Longing is a compass that guides us through life. We may never get what we really want, that's true, but every step along the way will be determined by it.
Joan D. ChittisterRead
To be contemplative we must remove the clutter from our lives, surround ourselves with beauty, and consciously, relentlessly, persistently, give clutter away until the tiny world for which we ourselves are responsible begins to reflect the raw beauty that is God.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the importance of decluttering our lives to appreciate beauty and spirituality.
Joan D. Chittister's quote suggests that in order to truly reflect the divine beauty of God in our lives, we need to eliminate the unnecessary distractions or 'clutter' that entangles us. By consciously choosing to surround ourselves with beauty and persistently giving away what does not serve us, we can create a space that nurtures contemplation and allows the essence of divinity to shine through in our personal world.
In practice
In a mindfulness workshop, we discussed the importance of decluttering our minds and surroundings.
Longing is a compass that guides us through life. We may never get what we really want, that's true, but every step along the way will be determined by it.
Feminism without spirituality runs the risk of becoming what it rejects: an elitist ideology, arrogant, superficial and separatist, closed to everything but itself. Without a spiritual base that obligates it beyond itself, calls it out of itself for the sake of others, a pedagogical feminism turned in on itself can become just one more intellectual ghetto that the world doesn’t notice and doesn’t need.
We talk religion in a world that worships the bread but does not distribute it, that practices ritual rather than righteousness, that confesses but does not repent.
Hospitality means we take people into the space that is our lives and our minds and our hearts and our work and our efforts. Hospitality is the way we come out of ourselves. It is the first step towards dismantling the barriers of the world. Hospitality is the way we turn a prejudiced world around, one heart at a time.
The question is not, do we go to church; the question is, have we been converted. The crux of Christianity is not whether or not we give donations to popular charities but whether or not we are really committed to the poor.
It is a pathetic moment in the history of the human condition when the outside world tells us who and what we are - and we start to believe it ourselves. Then, bent over from the weight of the negativity, we start to wither on the outside.
When you say things like, 'We have to wipe out the Taliban,' what does that mean? The Taliban is not a fixed number of people. The Taliban is an ideology that has sprung out of a history that, you know, America created anyway.
Greece is the mother of democracy and South Africa is its youngest daughter
Since I am convinced that I wrong no one, I am not likely to wrong myself.
Men will be just to men when they are kind to animals.
Soft pity enters an iron gate.
People say maybe we have a soul and chimpanzees don't. I feel that it's quite possible that if we have souls, chimpanzees have souls as well.
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