Michael Gungor Quotes

To truly see is to find hope.

I've found that limitations can be an artist's best friend sometimes.

To me genres were always an imaginary things, they're just marketing channels.

Fundamentalism is rooted in arrogance. It thrives in fear and control and darkness.

To me, God is the basic Reality of the universe. God is what is. That's how Moses wrote that God introduced Himself, isn't it? "I am that I am." God is. Whatever is, that is God.

I do think that Christians will make music that oh should have some of the grandest visions of why we should create music and why we should seek to create beauty world.

Any religious, philosophical or political idea that doesn't lead one towards love ought to be forsaken

When I think of Spirit, I think of that mysterious force that pulls us into being, into becoming, into love. That can get political rather quickly.

A healthy faith is one that has aligned in word, thought, and action.

Creativity is simply the human brain forming new connections between ideas, and we all are engaged in this process every day. The common idea that there are some people who are creative and some who are not is a myth. On some level, we are all artists. We are all creators.

It's hard to make a living in music, so a lot of times in the arts it's safer to kind of fit into a box.

I'm not one to call out an individual and say "I don't think that is honest." Who am I to know what is in their heart while they are singing it?

Here is a paradox for the creator: if you love your work, let it go.15 Because if you grip it too tightly, you will strangle it. If you hold it in open hands, you may actually find that the work has a life of its own. Creativity is more about listening and following than it is about forcing or manipulating. The truth for the creator is that you have a very limited control over anything in the world, even your own creation. You can work on it. You can help mold and shape its form. But there will come a point in the creative process where your creation is what it is. There comes a point where there is nothing left to do but to rest. To open your hands and let it go. You cannot control how others will receive it. They

Practice being fully present with something. Perhaps you may find something of God there. Go outside and look at the stars. Not for just a few seconds - lay a blanket in the yard, lie on your back and really look at the stars. Try to let your heart feel the incomprehensible size and grandeur of the universe. Take the time to really attend to a meal, a good book, a piece of music, or a sunrise. The point is to be fully present, to not be swept up into the distraction of a thousand voices, but to learn how to simply and fully attend to one. Then, when one enters back into the noisy world that we live in, even the million colors together are more vibrant because you have learned to better see color in its essence. To truly see is to find hope.

You don't have to be afraid, even death itself does not have power. In Christ, everything is becoming new, everything is different.

Spend your energy on things you believe in, and do them honestly and to the best of your ability.

We are all creators. Whether or not we create is not up to us. We are human, and creating is what we do. Every interaction, movement, and decision is creativity at work. We are all artists. We all order creation around us into the world that we want to make.

Burnout is what happens when you try to avoid being human for too long.

I used to flirt with fundamentalism, and I had this idea that creation was something that happened. Now I see creation as something that is happening. Hundreds of millions of stars are still being born every day. Creation is an ongoing process. The Artist has not yet cleaned out the brushes. The paint is still wet. Human beings are the small clumps of clay and breath, and we have been handed brushes of our own, like young artist apprentices. The brushes aren't ours, nor the paint or canvas, but here they are in our hands, on loan. What shall we make?

Pain is as common as skin, we all experience it. It unites us all. Fortunately, that's not the whole story.

Money is not the root of all kinds of evil. The love of money is. It's also the root of a lot of bad art.

There is a reason we used to build Cathedrals that drew the eye upwards.

To me music is music. A person of faith, a person that calls themselves a Christian, they are the Christian and they make music. Some music has more to do about God than other music, but in reality what makes the difference between "secular" and "Christian" music is simply a marketing channel.

We consume our art like moths. We gather, momentarily, around wherever the biggest, brightest light seems to be. So these days, the most successful art is the art that can elicit the quickest visceral reaction from the largest group of people.

The more successful the work, the more people will step in to try to influence and manipulate the work for their own benefit.

The danger of art created to rise above the noise is that it may end up being noise itself.