The Weight of the "Trivial"

Good and evil both increase at compound interest. That is why the little decisions you and I make every day are of such infinite importance. The smallest good act today is the capture of a strategic point from which, a few months later, you may be able to go on to victories you never dreamed of. An apparently trivial indulgence in lust or anger today is the loss of a ridge or railway line or bridgehead from which the enemy may launch an attack otherwise impossible.

C.S. Lewis. MERE CHRISTIANITY.

The Real Struggle in Submission

I don't assume that renunciation goes with submission or even that renunciation is good in itself. Always you renounce a lesser good for a greater; the opposite is what sin is....The struggle to submit...is not a struggle to submit but a struggle to accept and with passion. I mean, possibly, with joy. Picture me with my ground teeth stalking joy--fully armed too as its a highly dangerous quest.

Flannery O'Connor quoted by John Piper in DESIRING GOD:MEDITATIONS OF A CHRISTIAN HEDONIST.

Staying in Touch

Through contempleative prayer we can keep ourselves from being pulled from one urgent issue to another and from becoming strangers to our own and God's Heart.

Henri Nowen. IN THE NAME OF JESUS.

On Traveling Abroad

Traveling abroad is a progressive exercise in the discovery of our own ignorance.

William Blake. quoted in PATCHES OF GODLIGHT: Father Tim's Favorite Quotes by Jan Karon