"Spirituality is not about competency; it is about intimacy. Spirituality is not about perfection; it is about connection."
-Michael Yaconelli (Messy Spirituality)
"The church is not a museum for saints, but a hospital for sinners."
-Morton Kelsey
"Death is the last act of self giving, the final repudiation of self, the ultimate act of impoverished ragamuffins before the fierce mercy of God."
-Brennan Manning
"For someone like myself, in whom the ability to trust others is so cracked and broken that I am wretchedly timid and am forever trying to read the expressions on people's faces."
Osamu Dazai
"One of the surest ways to avoid being happy is to insist on being happy at all costs. The religion of cheerfulness is a cruel religion, and maybe the best way not to go mad is not to mind too much if you do go mad."
-Simon Tugwell
"When discrimination against women goes unchallenged; when minorities are considered second class citizens: when leadership is mastery of mega church principles and not humble service; when the poor and outcasted are not welcomed at the table; when obedience to the Father, loving service to others and simplicity of life are considered exclusive province of elite believers; when evangelical greatness is measured by achievement and not by smallness; and when the rejection and suffering inherent in bold witness to the truth is rationalized, minimized and finally pulverized in cantankerous Bible studies, then Jesus is made an anachronism, His teaching an irrelevance, and His followers an anonymous crowd- their investments and property intact, their credit cards and trinkets secure; a sheepish herd moving in lockstep with the lip serving, self absorbed entrepreneurs who stay busy 'expanding their territories to the glory of God.'"
-Brennan Manning
