“Well and good if all things change, O Lord God, provided I am rooted in You.”

“There is another reason also why the soul has traveled safely in this obscurity; it has suffered: for the way of suffering is safer, and also more profitable, than that of rejoicing and of action. ...”

“Songs of the SoulOn a dark night,Inflamed by love-longing -O exquisite risk! -Undetected I slipped away.My house, at last, grown still.Secure in the darkness,I climbed the secret ladder in disguise...”

“They can be like the sun, words.They can do for the heart what light can for a field.”

“While I don't equate the dark night with depression, I do think our depressive moods could be imagined spiritually rather than only psychologically.”

“With respect also to spiritual sloth, beginners are apt to be irked by the things that are most spiritual, from which they flee because these things are incompatible with sensible pleasure. For, as...”

“once sailed neither the ship nor the shore ever remains the same again.”

“We are not trapped or locked up in these bones. No, no. We are free to change. And love changes us. And if we can love one another, we can break open the sky.”

“One day spent with someone you love can change everything.”

“Jesus-shaped spirituality hears Jesus say "believe and repent," but the call that resonates most closely in the heart of a disciple is "follow me." The command to follow requires that we take a dai...”

“The engine that drives all your activities is hope. What you hope in shapes you.”

“I assumed my first undivided responsibility.”

“The ego is like a clever monkey, which can co-opt anything, even the most spiritual practices, so as to expand itself. (155)”

“Ego like bile over taste buds. Get it out or hold it in. It's the suspension will drive you nuts, churn your gut.”

“War within ourselves is always a prelude to war outside ourselves. All war starts within our own hearts. When our egos are inflated or our desires insatiable, we go to war with the other for the sa...”