Home > Work > When the Heart Waits: Spiritual Direction for Life's Sacred Questions
1 " Back in the autumn I had awakened to a growing darkness and cacophony, as if something in the depths were crying out. A whole chorus of voices. Orphaned voices. They seemed to speak for all the unlived parts of me, and they came with a force and dazzle that I couldn't contain. They seemed to explode the boundaries of my existence. I know now that they were the clamor of a new self struggling to be born. "
― Sue Monk Kidd , When the Heart Waits: Spiritual Direction for Life's Sacred Questions
2 " That's the sacred intent of life, of God--to move us continuously toward growth, toward recovering all that is lost and orphaned within us and restoring the divine image imprinted on our soul. "
3 " I don't hold to the idea that God causes suffering and crisis. I just know that those things come along and God uses them. We think life should be a nice, clean ascending line. But inevitably something wanders onto the scene and creates havoc with the nice way we've arranged life to fall in place. "
4 " I was standing on the shifting ground of midlife, having come upon that time in life when one is summoned to an inner transformation, to a crossing over from one identity to another. When change-winds swirl through our lives, especially at midlife, they often call us to undertake a new passage of the spiritual journey: that of confronting the lost and counterfeit places within us and releasing our deeper, innermost self—our true self. They call us to come home to ourselves, to become who we really are. "
5 " To know exactly where you’re headed may be the best way to go astray. Not all who loiter are lost. "
6 " If you can’t be still and wait, you can’t become what God created you to be. "
7 " To constantly relive the past is to miss out on the present. "
8 " When you’re waiting, you’re not doing nothing. You’re doing the most important something there is. You’re allowing your soul to grow up. If you can’t be still and wait, you can’t become what God created you to be. "
9 " When we adopt this particular ego mask, we invest ourselves in the notion that those who shine the brightest are loved the most. This comes from the distorted idea that meaning and acceptance come from what we do, not who we are. We buy into the widespread notion that “light” emanates from our achievements, not from the divine fire within our soul. "
10 " I said to my soul, be still, and wait. . . . So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing. T. S. ELIOT "
11 " Patience is everything. RAINER MARIA RILKE "
12 " Let me first go and bury my father.” Jesus gave him what seems like a harsh answer: “Follow me, and leave the dead to bury their own dead” (Matt. 8:21–22). But when you apply the answer to the process of inner transformation, it makes perfect sense. This is a call to separation. To “leave the dead.” In order to follow the inner journey, we need to leave behind those things that are deadening, the loyalties that no longer have life for us. "
13 " Their hearts groan in many ways. And frankly, I believe we’ll all be better off when we take off our religious masks and become more human. Then we can get on with what really matters—the act of cupping our ears to one another’s hearts with compassion. "
14 " Most people prefer the certainty of misery to the misery of uncertainty.”10 "
15 " Is there more to me than the roles I live out? Can I open up to my identity apart from them, to the knowledge that I’m more than the personas I create? "
16 " For the apostles, it was Jesus’ crucifixion. The life that they had known with him was taken away. They felt numb, betrayed; it was as if the God they had invested everything in had vanished. They could no longer believe as they had before. Jones says that it’s as if their egoism were being burned out. Now the disciples have to go deeper and find a faith that allows them to live not only with the presence of Christ but with his seeming absence. They have to enter the darkness of their own doubts and come through to a faith that is true to where they are now. "
17 " Spiritual whittling is an encounter with Mystery, waiting, the silence of inner places—all those things most folks no longer have time for. "
18 " I believe that a healthy sharing of oneself is a holy call, but so is caring for ourselves and taking time for the beautiful mysteries God created within us. The important thing is balance. Being a martyr distorts the virtuous ideal of giving to others by crossing over into victim postures and a self-denial that squelches selfhood and the creative life of the soul. "
19 " In Christian language, this is plain, old-fashioned surrender—giving up our conscious will and striving, and yielding instead to the inner kingdom. The soul-work involved in this internal restructuring is, I believe, the deepest meaning of spiritual becoming. "
20 " I realized that the heart of religion was setting up an honest dialogue with the uniqueness of one’s soul and finding a deeply personal relationship with God, the inner Voice, the inner Music that plays in you as it does in no one else. "