Suffering shapes the life force, sometimes into anger, sometimes into blame and self-pity. Eventually it may show us the wisdom of embracing and loving life. Rachel Naomi Remen More Quotes by Rachel Naomi Remen More Quotes From Rachel Naomi Remen Just Listen an excerpt Rachel Naomi Remen just-listen listening People have the natural capacity to affirm and embrace life in the most difficult of circumstances. Rachel Naomi Remen natural courage people When people are blessed they discover that their lives matter, that there is something in them worthy of blessing. Rachel Naomi Remen mom blessed blessing An unanswered question is a fine traveling companion. It sharpens your eye for the road. Rachel Naomi Remen unanswered-questions fine eye Fear is the friction in all transitions. Rachel Naomi Remen friction transition fear As I age I am grateful to find that a silence has begun to gather in me, coexisting with my tempers and my fears, unchanged by my joys or my pain. Sanctuary. Connected to the Silence everywhere. Rachel Naomi Remen grateful pain joy If we fear loss enough, in the end the things we possess will come to possess us. Rachel Naomi Remen ends enough loss For many years now I have listened to the stories of people with cancer and other life-threatening illnesses as their counselor. From them I have learned how to enjoy the minute particulars of life once again, the grace of a hot cup of coffee, the presence of a friend, the blessing of having a new cake of soap or an hour without pain. Such humble experience is the stuff that many of the very best stories are made of. If we think we have no stories it is because we have not paid enough attention to our lives. Most of us live lives that are far richer and more meaningful than we appreciate. Rachel Naomi Remen cancer pain meaningful God's presence. . . is an inner experience that never changes. It's a relationship that's there all the time, even when we're not paying attention to it. Perhaps the Infinite holds us to Itself in the same way the earth does. Like gravity, if it ever stopped we would know it instantly. But it never does. Rachel Naomi Remen god doe attention A loving silence often has more power to heal and to connect than the most well-intentioned words. Rachel Naomi Remen kitchen-table silence listening There should be a word that means beginning/end because nothing begins without something dying. Rachel Naomi Remen dying inspirational mean It is said that the Christian mystic Theresa of Avila found difficulty at first in reconciling the vastness of the life of the spirit with the mundane tasks of her Carmelite convent: the washing of pots, the sweeping of floors, the folding of laundry. At some point of grace, the mundane became for her a sort of prayer, a way she could experience her ever-present connection to the divine pattern which is the source of life. She began then to see the face of God in the folded sheets. Rachel Naomi Remen grace prayer christian Unexplained pain may sometimes direct our attention to something unacknowledged, something we are afraid to know or feel. Then it holds us to our integrity, claiming the attention we withhold. The thing which calls our attention may be a repressed experience or some unexpressed and important part of who we are. Whatever we have denied may stop us and dam the creative flow of our lives. Avoiding pain, we may linger in the vicinity of our wounds, sometime for many years, gathering the courage to experience them. Rachel Naomi Remen pain integrity years Those who bless and serve life find a place of belonging and strength, a refuge. Rachel Naomi Remen belonging bless refuge Everybody is a story. Rachel Naomi Remen stories What we do to survive is often different from what we may need to do in order to live. Rachel Naomi Remen different order needs Our purpose in life is to grow in wisdom and in love. Rachel Naomi Remen grows purpose life-is Prayer is not a way to get what we want to happen, like the remote control that comes with the television set. I think that prayer may be less about asking for the things we are attached to than it is about relinquishing our attachments in some way. It can take us beyond fear, which is an attachment, and beyond hope, which is another form of attachment. It can help us remember the nature of the world and the nature of life, not on an intellectual level but in a deep and experiential way. When we pray, we don't change the world, we change ourselves. We change our consciousness. Rachel Naomi Remen attachment prayer thinking All natural processes are long processes and they last. Rachel Naomi Remen lasts natural long Befriending life is less a matter of knowledge than a question of wisdom. It is not about mastering life, controlling it or exerting our will over it, no matter how well intentioned our will may be. Befriending life is more about harmlessness than it is about control. Rachel Naomi Remen befriending matter may
