Collected by Anne Wray

i have found the paradox that if i love until it hurts, then there is no hurt, but only love.
---Mother Teresa

if the only prayer you say in your entire life is "thank you," that would suffice.
---Meister Eckhart

. . . some moment happens in your life that you say yes right up to the roots of your hair, that makes it worth having been born just to have happen. laughing with somebody till the tears run down your cheeks. waking up to the first snow. being in bed with somebody you love.

whether you thank god for such a moment or thank your lucky stars, it is a moment that is trying to open up your whole life. if you turn your back on such a moment and hurry along to business as usual, it may lose you the ball game. if you throw your arms around such a moment and hug it like crazy, it may save your soul.
---Frederick Buechner, wishful thinking

the fullest work that god ever worked
in any creature is compassion.
the most secret and forbidden work that god ever worked on the angels
was carrying them into compassion.
this is the work of compassion
as it is in itself and as it is in god.
whatever god does, the first outburst is always compassion.
i do not mean that god forgives a person his sins
or that a person takes pity on another.
i mean much more.
i mean that the highest work that god ever works is
compassion.
---Meister Eckhart

. . . original blessing underlies all being, all creation, all time, all space, all unfolding and evolving of what is. as rabbi heschel puts it, "just to be is a blessing; just to live is holy." it is telling that the hebrew word for blessing, berakah, is closely related to the word for create, bara (in its noun form, beriyah). this suggests that a creation is necessarily a blessing, is wrapped up as a blessing. there is no distrust of creation here. furthermore, the very word for blessing in hebrew also means "pool," and with the change of one vowel, to berekah, the word means a reservoir where camels kneel as a resting place. the images of a pool and a reservoir created by a desert people tell us all we need to know about the desirability behind a theology of blessing. the word for covenant, beriyth, is also directly related to the words for "create" and for "blessing." a convenant is a blessing agreement, a promise to bless and to return blessing for blessing.
---Matthew Fox, original blessing

 ever since there have been men, man has given himself over to too little joy. that alone, my brothers, is our original sin. i should believe only in a god who understood how to dance.
---Henri Matisse

come, come whoever you are.
wanderer, worshipper, lover of leaving----
it doesn't matter,
ours is not a caravan of despair.
come, even if you have broken your vows
a hundred times
come, come again, come.
---Rumi

holy persons draw to themselves
all that is earthly.
hildegard of bingen
let nothing disturb you,
let nothing make you afraid,
all things are passing.
god alone never changes.
patience gains all things.
if you have god you will want for nothing.
god alone suffices.
---Teresa of Avila