Quotes about Openness

I let people see the cracks in my life. We can't be phony. We've got to keep it real.

One of the primary reasons we don't seek counsel from the wise people around us is that we already know what we are going to hear--and we just don't want to hear it.

It is next to impossible to hear the voice of wisdom if we are not really listening for it to begin with. The best counsel in the world is wasted counsel if our minds are already made up.

One of our pastors, John Hambrick, has a saying that we've adopted organization-wide. He says, "We walk toward the messes." In other words, we don't feel compelled to sort everything or everyone out ahead of time. We are not going to spend countless hours creating policies for every eventuality.

One of the primary reasons we don't seek counsel from the wise people around us is that we already know what we are going to hear—and we just don't want to hear it.

Most of us want to be proven right more than we want to know what's true. We aren't on truth quests. We're on confirmation quests.

Discipline means to prevent everything in your life from being filled up. Discipline means that somewhere you're not occupied, and certainly not preoccupied. In the spiritual life, discipline means to create that space in which something can happen that you hadn't planned or counted on.

Fascist movements kill off their critics, literally or metaphorically, while democratic movements value, invite and even welcome criticism.

A university is supposed to be a place where all ideas are discussed.

Godly teachers encourage questions; those who demand unthinking agreement have something to hide.

Jesus didn't care about a "holy table" as the religious establishment defined "holy." For Jesus a holy table was one that was open to anyone, a table where all God's children were present.

Our society is just less open to platitudes, more open to stories.