Quotes about Contemplation

On day three, I decided that a power outage would make a great spiritual practice.

No one had to tell me why Martha stayed in the kitchen while her sister Mary sat at Jesus's feet. Martha was an introvert. She found chopping potatoes far less exhausting than talking to people, and besides, she could hear everything they were saying right where she was without having to come up with something to say herself.

The soul does not grow by addition but by subtraction," wrote the fourteenth-century mystic Meister Eckhart.

And I always do this aloud, or at least at a mumble level, making sure I am doing more than just glancing at the psalms or prayers. Glancing at prayers is the fastest path toward vain repetitions I know of. For that reason, the church has always advocated reading our prayers aloud so we will go more slowly and concentrate more on what we are saying. Prayer books are designed to be read aloud.

Prayer was and is both a spontaneous act and a recitative

I would say to today's young minister, 'Be not afraid to give much time to solitary walks and meditation'.

The memory of everything is very soon overwhelmed in time.

Our religious activities should be ordered in such a way as to have plenty of time for the cultivation of the fruits of solitude and silence.

I don't have time for a job that doesn't leave me time to be quiet or still or to pray.

There was no time anymore to be quiet or still or pray. So, in many ways, that's what led to my downward spin.

Do not read to satisfy curiosity or to pass the time, but study such things as move your heart to devotion.

Take time to be quiet.