Meditations on speaking with holy & holistic purpose

For God, to me, it seems, is a verb; Not a noun — proper or improper; — Is the articulation not the art? Is loving not the abstraction of love? Yes, God is a verb — the most active. — Buckminster Fuller

Speak a new language
so that the world
will be a new world.
Rumi

On Storytelling

We tell ourselves stories in order to live. ― Joan Didion, The White Album

After nourishment, shelter and companionship, stories are the thing we need most in the world. ― Philip Pullman

Every great love starts with a great story … ― Nicholas Sparks, The Notebook

Stories have to be told or they die, and when they die, we can’t remember who we are or why we’re here. ― Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees

You may tell a tale that takes up residence in someone’s soul, becomes their blood and self and purpose. That tale will move them and drive them and who knows that they might do because of it, because of your words. That is your role, your gift. ― Erin Morgenstern, The Night Circus

I think you’re a fairy tale. I think you’re magical, and brave, and exquisite. And I hope you’ll let me be in your story. ― Laini Taylor, Strange the Dreamer

A story has no beginning or end: arbitrarily one chooses that moment of experience from which to look back or from which to look ahead.― Graham Greene, The End of the Affair

There is something in us, as storytellers and as listeners to stories, that demands the redemptive act, that demands that what falls at least be offered the chance to be restored. ― Flannery O’Connor, Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose

They tell stories. They talk about relationships. They talk about events that have stuck in their minds … but the way they talk … it had an immediacy, a loveliness … and a great capacity for humor.  — Wendell Berry

To Speak Out

All I insist on, and nothing else, is that you should show the whole world that you are not afraid. Be silent, if you choose; but when it is necessary, speak—and speak in such a way that people will remember it. ― Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

There is a time for silence. There is a time for waiting your turn. But if you know how you feel and you so clearly know what you need to say you’ll know it. I don’t think you should wait. I think you should speak now. ― Taylor Swift

If we can share our story with someone who responds with empathy and understanding, shame can’t survive. ― Brené Brown, Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead

If she spoke, she would tell him the truth: she was not okay at all, but horribly empty, now that she knew what it was like to be filled. ― Jodi Picoult, Plain Truth

When I pass, speak freely of my shortcomings and my flaws. Learn from them, for I’ll have no ego to injure. ― Aaron McGruder

Meditations on speaking with holy & holistic purpose
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