All quotes from
Anne's book
There’s something to be said about keeping prayer simple. Help. Thanks. Wow.
Prayer
can be motion and stillness and energy – all at the same time. It begins with stopping in our tracks, or
with our backs against the wall, or when we are going under the waves.
Prayer is taking a chance that against all odds and past history, we
are loved and chosen, and do not have to get it together before we show
up.
Where do we even start on the daily walk of restoration and
awakening? We start where we are.
If
I were going to begin practicing the presence of God for the first time today,
it would help to begin by admitting the three most terrible truths of our
existence: that we are so ruined, and so loved, and in charge of so little.
The
three things I cannot change are the past, the truth, and you.
Often when we do not get our way, which I hate, hate,
hate. But in my saner moments I remember
that if we did, usually we would shortchange ourselves.
Revelation is not for the faint at heart.
Without revelation and reframing, life can seem like an
endless desert of danger with scratchy sand in your shoes, and yet if we
remember or are reminded to pay attention, we find so many sources of hidden
water, so many bits and chips and washes of color, in a weed or the gravel or a
sunrise. There are so many ways to sweep
the sand off our feet.
God’s idea of a good time is to see us picking up litter.
Gorgeous, amazing things come into our lives when we are paying
attention: mangoes, grandnieces, Bach, ponds.
If you want to know only what you already know, you’re dying.
When nothing new can get in, that’s death.
Life is
motion, change, stagnation, bloom.
When all else fails, follow instructions.
