Joan D. Chittister Quotes - Page 4

Quotes about:

• Mystery is what happens to us when we allow life to evolve rather than having to make it happen all the time. It is the strange knock at the door, the sudden sight of an unceremoniously blooming flower, an afternoon in the yard, a day of riding the midtown bus. Just to see. Just to notice. Just to be there.

  Joan D. Chittister

  Flower, Sight, Doors

  "The Sweet Mystery of Life" by Sister Joan D. Chittister, OSB, www.huffingtonpost.com. January 30, 2011.

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• But we are here to depart from this world as finished as we can possibly become.

  Joan D. Chittister

  World, Aging, This World

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• Assuming that tomorrow will be the same as today is poor preparation for living. It equips us only for disappointment or, more likely, for shock. To live well, to be mentally healthy, we must learn to realize that life is a work in process.

  Joan D. Chittister

  Disappointment, Healthy, Preparation

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• Prophets are those who take life as it is and expand it. They refuse to shrink a vision of tomorrow to the boundaries of yesterday.

  Joan D. Chittister

  Yesterday, Vision, Tomorrow

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• Getting to know ourselves and learning to control ourselves are the two great tasks of life. Don't make up strange and exotic 'penances.' Simply say no to yourself once a day, and you will be on the road to sanctity for the rest of your life.

  Joan D. Chittister

  Two, Rest Of Your Life, Tasks

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• No one finds time for prayer. You either take time for it or you don't get it.

  Joan D. Chittister

  Time, Prayer, Take Time

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• I celebrate myself," the poet Walt Whitman wrote. The thought is so delicious it is almost obscene. Imagine the joy that would come with celebrating the self — our achievements, our experiences, our existence. Imagine what it would be like to look into the mirror and say, as God taught us, "That's good.

  Joan D. Chittister

  Mirrors, Self, Taught Us

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• prayer can be an easy substitute for real spirituality. It would be impossible to have spirituality without prayer, of course, but it is certainly possible to pray without having a spirituality at all. How do you know? 'Am I becoming kinder?' is a good place to start.

  Joan D. Chittister

  Prayer, Real, Becoming

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• 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.

  Joan D. Chittister

  Peace, Giving, Church

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• Hospitality is simply love on the loose.

  Joan D. Chittister

  Simply Love, Hospitality

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• 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. Chittister

  Life, May, Want

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• Temptations are part of life, part of growing up. We grapple with them often - in some instances for our lifetime - before we come to realize that it is not so much the victory as it is the struggle that is holy.

  Joan D. Chittister

  Growing Up, Struggle, Temptation

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• Judaism calls for us to honor the rhythm of human life, the demands of the human community around us, the call of the divine order as the filter and scale for the decisions that drive our own small lives. We do not rule the universe, Judaism reminds us. God does. We are not its standard or its norms. We are only its keepers, its agents, its stewards. To do right by the universe at large is the measure of a happiness framed with the entire cosmos in mind but lived in microcosms across time.

  Joan D. Chittister

  Divine Order, Community, Decision

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• Indifference is the acid of life. It erodes all the spirit that's in us and makes us useless to anyone else. We all have to stand for something, or our souls cease to breathe.

  Joan D. Chittister

  Soul, Useless, Erode

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• Life is the ability to start over again.

  Joan D. Chittister

  Life, Starting Over, Life Is

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• Anger is not bad. Anger can be a very positive thing, the thing that moves us beyond the acceptance of evil.

  Joan D. Chittister

  Moving, Anger, Acceptance

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• Every dimension of life, its gains and its losses, are reason for celebration because each of them brings us closer to wisdom and fullness of understanding.

  Joan D. Chittister

  Wisdom, Loss, Understanding

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• Solitude is not a way of running away from life ... from our feelings. On the contrary. This is the time we sort them out, air them, get over them, and go on without the burden of yesterday.

  Joan D. Chittister

  Running, Air, Yesterday

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• It is not our job to work miracles, but it is our task to try.

  Joan D. Chittister

  Jobs, Miracle, Trying

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• To be enlightened is to know that heaven is not "coming." Heaven is here.

  Joan D. Chittister

  Heaven, Awareness, Enlightened

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• Benedictine spirituality is a consistent one: live life normally, live life thouhtfully, live life profouncly, live life well. Never neglect and never exaggerate. It is a lesson that a world full of cults and fads and workaholics and short courses in difficult subjects needs dearly to learn.

  Joan D. Chittister

  Live Life, Needs, World

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• We each should have 2 pockets: in 1 the message, 'I am dust & ashes;' in the other, 'For me the universe was made.'

  Joan D. Chittister

  Dust, Should Have, Pockets

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• Never confuse desire with vision. Desire has to do with what we want. Vision has to do with what we need.

  Joan D. Chittister

  Vision, Desire, Needs

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• Hospitality is the key to new ideas, new friends, new possibilities. What we take into our lives changes us. Without new people and new ideas, we are imprisoned inside ourselves.

  Joan D. Chittister

  Life Changing, Keys, Ideas

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• It's possible to have too much in life. Too many clothes jade our appreciation of new ones; too much money can out us out of touch with life; too much free time and dull the edge of the soul. We need sometimes to come very near the bone so tha we can taste the marrow of life, rather than its superfluities.

  Joan D. Chittister

  Appreciation, Clothes, Soul

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