In recent years my understanding of God had evolved into increasingly remote abstractions. I'd come to think of God in terms like Divine Reality, the Absolute, or the One who holds us in being. I do believe that God is beyond any form and image, but it has grown clear to me that I need an image in order to relate. I need an image in order to carry on an intimate conversation with what is so vast, amorphous, mysterious, and holy that it becomes ungraspable. I mean, really, how to you become intimate with Divine Reality? Or the Absolute?
Sue Monk KiddAnd when you get down to it, Lily, that is the only purpose grand enough for a human life. Not just to love but to persist in love.
Sue Monk KiddIn the photograph by my bed my mother is perpetually smiling on me. I guess I have forgiven us both, although sometimes in the night my dreams will take me back to the sadness, and I have to wake up and forgive us again.
Sue Monk KiddThe monk at St. Meinrad took his hands and placed them on my shoulders, peered straight into my eyes and said, โI hope youโll hear what Iโm about to tell you. I hope youโll hear it all the way down to your toes. When youโre waiting, youโre not doing nothing. Youโre doing the most important something there is. Youโre allowing your soul to grow up. If you canโt be still and wait, you canโt become what God created you to be.
Sue Monk Kidd