Quotes of Joan Chittister - somelinesforyou

“ Spirituality without a prayer life is no spirituality at all, and it will not last beyond the first defeats. Prayer is an opening of the self so that the Word of God can break in and make us new. Prayer unmasks. Prayer converts. Prayer impels. Prayer sustains us on the way. Pray for the grace it will take to continue what you would like to quit. ”

- Joan Chittister

“ Of all the things we share, the most central is not in the liturgical or theological or canonical dimensions of the religion. It is in the realm of our personal​ search and experience of God. I have danced in a Sufi fikre, sat for hours in a Zen Buddhist tea ceremony, been part of a Hindu puja, attended Shabbat services in multiple Jewish synagogues, and never, in any of those moments of worship, did I doubt these people were just as deeply involved in the search for God as I am. And that God was with us all. And why not? God is everywhere, they told us as children. But the question never goes away: Yes, but where is God for me? I don't feel God. I don't hear God. I don't know how to know God. So God is surely in all these other places where the consciousness of God is also real, as well. But as much as I knew, even as a child, that it had to be true, that God was everywhere, still God was nowhere in particular in life. And, though I did not know it at the time, and so struggled through the thought of god for night after night in life, in that reality was all I needed to know about the search for God. It was years, of course, before I realized that I was looking for Something rather than for Everything, and so I found nothing because I was looking for the wrong thing. And that is the kind of seeking that causes all the pain. ”

- Joan Chittister

“ The only thing I am afraid of is fear. ”

- Joan Chittister

“ To define it rudely but not ineptly, engineering is the art of doing that well with one dollar, which any bungler can do with two after a fashion. ”

- Joan Chittister

“ To define it rudely but not ineptly, engineering is the art of doing that well with one dollar, which any bungler can do with two after a fashion. ”

- Joan Chittister

“ Nothing except a battle lost can be half so melancholy as a battle won. ”

- Joan Chittister

“ The only thing worse than a battle lost is a battle won. ”

- Joan Chittister

“ Work is not slavery, then. Work is creativity. It is the expression of ourselves that no one else can duplicate. ”

- Joan Chittister

“ The message we have internalized is clear - we are what we do and what we own, not what we are inside ourselves. Where it counts! ”

- Joan Chittister

“ Persistence may not solve everything - at least in our lifetime - but it is truer to the meaning of life for us to wait for another plowing, another seeding, another harvest, then not. ”

- Joan Chittister

“ I have come to understand that it is not protesting what we do not like that counts. It is choosing what we do which, ultimately, changes things. ”

- Joan Chittister

“ Be discreet in all things, and so render it unnecessary to be mysterious about any. ”

- Joan Chittister

“ Hard pounding, gentlemen: but we shall see who can pound the longest. ”

- Joan Chittister

“ It is in community that we come to see God in the other. It is in community that we see our own emptiness filled up. It is community that calls me beyond the pinched horizons of my own life, my own country, my own race, and gives me the gifts I do not have within me. ”

- Joan Chittister

“ Work is not slavery, then. Work is creativity. It is the expression of ourselves that no one else can duplicate. ”

- Joan Chittister

“ The only thing I am afraid of is fear. ”

- Joan Chittister

“ The question is not, do we go to church; the question is, have we been converted. The crux of Christianity is not whether or not we give donations to popular charities but whether or not we are really committed to the poor. ”

- Joan Chittister

“ The Lord's prayer contains the sum total of religion and morals. ”

- Joan Chittister

“ The question is not, do we go to church; the question is, have we been converted. The crux of Christianity is not whether or not we give donations to popular charities but whether or not we are really committed to the poor. ”

- Joan Chittister

“ The question is not, do we go to church; the question is, have we been converted. The crux of Christianity is not whether or not we give donations to popular charities but whether or not we are really committed to the poor. ”

- Joan Chittister

“ The question is not, do we go to church; the question is, have we been converted. The crux of Christianity is not whether or not we give donations to popular charities but whether or not we are really committed to the poor. ”

- Joan Chittister

“ The message we have internalized is clear - we are what we do and what we own, not what we are inside ourselves. Where it counts! ”

- Joan Chittister

“ Next to a lost battle, nothing is so sad as a battle that has been won. ”

- Joan Chittister

“ Nothing except a battle lost can be half so melancholy as a battle won. ”

- Joan Chittister

“ Next to a lost battle, nothing is so sad as a battle that has been won. ”

- Joan Chittister

“ Nothing except a battle lost can be half so melancholy as a battle won. ”

- Joan Chittister

“ Next to a lost battle, nothing is so sad as a battle that has been won. ”

- Joan Chittister

“ In the East, at least, November is a sear month, beautiful for its bleakness.... It is a time of great life learning: We learn that we cannot control the passage of time in life. We learn to accept each of the stages of life with serenity. We learn to look to new moments in life with hope rather than despair. ”

- Joan Chittister

“ Be discreet in all things, and so render it unnecessary to be mysterious about any. ”

- Joan Chittister

“ Be discreet in all things, and so render it unnecessary to be mysterious about any. ”

- Joan Chittister
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