Quotes About Spirituality

I said, "Why should we contain God any longer in our poor and narrow conceptions, which are so often no more than grandiose reflections of ourselves? Let us set him free.

As I looked at their faces, love filled me up. It was the wise and difficult love that reminds parents that all we can really do is be true to our own spiritual unfolding and trust that our examples will one day help them be true to theirs. For children have a guiding spiritual wisdom inside of them, too.

That's when I got true religion. I didn't know to call it religion back then, didn't know Amen from what-when, I just knew something came into me that made me feel the water belonged to me. I would say, that's my water out there.

There's a place inside you that's inviolate- it's the surest part of you, a piece of Sophia herself. You'll find your way there, when you need to.

All shall be well," Yaltha had told me, and when I'd recoiled at how trite and superficial that sounded, she'd said, "I don't mean that life won't bring you tragedy. I only mean you will be well in spite of it. There's a place in you that is inviolate. You'll find your way there, when you need to. And you'll know then what I speak of.

If Jacob's ladder reached all the way to heaven, so, too, did ours.

I am the whore and the holy woman I am the wife and the virgin

Spiritual whittling is an encounter with Mystery, waiting, the silence of inner places—all those things most folks no longer have time for.

In Christian language, this is plain, old-fashioned surrender—giving up our conscious will and striving, and yielding instead to the inner kingdom. The soul-work involved in this internal restructuring is, I believe, the deepest meaning of spiritual becoming.

Then, on the roof, as close to the sky as I could get, I danced. My body was a reed pen. It spoke the words I couldn't write: I dance not for men to choose me. Not for God. I dance for Sophia. I dance for myself.

am the first and the last I am she who is honored and she who is mocked I am the whore and the holy woman I am the wife and the virgin I am the mother and the daughter I am she . . . Do not be afraid of my power . . . I am the knowledge of my name I am the name of the sound and the sound of the name THE THUNDER: PERFECT

I didn't go in hungry to turn back to God's law—I went desiring to cleanse myself of fear and deadness of spirit. I went repenting of my silence and of the meagerness of my hope. I went thinking of the newborn self I'd dreamed of birthing.

I didn't know to call it religion back then, didn't know Amen from what-when

Forming a critique is essential to the birth and development of a spiritual feminist consciousness. Until a woman is willing to set aside her unquestioned loyalty and look critically at the tradition and convention of her faith, her awakening will never fully emerge. The extent of her healing, autonomy, and power is related to the depth of the critique she is able to integrate into her life.

The human soul needs a divine mother, a feminine aspect to balance out the masculinity of God, and yes, Mary had carried it off the best she could.

Plus, there were the children to consider. They were, for me, the biggest concern of all...But what if I challenged the institution? Not setting the proper and accepted religious example for them conjured up images of the bad mother, the worst mother. Yet wouldn't the example of a mother being true to her journey, taking a stand against patriarchy, and questing for spiritual meaning and wholeness, even when it meant exiting the circles of orthodoxy, be a worthwhile example?

He waited actively—letting go, descending into the depths of his soul, listening, opening himself to change, praying.

Knock upon yourself as on a door, and walk upon yourself as on a straight road. For if you walk on that road, you cannot get lost, and what you open for yourself will open. GOSPEL OF THOMAS

I began to glimpse the chasm that lay between the inclinations of my soul and my ability to carry them out. I had had a clear, pure moment of knowing that compelled me to risk my religion and move beyond patriarchy at church and within my spiritual life, but actually doing it? Now that was something else altogether...Yes, I was withering within these things. Internally I felt trapped.

I am the first and the last I am she who is honored and she who is mocked I am the whore and the holy woman I am the wife and the virgin I am the mother and the daughter I am she . . . Do not be afraid of my power . . . I am the knowledge of my name I am the name of the sound and the sound of the name THE THUNDER: PERFECT MIND

and poet Ntozake Shange put it, "i found god in myself / and i loved her / i loved her

That is where God was to be found. Not in the erasing of the experience, but in the embracing of it.

I am the first and the last I am she who is honored and she who is mocked I am the whore and the holy woman I am the wife and the virgin I am the mother and the daughter I am she . . . Do not be afraid of my power . . . I am the knowledge of my name I am the name of the sound and the sound of the name

Brother Anthony leaned forward in his chair. "Contemplative waiting is consenting to be where we really are," he explained. "People recoil from it because they don't want to be present to themselves. Such waiting causes a deep existential loneliness to surface, a feeling of being disconnected from oneself and God. At the depths there is fear, fear of the dark chaos within ourselves.