Quotes About Reflection

Before transformation, sin is any kind of moral mistake; afterward, sin is a mistake about who you are and whose you are.

The first half of life is discovering the script, and the second half is actually writing it and owning it. So

the eyes with which you will look back at God will be the same eyes with which God first looked at you.

To take the Scriptures seriously is not to take them literally. Literalism is invariably the lowest and least level of meaning. Most

I believe the contemplative mind is the mind of Christ.

I doubt if you can see the image of God (Imago Dei) in your fellow humans if you cannot first see it in rudimentary form in stones, in plants and flowers, in strange little animals, in bread and wine, and most especially cannot honor this objective divine image in yourself.

Thomas Merton, the American monk, pointed out that we may spend our whole life climbing the ladder of success, only to find when we get to the top that our ladder is leaning against the wrong wall. Most

Organized religion is an accountability system that holds your feet to the fire long enough to know what the issues really are, who God might just be, and what your own limitations might also be.

Without an inner life, our outer prayer will soon become superficial, ego-centered, and even counterproductive on the spiritual path.

When you get your "Who am I?" question right, all the "What should I do?" questions tend to take care of themselves. The very fact that so many religious people have to so vigorously prove and defend their salvation theories makes one seriously doubt whether they have experienced divine mirroring at any great depth.

God can help you get what you want, which is still a self-centered desire, instead of God's much better role—which is to help you know what you really desire (Luke 11:13; Matthew 7:11).

We don't think ourselves into new ways of living. We live ourselves into new ways of thinking.

If you can see silence as the ground of all words and the birth of all words, then you will find that when you speak, your words will be more well-chosen and calm. Francis

There is a deeper voice of God, which you must learn to hear and obey in the second half of life.

Just do it better yourself and don't waste any time criticizing others or the past! This, in fact, purifies your own commitment and motivation.

One of the great surprises is that humans come to full consciousness precisely by shadowboxing, facing their own contradictions, and making friends with their own mistakes and failings. People who have had no inner struggles are invariably both superficial and uninteresting.

The ability to stand back and calmly observe my inner dramas, without rushing to judgment, is foundational for spiritual seeing.

Most of us tend to think of the second half of life

Contemplation is waiting patiently for the gaps to be filled in, and it does not insist on quick closure or easy answers.

Am I willing to walk into the wilds of my interior life without knowing what I'll find?

JULIAN OF NORWICH AND THE FIRST

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It takes a huge push, much self-doubt, and some degree of separation for people to find their own soul and their own destiny apart from what Mom and Dad always wanted them to be and do.

To stay on the surface of anything is invariably to miss its message—even the surface meaning of our sinfulness.