Quotes About Presence

Missions then is less about the transportation of God from one place to another and more about the identification of a God who is already there [...] You see God where others don't. And then you point him out. So the issue isn't so much taking Jesus to people who don't have him, but going to a place and pointing out to the people the creative, life-giving God who is already present in their midst.

This is the order of things then: First, training ourselves to be present in the moment with what is there. Second, developing the attitude of self-acceptance so that whatever arises is OK, thus coming to terms with ourselves. Third, abandoning all goals.

When you meditate you cannot clear your mind, you cannot stop thoughts, you cannot get rid of emotions,

I try to stay in touch with my friends who are far away, and I do a bad job of that, but I carry them with me.

I thought, There is nowhere else in the universe I would rather be at this moment. I could count the places I would not rather be. I've always wanted to see New Zealand, but I'd rather be here.

One such father, decades ago now, John Quinn, a student at Humboldt State College in Arcata, California, made newspaper headlines when he chained himself to his laboring wife in order to foil the hospital ban on his presence. His explanation is a classical example of the increased awareness of the younger generation: "I love my wife. I feel it's my moral right as a husband and father to be there.

Whenever you have a clash of opposites in your being and neither will give way to the other (the bush will not be consumed and the fire will not stop), you can be certain that God is present. We dislike this experience intensely and avoid it at any cost; but if we can endure it, the conflict-without-resolution is a direct experience of God. A

There is no need for you to formally promote certain doctrines: your very presence becomes a teaching example to others, a liberating art that opens their imagination to the potential freedom they also can experience. (p. 79)

Always remember; wherever you go; there you are!

In large measure, who we are with respect to any choice is where we are, attentionally, in the moment before the choice.

Because I love you," I said. "Because you are in my life like the music at the edge of silence.

I'm breathing . . . are you breathing too? It's nice, isn't it?

Charisma is not so much getting people to like you as getting people to like themselves when you're around.

What you don't realize as a kid is that if your parents are always going to be there for you, they aren't going to be somewhere else doing exciting and glamorous things.

If you haven't time to respond to a tug at your pants leg, your schedule is too crowded.

If you have a mom, there is nowhere you are likely to go where a prayer has not already been.

Charisma is not just saying hello. It's dropping what you're doing to say hello.

Life is a series of family photos in which eventually you stop showing up.

In nature we see where God has been. In our fellow man, we see where He is still at work.

People are charming because they aren't aware of their charm.

be sure of having used to the full all that is communicated by immobility and silence.

Beauty, the eternal Spouse of the Wisdom of God and Angel of his Presence thru' all creation.

Dijkstra once said, "Testing shows the presence, not the absence, of bugs." In other words, a program can be proven incorrect by a test, but it cannot be proven correct. All that tests can do, after sufficient testing effort, is allow us to deem a program to be correct enough for our purposes.

Remember, your own image and presence are materials you can control.