Quotes About Presence

Christians today have more in common with the Israelites wandering through a lonely and threatening desert or exiled to a hostile land than with Paul and most other New Testament writers. The Old Testament doesn't speak in the booming voice of imminent triumph. It speaks of generation after generation of the faithful and not so faithful, of successes and failures, of God's presence and God's absence.

Doubt tears down the castle walls we have built, with the false security and permanence they give, and forces us outside to walk a lonely, trying, yet cleansing road. In those times, it definitely feels like God is against us, far away, or absent altogether. But what if the darkness is actually a moment of God's presence that seems like absence, a gift of God

Wisdom is about the lifelong process of being formed into mature disciples, who wander well along the unscripted pilgrimage of faith, in tune to the all-surrounding thick presence of the Spirit of God in us and in the creation around us.

That model is built on seeing God as a relentless, compassionate inner presence in my life, always beckoning me forward. That model is one of peace, curiosity, and hopefulness and rests on my embrace of the mystery and love of God.

I am seeking to live into the sacred space of God's Presence with curiosity, hope, peace, and love of others. I believe this is the type of relationship God seeks to have with us.

We miss what the biblical writers were after if we think of belief and faith as "correct thinking" words. They are deep and hard words, more than we might have been led to expect. And they are beautiful words that move us deeper into the presence of God.

When we seek and follow wisdom in the precious few years given to us, we are truly accepting a sacred responsibility to live intentionally in the Spirit's presence. And what that looks like will be different for each of us and will likely change through the seasons of our lives.

A God who does not connect to the world around us is a God who cannot speak to us. Believing in a God who demands that we continue to adopt only biblically ancient ways of thinking of God, which are themselves rooted in their own cultural moment, is to diminish God's active presence here and now.

The New Testament story is, in other words, one big act of wisdom—a response to God's surprising presence here and now.

And either way, God is with you.

Her presence enables my absence.

When my mother didn't come back I realized that any moment could be the last. Nothing in life should simply be a passage from one place to another. Each walk should be taken as if it is the only thing you have left. You can demand something like this of yourself as an unattainable ideal. After that, you have to remind yourself about it every time you're sloppy about something. For me that means 250 times a day.

Maybe it's wrong when we remember breakthroughs to our own being as something that occurs in discrete, extraordinary moments. Maybe falling in love, the piercing knowledge that we ourselves will someday die, and the love of snow are in reality not some sudden events; maybe they were always present. Maybe they never completely vanish, either.

When you let your mind go blank,' he said, 'or when you stop talking for a long time, something happens. Time becomes different. It goes away. It doesn't come back until you start to say something.

Nothing in life should simply be a passage from one place to another. Each walk should be taken as if it is the only thing you have left.

En enstaka glödlampa i taket kastade ett milt, gyllene ljus över de lyssnande djuren. Han hade läst hos Martin Buber att det är de mest andliga människorna som står djuren närmast. Också hos Eckehart. I Guds rike är de nära. Det är hos djuren man ska söka Gud.

Even then one sensed that it must be a rule. That time could not be something that passed all by itself but was something one had to hold one to. And that, when one let go of it, that moment was very significant.

Charisma often flows from total self-confidence.

It's supposed to go bing-bing or bong-bong or ding-ding when tires go over it. The one at Dave's stopped working several years ago, and he won't have it fixed because he feels as I do - that none of us need to be reminded we exist.

How you refill. Lying there. Something like happiness, just like water, pure and clear pouring in. So good you don't even welcome it, it runs through you in a bright stream, as if it has been there all along.

Jasper's weight on my leg an aching absence.

I breathed and thanked something that was not exactly God, something that was still here. I could almost imagine that it was still before when we were young and many things still lived.

If one concentrated on one thing and then another—the good things in each moment—the fear wrapped deep in the gut seemed to unswell, like an iced bruise. Still there, but quieter.

Then it sits with you, the Pain puts its arm over your shoulders. It is your closest friend. Steadfast. And at night you can't bear to hear your own breath unaccompanied by another and underneath the big stillness like a score is the roaring of the cataract of everything being and being torn away. Then. The Pain is lying beside your side, close. Does not bother you with the sound even of breathing.