Quotes about Renewal

Every time you take in a breath, you are repeating the pattern of taking spirit into matter, and thus repeating the first creation of Adam. And every time you breathe out, you are repeating the pattern of returning spirit to the material universe. In a way, every exhalation is a "little dying" as we pay the price of inspiriting the world.

I further believe that a free and loving God would create things that continue to recreate themselves, exactly as all parents desire for their children.

favorite metaphors. I love the image of fire, not for its seeming destructiveness, but as a natural symbol for transformation—literally, the changing of forms. Farmers, forestry workers, and Native peoples know that fire is a renewing force, even as it also can be destructive. We in the West tend to see it as merely destructive (which is probably why we did not understand the metaphors of hell or purgatory).

Church" in any form should be a "laboratory for resurrection

you must first "go into the tomb" with Jesus (Romans 6:4)

The loss and renewal pattern is so constant and ubiquitous that it should hardly be called a secret at all.

Francis of Assisi was a master of making room for the new and letting go of that which was tired or empty.

In this high place it is as simple as this, Leave everything you know behind. Step toward the cold surface, say the old prayer of rough love and open both arms. Those who come with empty hands will stare into the lake astonished, there, in the cold light reflecting pure snow, the true shape of your own face. David Whyte, "Tilicho Lake"   Conservatives

All the emptying out is only for the sake of a Great Outpouring. God, like nature, abhors all vacuums, and rushes to fill them.

In the larger-than-life, spiritually transformed people I have met, I always find one common denominator: in some sense, they have all died before they died. They have followed in the self-emptying steps of Jesus, a path from death to life that Christians from all over the world celebrate during Easter week.

Yearning for a new way will not produce it. Only ending the old way can do that.

the Greek word meta-noia, which literally means to move "beyond the mind," is usually translated "repentance" and no longer points to its much deeper meaning.