Crucifix

RIC_2747-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

I learned that the crucifix 
does not represent justice alone, 
and that equally important are 
the concepts of love and grace.

Olivia Chow, My Journey

Opposites

Stained Glass 1 (2014, 1.15), a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.


     You cannot know a thing
     unless you know its opposite.
     You cannot become sincere
     unless you have experienced
     hypocrisy and decided
     to fight against it.

        Abu Uthman Maghrebi

Hope

Toronto 2 (2013, 9.18), a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.


     We do not hope because we believe,
     we believe because we hope. 

        Miguel de Unamuno, Tragic Sense of Life

Courage

RIC_2691-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.

e. e. cummings

Simile & Metaphor

Northrop Frye 2 (2013, 3.5), a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.


     The poet, however, uses these two crude,
     primitive, archaic forms of thought (simile and
     metaphor) in the most uninhibited way,
     because his job is not to describe nature,
     but to show you a world completely absorbed
     and possessed by the human mind.

        Northrop Frye, The Educated Imagination

I See Your Face

RIC_4973-2, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.


     To each
     To each
     To each
     I know
     There will be faces
     with yours and mine.

        Ben Okri, I See Your Face

Life

RIC_0015-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.


     Each of us is carving a stone, erecting a column,
     or cutting a piece of stained glass in the
     construction of something much bigger than 
     ourselves.

        Adrienne Clarkson

Discernment

Conversation (2013, 3.5), a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.


Discernment is a process of letting go of what
we are not.

Father Thomas Keating

Right Relationships

Conversation (2013, 3.5), a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

God is found in right relationships,

not right ideas.

Barbara Brown Taylor, 

Leaving Church

Hunger for Bread & Justice

DSC_4846, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.


O God, to those who have hunger give bread,
And to us who have bread give the hunger for justice.

Prayer from Latin America

Grateful

Lamp (2012,11.7), a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.


There is always something to be grateful for.

Rhonda Byrne

Emptying

Door Knob, Clarion Tower, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.


In my search to see reality in myself, I may come
to the door of perception. But it will not open,
truth will not be revealed, so long as I cling to
what I know. I need to have empty hands
to approach the unknown. 

Jeanne Salzmann, The Reality of Being

Poetry

Crucified Wiman, Emmanuel College, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

Poetry can tell us what human beings are.

It can tell us why we stumble and fall and how,

miraculously, we can stand up.

Maya Angelou

Living into Thinking

RIC_2688-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

We do not think ourselves into new ways of living,

we live ourselves into new ways of thinking.

Richard Rohr

Your Life

RIC_2698-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

     What can it be that has never yet been seen?
     What has never yet been seen is your own unprecedented
     life fulfilled.
     Your life is what has yet to be brought into being. 

         Joseph Campbell, Thou Art That: Transforming Religious Metaphor

Sin

RIC_9853-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

Every sin is an attempt to fly from emptiness.

Simone Weil, Gravity and Grace

Poetry of Life

RIC_9812-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

The primary symptom of a soul that has become sick

is that it becomes blind to the poetry of life.

M. Craig Barnes, The Pastor as Minor Poet: Texts and Subtexts in the Ministerial Life

Between people

RIC_0002-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

When Martin Buber, the great Jewish philosopher and theologian, was asked “Where is God?” he was wise enough not to give the cliché answers: God is everywhere; God is found in churches and synagogues. Buber would answer that God is found in relationships. God is not found in people; God is found between people.

Harold S. Kushner, Living a Life That Matters

Suffering is Optional

RIC_0854-2, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

Pain is inevitable; Suffering is optional.

Zen Aphorism

Paradox

RIC_9981-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

   What means the fact — which is so common — so

   universal — that some soul that has lost all hope for

   itself can inspire in another listening soul an infinite

   confidence in it, even while it is expressing its despair?

      Henry David Thoreau