“An agnostic friend of mine eventually converted to the Catholic faith. She received religious instruction from a devout and simple-minded nun. They were discussing the story of the Annunciation, which presented some difficulties to my friend. At last she said to the nun, “Well, anyhow, I suppose that one is not obliged to believe that the Blessed Virgin was visited by a solid angel, dressed in a white robe?” To this the nun replied doubtfully, “No, dear, perhaps not. But still, you know, he would have to wear something.”

Now here, it seems to me, we have a great theological truth. The elusive contacts and subtle realities of the world of spirit have got to wear something, if we are to grasp them at all. Moreover, they must wear something which is easily recognised by the human eye and human heart – more, by the primitive, half-conscious folk-soul existing in each one of us, stirring in the depths and reaching out in its own way towards God.”

Evelyn Underhill (1875 – 1941), Anglo-Catholic writer on mysticism, quoted in Fragments of Holiness for Daily Reflection

Artwork by El Greco

“Give me a quiet life, give me trees, the wind through them, give me a sea and the song it sings. Give me heartbeats shared with those I love, give me peace and a long deep sleep.”

Tyler Knott Gregson, poet and photographer

Feast Day of Saint Hildegard of Bingen

“O Fire of the Spirit, life of all life of all creatures,
Holy are you, because you make all creatures come to life.
Holy are you, because you save the dangerously broken.
Holy are you, because you heal the wounds.
O tremendous flow which has permeated everything
in the heights and on earth and in all the depths,
You gather and unite us all.
Protect those who are incarcerated and free the bound ones because the divine power wants to keep them safe.
Through you the clouds stream and the ether flies,
the stones contain wetness, the waters form little brooks
and the earth drives forward its green.
You always lift up your disciples,
because the breath of wisdom delights them.
Therefore you should be praised,
you who are the sound of praise and the delight in life,
the most powerful hope and honour, which gives us the gifts of light.”

O Ignis Spiritus Paracliti by Hildegard von Bingen (1098 – 1179), translated by Brigitte McCready, Doncaster Unitarians

“Our individual relationship with Spirit has to be personal and immediate for it to have authenticity. It cannot be gained by reading books. In every place, in every time, with every person, Spirit communicates in its own ways. Those who advance their spiritual lives by spending time in nature, in meditation, and in practice, learn the eternal knowledge which is the heritage of mystics in every tradition. To simply make repetition or to blindly accept the findings of others, without personal perception and understanding, invalidates our spiritual path.

The truly authentic spiritual tradition is one we are actively practicing: while it may indeed correspond with that of many other people, there will always be features within it that arise uniquely from our own living context, which we know to be authentic to the very core.”

From The Celtic Spirit: Daily Meditations for the Turning Year by Caitlin Matthews

International Day of Democracy

“If people have confidence in the democratic process, it engenders hope, and nothing is more essential to the human spirit than hope.”

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, novelist, born on this day in 1977

“Divine spirit, give us the strength
to act honourably and respectfully
towards the earth and all her creatures,
including our own species.
Give us the power to act now, and
let co-operation, not competition,
be our default mode of being.
Amen.”

Maria Curtis, Unitarian minister, quoted in Fragments of Holiness for Daily Reflection

“You’ll never get anywhere if you go about what-iffing like that.”

From Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator by Roald Dahl (1916 – 1990), born on this day

“I am dust particles in sunlight.
I am the round sun.

To the bits of dust I say, Stay.
To the sun, Keep moving.

I am morning mist,
and the breathing of evening.

I am wind in the top of a grove,
and surf on the cliff.

Mast, rudder, helmsman, and keel,
I am also the coral reef they founder on.

I am a tree with a trained parrot in its branches.
Silence, thought, and voice.

The musical air coming through a flute,
a spark of a stone, a flickering

in metal. Both candle,
and the moth crazy around it.

Rose, and the nightingale
lost in the fragrance.

I am all orders of being, the circling galaxy,
the evolutionary intelligence, the lift,

and the falling away. What is,
and what isn’t. You who know
Jelaluddin, You the one
in all, say who

I am. Say I
am You.”

Jalaluddin Muhammad Rumi (1207-1273)

“Spirituality emerged as a fundamental guidepost in Wholeheartedness. Not religiosity but the deeply held belief that we are inextricably connected to one another by a force greater than ourselves–a force grounded in love and compassion. For some of us that’s God, for others it’s nature, art, or even human soulfulness. I believe that owning our worthiness is the act of acknowledging that we are sacred. Perhaps embracing vulnerability and overcoming numbing is ultimately about the care and feeding of our spirits.”

Brené Brown, research professor and writer

“Perhaps this is the deepest impression left by life in India, the sense of the sacred as something pervading the whole order of nature. Every hill and tree and river is holy, and the simplest human acts of eating and drinking, still more of birth and marriage, have all retained their sacred character… In the West everything has been “profane”; it has been deliberately emptied of religious meaning… It is there that the West needs to learn from the East the sense of the “holy,” of a transcendent mystery which is immanent in everything and which gives an ultimate meaning to life… Then everything is sacred. That is what one finds in India; everything is sacred – eating or drinking or taking a bath; in any of the normal events in life there is always a sacred action… We have lost that awareness… this sacramentality of the universe. The whole creation is pervaded by God.”

Bede Griffiths, aka Swami Dayananda (1906 – 1993), monk and yogi, quoted in Christian Mystics by Matthew Fox