#ritual

The Mozart sonata Dad picked out begins to play. When we hear the first note, we open the sacks and the ladybugs escape through the opening, taking flight. It's as if someone has dumped rubies from heaven. Soon they will land on the plants in search of bollworm eggs. But right now they are magic-red ribbons flying over our heads, weaving against the pink sky, dancing up there with Mozart. ↗

— Kimberly Willis Holt

#death #friendship #spirituality #vietnam-war #age

God did not make this person as I would have made him. He did not give him to me as a brother for me to dominate and control, but in order that I might find above him the Creator. Now the other person, in the freedom with which he was created, becomes the occasion of joy, whereas before he was only a nuisance and an affliction. God does not will that I should fashion the other person according to the image that seems good to me, that is, in my own image; rather in his very freedom from me God made this person in His image. I can never know beforehand how God's image should appear in others. That image always manifests a completely new and unique form that comes solely from God's free and sovereign creation. To me the sight may seem strange, even ungodly. But God creates every man in the likeness of His Son, the Crucified. After all, even that image certainly looked strange and ungodly to me before I grasped it. ↗

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

#christianity #jesus #spiritual-friendships #the-cross #faith

Understanding the Way of Story as a sacred pattern and a living event. Story can reveal a spiritual path and or the way to healing. Stories become the foundation of health, peacebuilding and vision. Learning to listen, to recognize, to understand and attend the teachings and revelations of the Stories we have been given to live guides us toward the 5th world. Our individual stories, when carefully attended, can reveal each person’s particular path of healing and transformation. Even illness is a story that can lead us to our own and to community healing. Learning to recognize the Story that we or another is living can be a worthy life work. ↗

— Deena Metzger

#spirituality #life

The Way is not in the sky; the Way is in the heart. ↗

— Gautama Buddha

#buddhism #life #living #religion #spirituality

I am the lover's gift; I am the wedding wreath; I am the memory of a moment of happiness; I am the last gift of the living to the dead; I am a part of joy and a part of sorrow. ↗

— Kahlil Gibran

#beauty #flower #inspiration #spiritual #beauty

Lead by example, not by instruction. ↗

— Jared Matthew Kessler

#new-age #quote #spiritual #age

Jerusalem is a festival and a lamentation. Its song is a sigh across the ages, a delicate, robust, mournful psalm at the great junction of spiritual cultures. ↗

— David K. Shipler

#ages #cultures #delicate #festival #great

Some people simply bury their heads in the sand and refuse to think about the sorrow of the world, but this is an unwise course, because, if we are entirely unprepared, the tragedy of life can be devastating. ↗

— Karen Armstrong

#life #spirituality #death

The sheer size, extent, and magnitude of the blood vessels tell us two things: the awesomeness of God’s work in man and the fact that as human beings, every one of us is a walking wonder, an amazing work of art. ↗

— Pedro Okoro

#spiritual-development #spiritual-warfare #art

Whether the family goes on a spiritual basis or not, the alcoholic member has to if he would recover. The others must be convinced of his new status beyond the shadow of a doubt. Seeing is believing to most families who have lived with a drinker. ↗

— William Griffith Wilson

#basis #believing #beyond #convinced #doubt