• "Like Jesus, we are to love others not because of who they are, but because of who we are—all and equally the beloved of God." -Richard Rohr
• "We realized all the achievements and accolades we thought we're important growing up didn't give us the thing that we really wanted, which was to wake up in the morning with wonder and awe and inspiration." - Rob Bell
• "Mature religion helps us speed up the process of dying to the false self—or at least to stop fighting its eventual demise. This is why saints live in such a countercultural way. Dying is a gradual free fall anyway, so we might as well jump in and cooperate. It is much easier to offer a conscious, free yes to death ahead of time before it is finally forced upon us on our deathbed or in some tragedy. St. Francis said it well: “Welcome, Sister Death!” All forms of dying are like a helpful companion or nurse. Only the false self sees death as an enemy or an ending. For the false self, death is surely an ending; for the True Self death is an expanding." -Richard Rohr
• "Sin and salvation are correlative terms. Salvation is not sin perfectly avoided, as the ego would prefer; but in fact, salvation is sin turned on its head and used in our favor. This is how divine love transforms us. If this is not true, what hope is there for any of us? We eventually discover that the same passion which leads us away from God can also lead us back to God and to our true selves. That is one reason I have valued and taught the Enneagram [1]. Like few other spiritual tools, it illustrates this transformative truth. Once you see that your "sin" and your gift are two sides of the same coin, you can never forget it." -Richard Rohr
• "One day, when faced with enough pain, you black & whiters will see the many shades of grey within. And hopefully further, when faced with enough beauty, you shades of grey'ers will see the world unveiled into colors never even imagined. Here's to living in the light of presence & being."- Brady Toops
• The cause of our unrecognized and fully operative evil is our egocentricity, not our weaknesses. Only those who are converted can say like Paul, "When I am weak, I am strong" (2 Corinthians 12:10). When Jesus does oppose human sinfulness, it is the sins of malice with which he has no patience; the sins of weakness are always patiently healed. Jesus rightly accuses us religious folks of "straining out gnats while swallowing camels" (Matthew 23:24) -Richard Rohr
• “If you are depressed, you are living in the past. If you are anxious, you are living in the future. If you are at peace, you are living in the present.” -Lao Tzu
• “Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.” - Carl Jung
• "Remember, if you love life, nothing is worth closing over. Nothing, ever, is worth closing your heart over." -The Untethered Soul
• Once we have involved ourselves in the process of transformation, we understand that whatever is occurring in the present moment is what we need to deal with right now. - Brady Toops
• "How privileged we are to understand so well the divine paradox that strength rises from weakness, that humiliation goes before resurrection; that pain is not only the price but the very touchstone of spiritual rebirth." -Bill Wilson
• "Authenticity is not about being brutally honest. Authenticity means manifesting who you are in the moment." -The Wisdom of the Enneagram
• There are two kinds of people in the world - the one who walks into a room and says, "Here I am!" and the one who walks into a room and says, "Oh, there you are." I want to be the latter.
• "Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it." - Rumi
• "Saying "yes" to the moment allows space for the real question, which is "What does this have to say to me?" Those who are totally converted come to every experience and ask not whether they like it, but what does it have to teach them. "What's the message or gift in this for me? How is God in this event? Where is God in this suffering? What is God calling me to do?" -Richard Rohr
• This is true religious conversion. This is second half of life religion, although it can happen at any age. The experience occurs when God or life destabilizes your private ego, usually through some form of suffering. It will feel like dying because it is the death of the false self. The small, separate self is shattered, and your True Self is revealed. The True Self is all about right relationship, not requirements. It's not about being correct; it's about being connected, which you always were--you just didn't realize it. This is the self that is capable of contemplation because it no longer reads reality from an egocentric position. Contemplation is indeed radical because it's a way of being in the world, walking in the world, and seeing the world that is absolutely different than the daily grind of ideas and contests." - Richard Rohr
• Johnny Cash said, "You've got a song you're singing from your gut, you want that audience to feel it in their gut." I love that quote because I believe the beauty of music is in the realization that we're not alone, that we're more alike than we realize. That we've all felt these things in our gut, the tragedy and beauty of the human experience. And music has a way of opening the heart like no other medium. I know it's definitely opened mine. - Brady Toops
• Most artists start out making music for themselves. Other artists make music for someone else. The first can often be selfish, but that latter can be presumptuous. What I want to do is to make music for ‘us’.
• “Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” - Howard Thurman
• “There is in you something that waits and listens for the sound of the genuine in yourself… and if you cannot hear the sound of the genuine in you, you will all of your life spend your days on the ends of strings that somebody else pulls.” - Howard Thurman
• "Real worship defies definition it can only be experienced.” How true this is, for worship was never intended by God to be the discussion of textbooks but rather the communion with God experienced by his loved ones." Morris Smith
• "It's a holy moment when you feel completely content and overflowing with thankfulness but still aren't satisfied knowing you must have more of God. When the tears start to well up in your eyes cause God is drawing close lean in and allow God to consume your thoughts and desires. It's in these defining moments that change happens and the impossible becomes possible." - Brian Johnson
• "A worship leader with a pastoral heart believes with desperate optimism in the church and her work in the world" @zachicks
• You have a limited time left in your life, why not simply enjoy it.. enjoy everything - the good, the painful, the hard, the beautiful. Stay open, stay curious, and see the beauty and benevolence in all things. How you engage with life and the level of enjoyment you experience is up to you. Enjoy everything, and you will find enlightenment. - Brady Toops
• I like womanhood. But I've never been more aware of the beauty and the beast of trying to do it well in the world where God has placed me. - Beth Moore
• "The irony is that we attempt to disown our difficult stories to appear more whole or more acceptable, but our wholeness -even our wholeheartedness- actually depends on the integration of all of our experiences, including the falls.” -Brené Brown
• “Godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation…but the sorrow of the world produces death.” - 2 Corinthians 7:10
• What will make a difference to the future is awakening to a faith that fully communicates God’s love—a love that transforms how we believe, what we do, and who we are in the world. —Diana Butler Bass
• Self-rejection is the greatest enemy of the spiritual life...it contradicts the sacred voice that calls us the ‘Beloved’. —Henri Nouwen
• The planet does not need more successful people. The planet desperately needs more peacemakers, healers, restorers, storytellers, and lovers of all kinds.

— Dalai Lama "Maturity is never earned through the escape of something tough. It's earned the commitment of remaining in the face of struggle when it doesn't make sense. " - Dale

• "The doctrine of the Trinity reminds us that in God there is neither hierarchy nor inequality, neither division nor competition, but only unity in love amid diversity.” —Catherine LaCugna
• God embraces our loneliest moments and wants to fill them with His goodness. God’s desire is to give us an intimate experience where our trust and dependency becomes stabilized in His presence alone.

—Maureé Sullivan

• "You either walk inside your story and own it, or you stand outside your story and hustle for your worthiness." --@BreneBrown

With people who are important, I am more difficult to work with, because I am not impressed (by their reputation). I am impressed when people are very clever or very nice or have a very strong heart or a strong intuition... Do what you think is right for you, and remember: Don't lose half your life to things that are not interesting to you...if you can choose what you do, you are a winner." - Mercedes Erra

The heart has reasons that reason knows nothing of. - Pascal

The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift. - Albert Einstein

• We are not put on this earth just to accumulate victories and trophies and avoid failures; but rather to be whittled and sandpapered down until what's left is who we truly are. - Arianna Huffington
• "There are friendships imprinted in our hearts that will never be diminished by time and distance" -Dodinsky