

Reading was a kind of freedom, the only one I could give

Not frail or insubstantial, but distilled, concentrated.

Words collected in my mouth and lay there.

That there was also largeness in you. I knew you possessed a generosity of abilities that comes only rarely into the world. You knew it, too, for you wrote of it in your bowl. But we all have some largeness in us, don't we, Ana?" "What are you saying, Aunt?" "What most sets you apart is the spirit in you that rebels and persists. It isn't the largeness in you that matters most, it's your passion to bring it forth.

Life had taken a mallet to me.

Most everyone has a private torment, some voracious badger that gnaws at them without ceasing, and this was Father's.