As frustrating as my time in grad school felt, it also helped tremendously because it challenged me to figure out what it was I thought I wanted.
Just by the very nature of our birth, we are on the spiritual journey.
One of the great purposes of religion itself is being hindered by an exclusive-ism that doesn't take into account the common elements and values that we actually share.
While doing centering prayer, the practice is to let go of any thought or perception. The priority is to be as silent as possible and when that is not possible to let the noise of the thoughts be the sacred symbol for a while, without analyzing them.
All religions proclaim the advantages of peace, loving one another, and "doing to others what we would like them to do to us. "
In centering prayer, the sacred word is not the object of the attention but rather the expression of the intention of the will.
If you accept the belief that baptism incorporates us in the mystical body of Christ, into the divine DNA, then you might say that the Holy Spirit is present in each of us, and thus we have the capacity for the fullness of redemption, of transformation.
I fear feeling my heart break a second time, because I'm not sure I could survive it. I'd rather live alone than risk the pain.
The phone's not ringing off the hook, but that's ok by me. I feel very fortunate, work to me has become a kind of hobby.
Often the contempt of vainglory becomes a source of even more vainglory, for it is not being scorned when the contempt is something one is proud of.
If there is a God, why did he make me an atheist?