#gregory boyle

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Tamara Karsavina, Vaslav Nijinsky and Ludmilla Schollar in Jeux (Games) a ballet written by Claude Debussy.

(via negative-numbers)

* * * *

“How, then, to imagine, the expansive heart of this God—greater than God—who takes seven buses, just to arrive at us. We settle sometimes for less than intimacy with God when all God longs for is this solidarity with us. In Spanish, when you speak of your great friend, you describe the union and kinship as being de uña y mugre—our friendship is like the fingernail and the dirt under it. Our image of who God is and what’s on God’s mind is more tiny than it is troubled. It trips more on our puny sense of God than over conflicting creedal statements or theological considerations. The desire of God’s heart is immeasurably larger than our imaginations can conjure. This longing of God’s to give us peace and assurance and a sense of well-being only awaits our willingness to cooperate with God’s limitless magnanimity.”

― Gregory Boyle, Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion

[Alive On All Channels]

[woundgallery]

People settle for saying that every human being is 'worthy' or 'valuable.' But these ideas are still stuck in the 'measurable.' 'He is a valuable member of our team.' 'He is unworthy to be president.' But goodness is unshakable. Solid. The truth. There is not a thing one can do to make this not so. God does not hope that we become something other than what we are. The Pharisees kept trying to be somebody, but they didn’t know they already were. You teach children that they are valuable by valuing them. Not by insisting that they prove their value to you. There are lots of things and toxins and blindness that keep us from acknowledging this and seeing it AS true, but nonetheless, it is immutably certain. Before we can love goodness, we need to find it, and see it. It’s there. It’s there. Here’s a bad example. In prison or jail, if a 'fish' or 'new booty' is asked by another inmate, 'What size are your shoes?' and the new guy says, 'Size eleven,' the inmate takes your shoes away. The correct answer to 'What size are your shoes?' is 'My size.' There is an ownership to your goodness that needs to happen. It is a 'My-sizing,' if you will. People inhabit their dignity, nobility, and utter goodness and make it their own. (I told you it was a bad example.)

Gregory Boyle from The Whole Language 

[milesbutterball]

13 Rumi Quotes That Will Change The Way You Think

They will open your heart and mind to the beauty that lies within you.

'Find the real world, give it endlessly away, grow rich flinging gold to all who ask. Live at the empty heart of paradox.’

Rumi

[whosebob]

My heart is not frozen or as cold and dead as I thought. In the article I posted about not shopping, Ann Patchett recommended this book. She’s a great writer and owns a bookstore and it was available immediately on the Overdrive Libby App. Serendipity. The book is what I needed after a long while suffering in a dearth of spirit. I wish goodreads had a place to list where you got the book rec...but I guess that’s not part of their thing. They want you to get your recs from them. I’m always forgetting where I get the recs from when I have to wait...and I want to remember. Maybe I’ll create a google doc to keep track. That could be interesting.

[logans-mormon-blog]

Can't remember if I'd posted this yet. Its one of my favorite quotes from Tattoos on the Heart by Boyle

[dk-thrive]

I just keep waiting...for the last to be first

A homie named Cruz spent his last dollars taking a Metrolink train sixty miles to Los Angeles from San Bernardino, where he had relocated his lady and newborn to avoid the dangers and desperation of his previous gang life. He had a part-time job but could not get his boss to give him more hours. Now he sits in my office, rattling off a list of the pressures and needs of his family. With no safety net in sight but me, he speaks of no food in the fridge, no lights, landlord looming, no bus fare. When he finishes this breathless account, Cruz stops, shaken and exhausted. He grows teary-eyed and says quietly, “I just keep waiting.” 

“For what, son?” I ask. 

“For the last to be first.”

~ Gregory Boyle, Barking to the Choir: The Power of Radical Kinship (Simon and Schuster, Nov 14, 2017)

[yacatholics]

You are the light of the world. Just as you are. God loves the you that you are in this very moment and don’t you ever forget that!

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

“The Ancient Desert Fathers, when they were disconsolate and without hope, would repeat one word, over and over, as a kind of soothing mantra. And the word wasn’t “Jesus” or “God” or “Love.” The word was “Today.” It kept them where they needed to be.”

― Gregory Boyle, Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion