Tag Archives: God

God Does Not Intervene

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The following quote marks a turning point in the author’s life story. This is followed by multiple extremely difficult circumstances beyond her control, exacerbated by a litany of her own seriously bad choices. All of this ultimately leads her to the PCT and the beginning of the journey detailed in this book. While this is not a spiritual journey per se. there are moments (here and there) that can only be described as deeply spiritual – most are the good kind, but they begin with this.

 It was the same when I tried to pray. I prayed fervently, rabidly, to God, any god, to a god I could not identify or find. I cursed my mother, who’d not given me any religious education. Resentful of her own repressive Catholic upbringing, she’d avoided church altogether in her adult life, and now she was dying and I didn’t even have God. I prayed to the whole wide universe and hoped that God would be in it, listening to me. I prayed and prayed, and then I faltered. Not because I couldn’t find God, but because suddenly I absolutely did: God was there, I realized, and God had no intention of making things happen or not, of saving my mother’s life. 

God was not a granter of wishes. God was a ruthless bitch.

–Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed

  • Pacific Crest Trail (PCT): Website and Twitter

God’s Spam Filter

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Do you ever think back over all of the problems you’ve faced, the prayers you’ve prayed, and the final outcomes? Do you ever compare all of the time spent asking for God’s help to the times when help was received, and then look up to the sky and think “Are my messages going into your spam filter?”

Yeah. Me too.

-Just some random thoughts floating through the head of Adora Myers

What If

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“What if my parents’ God, their whole belief system, is just something concocted by a bunch of scientists to keep us under control? And not just their beliefs about God and whatever else is out there, but about right and wrong, about selflessness? Do all those things have to change because we know how our world was made?.“

–Allegiant (Divergent Trilogy, Book 3) by Veronica Roth

Eternal Reproduction

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“Nothing divine dies. All good is eternally reproductive. The beauty of nature reforms itself in the mind, and not for barren contemplation, but for new creation.“

–Nature by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Pity and Sympathy

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“Pity and sympathy were such a waste. I’d been held in the hand of God. Her light was cast on everything now. I saw beauty everywhere, felt beauty everywhere. I was happier and more alive than I had ever been.“

–Dancing at the Shame Prom: Sharing the Stories That Kept Us Small by Amy Ferris and Hollye Dexter

From the Introduction: “We invite you to join us at the Shame Prom—a place where we wear our ugly dresses, then shed them. Where we parade our shame in public, dance it around on our arm, and take awkward pictures with it. But afterward, we’re not going to roll around in the backseat making out with it. This time, we’re breaking up with Shame and driving off into the sunset, stronger in knowing that we are connected at the deepest, most human level. So put on your tiaras, people. Let’s get this party started.”

Perpetual Youth

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“In the woods, is perpetual youth. Within these plantations of God, a decorum and sanctity reign, a perennial festival is dressed, and the guest sees not how he should tire of them in a thousand years. In the woods, we return to reason and faith. There I feel that nothing can befall me in life,—no disgrace, no calamity, (leaving me my eyes,) which nature cannot repair.“

–Nature by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Shame and Letting Go

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“It was a familiar crossroads. Every moment of my life before had held the same two paths. And every moment, I’d struggled to choose the one that led to peace. This time, the choice was easy. Nothing was going to keep me from hitting the ground. So I relaxed. And gravity stopped pulling.”

“This is what it felt like to let go. This was the promise of presence and surrender. It was a vivid, joyous connection to God, for She was the honey and this was the ultimate intimacy. And then, the Earth and I collided. The impact crushed my spinal cord and I was instantly paralyzed from the waist down.“

Dancing at the Shame Prom: Sharing the Stories That Kept Us Small by Amy Ferris and Hollye Dexter

From the Introduction: “We invite you to join us at the Shame Prom—a place where we wear our ugly dresses, then shed them. Where we parade our shame in public, dance it around on our arm, and take awkward pictures with it. But afterward, we’re not going to roll around in the backseat making out with it. This time, we’re breaking up with Shame and driving off into the sunset, stronger in knowing that we are connected at the deepest, most human level. So put on your tiaras, people. Let’s get this party started.”

Tattoos and the Landlord God

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“[The Bible] says: “You shall not make gashes in your flesh for the dead, or incise any marks on yourselves: I am the Lord.” A rabbi’s interpretation says that your body belongs to God, and you shall not defile it. I see it more like your body is a rental unit, and God is the property owner—so don’t mess it up. What I’m not sure about is whether or not getting a tattoo is an evictable offense, or more likely just something that will eat up a little of my deposit when it’s time to move on. What I do know is that while I am living here, it is my home, and I want to feel comfortable in it.”

–Chick Ink: 40 Stories of Tattoos–And the Women Who Wear Them by Karen L. Hudson