Quotes About Transformation

For Jesus, the question wasn't, "How do I get into heaven?" but "How do I bring heaven here?

People aren't static; they're dynamic—endlessly complex and capable of tremendous surprise and change.

You cannot bring a fresh, new word about human flourishing and expect the old, established systems of oppression and power to stand by passively. Or, as Jesus put it, "You can't put new wine into old wineskins.

The way of Jesus is a journey, not a destination.

Spirit often reveals the ways in which we have ever so subtly submitted to the belief that this is just how it is. Spirit refuses to accept that this is just how it is, because spirit is inherently creative.

You can capture a butterfly, and pin its wings down to study the colors and shape and design, but the moment that butterfly is still and you're able to make the most precise and detailed observations about that butterfly is the moment the butterfly can't fly anymore.

Can your story be retold? Can all of the various things that have happened to you and the things you have done you'd prefer to never think about again and the embarrassing parts and the painful parts—can all of it be retold in such a way that the worst parts become the most powerful, poignant parts?

the one about Abraham leaving, is revolutionary. It's a step forward in human consciousness. You can step out of the cycle? You can leave? And head into the unknown? You can step into something that hasn't happened yet, that doesn't exist yet?

It's like I'm figuring it out, but as soon as I do, something shifts, and we get to figure it out all over again. I resist this endless figuring it all out, but over time, it starts to work a kind of magic on me.

I AM is less noun, more verb. Less a destination and more a direction.

Can you see why Jesus often began his teachings by saying "Repent!"? You know what repent means? It means to change your thinking, to see things in a new way, to have your mind renewed—all

It's very common to hear talk about heaven framed in terms of who "gets in" or how to "get in." What we find Jesus teaching, over and over and over again, is that he's interested in our hearts being transformed, so that we can actually handle heaven.

It's like there's a scale from 1 to 10, and you always would have sworn that someone or something mattered to you with a 10. But then you almost (or you actually do) lose her or him or it or them, and suddenly your heart is filled with a 17 or a 39 or a 4,291 kind of mattering. New capacities, ones you didn't know were possible before, open up inside of you.

Particles couldn't contain the fullness of Spirit, and that led to something new.

The moment you pin down the butterfly so that you can carefully study it is the exact moment in which that butterfly can no longer fly. It's the motion, the movement, the flying, that makes a butterfly a butterfly.

And now here's the twist, the mystery, the unexpected truth about admitting that takes us back to the counterintuitive power of gospel: When you come to the end of yourself, you are at that exact moment in the kind of place where you can fully experience the God who is for you.

Spirit is often lurking in whatever it is you most dislike.

The measure of a sermon is not whether it affirms what you already believe. A sermon is not a product to be consumed and then evaluated according to how good it was or whether it was pleasing or enjoyable.

Imagine the people you fear and dislike as pivotal characters in a fascinating and ultimately redemptive plot that will take years or even lifetimes for the Divine to elaborate.

If you're really listening, if you're awake to the poignant beauty of the world, your heart breaks regularly. In fact, your heart is made to break; its purpose is to burst open again and again so it can hold evermore wonders. -Andrew Harvey

The Sun, each second, transforms four million tons of itself into light, giving itself over to become energy that we, with every meal, partake of. For four million years, humans have been feasting on the Sun's energy stored in the form of wheat or reindeer. Brian Swimme

A great artist can look at an old woman, portray her exactly as she is ... and force the viewer to see the pretty girl she used to be ... more than that, he can make anyone with the sensitivity of an armadillo see that this lovely young girl is still alive

We certainly see how government can work to your detriment today, but people have forgotten what government can do for you. They've forgotten the potential of government, the power of government, to transform people's lives for the better.

The second most powerful man in the country." All his life Lyndon Johnson had been taking "nothing jobs" and making them into something—something big. And now, no sooner