Dear God,
As you draw me ever deeper into your heart, I discover that my companions on the journey are women and men loved by you as fully and as intimately as I am. In your compassionate heart, there is a place for all of them. No one is excluded.
Give me a share in your compassion, dear God, so that your unlimited love may become visible in the way I love my brothers and sisters.
Amen.
“There is something in every one of you that waits and listens for the sound of the genuine in yourself. It is the only true guide you will ever have. And if you cannot hear it, you will all of your life spend your days on the ends of strings that somebody else pulls.”—Howard Thurman
“The natural laws we have believed in and taught our children have sometimes been found to be not natural laws at all, but rather fearsome constructs of our own making, undermined by the evidence. And among those mistakes is this: All of the promises of politicians, generals, madmen, and crusaders that war can create peace have yet to be born out.”—Barbara Kingsolver, Small Wonders
“Nonviolence is a worldview and a way of being, a creative, democratic, and liberating pathway to creating Beloved Community. Also, it is a martial art. Desire and will alone cannot bring about the changes that we need. We need training and skills. Our job is to show people an alternative to the status quo and inspire hope in people. Nonviolence is something we aim to practice in every interaction, in every moment of our lives.”—Kazu Haga
“Love is more than a feeling. Love is a form of sweet labor: fierce, bloody, imperfect, and life-giving—a choice we make over and over again. If love is sweet labor, love can be taught, modeled, and practiced. This labor engages all our emotions. Joy is the gift of love. Grief is the price of love. Anger protects that which is loved. And when we think we have reached our limit, wonder is the act that returns us to love.”—Valarie Kaur, See No Stranger: A Memoir and Manifesto of Revolutionary Love
“The royal road of nonviolence consists of mutual trust and willingness to understand another’s point of view with an unprejudiced mind.”—Gandhi
“Peace cannot be based on military might or on the permanent subjugation and suffering of a weaker party.”—Jonathan Kuttab
“If there be righteousness in the heart,
There will be beauty in the character.
If there be beauty in the character,
There will be harmony in the home.
If there be harmony in the home,
There will be order in the nation.
If there be order in the nation,
There will be peace in the world.”
—Confucius
When we say to people, “I will pray for you,” we make a very important commitment. The sad thing is that this remark often remains nothing but a well-meant expression of concern. But when we learn to descend with our mind into our heart, then all those who have become part of our lives are led into the healing presence of God and touched by him in the center of our being. We are speaking here about a mystery for which words are inadequate. It is the mystery that the heart, which is the center of our being, is transformed by God into his own heart, a heart large enough to embrace the entire universe. Through prayer we can carry in our heart all human pain and sorrow, all conflicts and agonies, all torture and war, all hunger, loneliness, and misery, not because of some great psychological or emotional capacity, but because God’s heart has become one with ours.
“It’s in communication that relationship arises; it’s in relationship that community arises; and it’s in the community that the soul arises.”—Roshi Joan Halifax
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