All things and all people, so to speak, call on us with small or loud voices. They want us to listen. They want us to understand their intrinsic claims, their justice of being. But we can give it to them only through the love that listens.
Forgiving presupposes remembering. And it creates a forgetting not in the natural way we forget yesterday's weather, but in the way of the great "in spite of" that says: I forget although I remember. Without this kind of forgetting no human relationship can endure healthily. I don't refer to a solemn act of asking for and offering forgiveness. Such rituals as sometimes occur between parents and children, or friends, or man and wife, are often acts of moral arrogance on the one part and enforced humiliation on the other. But I speak of the lasting willingness to accept him who has hurt us.
Decision is a risk rooted in the courage of being free.
Spirit is the presence of what concerns us ultimately, the ground of our being and meaning.
Doubt is the necessary tool of knowledge.
I hope for the day when everyone can speak again of God without embarrassment.
Accept the fact that you are accepted, despite the fact that you are unacceptable.
Where there is faith there is an awareness of holiness.
The passion for truth is silenced by answers which have the weight of undisputed authority.
Cruelty towards others is always also cruelty towards ourselves.
The character of human life, like the character of the human condition, like the character of all life, is "ambiguity": the inseparable mixture of good and evil, the true and false, the creative and destructive forces-both individual and social.
The most intimate motions within the depths of our souls are not completely our own. For they belong also to our friends, to humankind, to the universe, and the Ground of all being, the aim of our life.
Grace strikes us when we are in great pain and restlessness.
We can speak without voice to the trees and the clouds and the waves of the sea. Without words they respond through the rustling of leaves and the moving of clouds and the murmuring of the sea.
The courage to be is rooted in the God who appears when God has disappeared in the anxiety of doubt.
The separation of faith and love is always a consequence of a deterioration of religion.
Being human means asking the questions of one's own being and living under the impact of the answers given to this question. And, conversely, being human means receiving answers to the questions of one's own being and asking questions under the impact of the answers.
Love is the infinite which is given to the finite.
There is no place to which we could flee from God, which is outside of God.
The basic anxiety, the anxiety of a finite being about the threat of non-being, cannot be eliminated. It belongs to existence itself.
Courage is a greater virtue than love. At best, it takes courage to love.
Faith is the state of being ultimately concerned.
Every person, every place and every action is qualified by this association with the unconditional; it penetrates every moment of daily life and sanctifies it: "The Universe is God's sanctuary. Every work day is a day of the Lord, every supper is a Lord's supper, every work a fulfillment of the divine task, every joy a joy in God. In all preliminary concerns, ultimate concern is present, consecrating them."
Destiny is not a strange power which determines what shall happen to me. It is myself as given, formed by nature, history, and myself. My destiny is the basis of my freedom; my freedom participates in shaping my destiny.
The awareness of the ambiguity of one's highest achievements, as well as one's deepest failures is a definite symptom of maturity.
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