Wednesday, May 10, 2017

Krista Tippett: Looking For the Face of God


 Quotes from Krista Tippett

Compassion is a piece of vocabulary that could change us if we truly let it sink into the standards by which we hold ourselves and others.

The things that go wrong for you have a lot of potential to become part of your gift to the world.

How we carry what has gone wrong for us is essential to being at home in ourselves, and present to the world with all of its failings. 

Depression can kill you. It can also be a spiritually enriching experience. It's really an important part of my theology now and my spirituality that life is not perfect, and I grew up wanting it to be and thinking that if it wasn't, I could make it that way, and I had to acknowledge that I had all kinds of flaws and sadnesses and problems.

What a liberating thing to realize that our problems are probably our richest sources for rising to the ultimate virtue of compassion.

If we can't face our losses, we can't be present either fully to everything that is. When people have cut off or not made peace with some part of themselves, they miss out on other aspects of life. 

Compassion also brings us into the territory of mystery - encouraging us not just to see beauty, but perhaps also to look for the face of God in the moment of suffering, in the face of a stranger, in the face of the vibrant religious other. 

Kindness is an everyday byproduct of all the great virtues.

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