As we open ourselves to spiritual growth, there is simply no part of our life that can be left out. Nothing is too dirty or smudged. Nothing is too ecstatic or passionate. Nothing is too mundane or ordinary. All of life is the food of our spiritual growth. We can grow closer and deeper in our relationship with God through every situation, depending on our attitude, our openness, and our awareness. Be aware of God teaching you through your life today.

Joyce Rupp

To listen is very hard, because it asks of us so much interior stability that we no longer need to prove ourselves by speeches, arguments, statements, or declarations. True listeners no longer have an inner need to make their presence known. They are free to receive, to welcome, to accept.
 
Listening is much more than allowing another to talk while waiting for a chance to respond. Listening is paying full attention to others and welcoming them into our very beings. The beauty of listening is that those who are listened to start feeling accepted, start taking their words more seriously and discovering their own true selves. Listening is a form of spiritual hospitality by which you invite strangers to become friends, to get to know their inner selves more fully, and even to dare to be silent with you.

Henry Nouwen

Before I can tell my life what I want to do with it, I must listen to my life telling me who I am.

Parker Palmer

Spiritual direction, ‘holy friendship,’ can be found in every great spiritual tradition. But the purpose is not to attach us to someone wiser than ourselves—the guru, the great guide, the spiritual master, the bodhisattva, the saint. The purpose of spiritual direction is to enable us to become holy ourselves.

Joan Chittister

The glory of God is man fully alive, and the life of man is the vision of God.

Saint Irenaeus

And the time came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.

Anaïs Nin

The splendor of the rose and the whiteness of the lily do not rob the little violet of its scent nor the daisy of its simple charm. If every tiny flower wanted to be a rose, spring would lose its loveliness.

St. Therese of Lisieux

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

T.S. Eliot, from “Little Gidding”, Four Quartets

The chief thing that separates us from God is the thought that we are separated from God. If we get rid of that thought, our troubles will be greatly reduced. We fail to believe that we are always with God and that God is part of every reality. The present moment, every object we see, our inmost nature are all rooted in God. But we hesitate to believe this until our personal experience gives us the confidence to believe in it. God constantly speaks to us through each other as well as from within. The interior experience of God’s presence activates our capacity to perceive the divine in everything else—in people, in events, in nature. We may enjoy union with God in any experience of the external senses as well as in prayer.

Thomas Keating

Take my life into Your hands at last. Do whatever You want with it. I give myself to Your love—rejecting neither the hard things nor the pleasant things You have arranged for me. Everything You have planned is good. It is all love.

Thomas Merton

Blessed be the longing that brought you here
And quickens your soul with wonder.

May you have the courage to listen to the voice of desire
That disturbs you when you have settled for something safe.

May you have the wisdom to enter generously into your own unease
To discover the new direction your longing wants you to take.

May the forms of your belonging—in love, creativity, and friendship—
Be equal to the grandeur and the call of your soul.

May the one you long for long for you.

May your dreams gradually reveal the destination of your desire.

May a secret Providence guide your thought and nurture your feeling.

May your mind inhabit life with the sureness with which your body inhabits the world.

May your heart never be haunted by ghost-structures of old damage.

May you come to accept your longing as divine urgency.

May you know the urgency with which God longs for you.

John O’Donohue, “For Longing”

I should tell you
at the outset:
this blessing will require you
to do some work.
First you must simply
let this blessing fall
from your hand,
as if it were a small thing
you could easily let slip
through your fingers,
as if it were not
most precious to you,
as if your life did not
depend on it.
Next you must trust
that this blessing knows
where it is going,
that it understands
the ways of the dark,
that it is wise
to seasons
and to times.
Then—
and I know this blessing
has already asked much
of you—
it is to be hoped that
you will rest
and learn
that something is at work
when all seems still,
seems dormant,
seems dead.
I promise you
this blessing has not
abandoned you.
I promise you
this blessing
is on its way back
to you.
I promise you—
when you are least
expecting it,
when you have given up
your last hope—
this blessing will rise
green
and whole
and new.

Jan Richardson, “Blessing the Seed”