Quotes About Presence

Instead of always looking to get fulfillment from my loved ones and the other blessings in my life, I can simply enjoy them for what they are.

As I grow through love, so grows my joy, ever more present, ever more constant.

if you want to talk to God, it's best to do it where you don't have to shout to have yourself heard.

Holiness comes wrapped in the ordinary. There are burning bushes all around you. Every tree is full of angels. Hidden beauty is waiting in every crumb.

There's nothing like sorrow to get your attention. It is almost as though sorrow pulls presence out of you. In the midst of sorrow there's nothing to do but be there and celebrate the hurt. We celebrate the hurt through holy screams. Holy screams come from the heart. They are screams that people often, in their ignorance, try to smother. Don't let them take your screams away too early. Holy resignation comes only after holy screams.

My God is not imprisoned anywhere, not in the Bible nor the tabernacle. Real Presence is everywhere, and those with the hearts of children revel in it.

Part of doing something is listening. We are listening. To the sun. To the stars. To the wind.

She seems to have had the ability to stand firmly on the rock of her past while living completely and unregretfully in the present.

When I am constantly running there is no time for being. When there is no time for being there is no time for listening.

If thou could'st empty all thyself of self Like to a shell dishabited Then might He find thee on the ocean shelf And say This is not dead and fill thee with Himself instead. But thou art all replete with very thou And hast such shrewd activity That when He comes He says This is enow Unto itself - 'twere better let it be It is so small and full there is no room for me.

If we knew each morning that there was going to be another morning, and on and on and on, we'd tend not to notice the sunrise,or hear the birds, or the waves rolling into shore. We'd tend not to treasure our time with the people we love.

God doesn't stop the bad things from happening; that's never been part of the promise. The promise is: I am with you. I am with you now until the end of time.

And joy, Grandfather would remind me, joy is the infallible sign of the presence of God.

We knew the promise had never been safety, or that bad things would not happen if we were good and virtuous. The promise is only that God is in it with us, no matter what it is.

Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ in quiet, Christ in danger, Christ in hearts of all that love me, Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.

In this way I have sat in many rooms and walked in many gardens, and it has been as though I were a stick of furniture or a branch of a tree. I seem to have caused no sense of restraint or embarrassment. People have been able to talk freely in front of me, almost as freely as though I weren't there. I suppose some might think this a great compliment; it has given me a curious feeling of nonexistence. Now

Too often, we think of mysticism as a way to abandon the world. But the greatest practitioners of mystical spirituality know that it actually moves us back into the world.

Getting out of the way and listening is not something that comes easily, either in art or in prayer.

If we knew each morning that there was going to be another morning, and on and on and on, we'd tend not to notice the sunrise, or hear the birds, or the waves rolling into shore. We'd tend not to treasure our time with the people we love. Simply the awareness that our mortal lives had a beginning and will have an end enhances the quality of our living. Perhaps it's even more intense when we know that the termination of the body is near, but it shouldn't be.

238. I want you to know, if you ever read this, there was a time when I would rather have had you by my side than any one of these words; I would rather have had you by my side than all the blue in the world. 239. But now you are talking as if love were a consolation. Simone Weil warned otherwise. "Love is not consolation," she wrote. "It is light." 240. All right then, let me try to rephrase. When I was alive, I aimed to be a student not of longing but of light.

That this blue exists makes my life a remarkable one, just to have seen it. To have seen such beautiful things. To find oneself placed in their midst. Choiceless.

Start making yourself at home in your life as it is.

Give the present the gift of your full attention.

Everything we have learned in Outliers says that success follows a predictable course. It is not the brightest who succeed. If it were, Chris Langan would be up there with Einstein. Nor is success simply the sum of the decisions and efforts we make on our own behalf. It is, rather, a gift. Outliers are those who have been given opportunities—and who have had the strength and presence of mind to seize them.