Spiritual Community Quotes

Just as in a physical body the operation of one member contributes to the good of the whole body, so it is in a spiritual body such as the Church. And since all the faithful are one body, the good of one member is communicated to another; everyone members, as the Apostle says, of one another [Eph 4:25]. For that reason, among the points of faith handed down by the Apostles, is that there is a community of goods in the Church, and this is expressed in the words Communion of Saints. ~ Thomas Aquinas

Scientology is not written with disrespect toward God. It doesn't worship something that is evil. It is scientific, mathematical, and spiritual. The black community has to check it out and see what's there. I'm not saying it's for everyone, but you have to take a look. ~ Doug E. Fresh

Internationalism is a community theory of society which is founded on economic, spiritual, and biological facts. It maintains that respect for a healthy development of human society and of world civilization requires that mankind be organized internationally. ~ Christian Lous Lange

I entered a spiritual community when I was 20, which I was in for 11 year, with very strict meditative practices, with an Eastern teacher. It was very much like a religious order. ~ Frederick Lenz

We have a spiritual community but everyone lives where they want to. I recommend certain areas to live because of their power. ~ Frederick Lenz

One trend I see is the rejection of growth for self-discovery and the pursuit of authentic community. So we keep whittling our spiritual community to a smaller and smaller and more exclusive inner circle. The problem is if the diagnoses are wrong, so will be the cure. ~ Erwin McManus

If we could see ourselves ... as we really are, we should see ourselves in a world of spiritual natures, our community which neither began at birth nor will end with the death of the body. ~ Immanuel Kant

It gradually became clear that the Green Belt Movement's work with communities to repair the degraded environment could not be done effectively without participants embracing a set of core spiritual values. ~ Wangari Maathai

When I'm near a native community, I visit it. If I hear there's a spiritual person in the neighborhood, I'll seek them out. ~ Jon Voight

The concept of the public welfare is broad and inclusive ... the values it represents are spiritual as well as physical, aesthetic as well as monetary. It is within the power of the legislature to determine that the community should be beautiful as well as healthy, spacious as well as clean, well balanced as well as carefully patroled. ~ William O. Douglas

FROM ITS VERY INCEPTION, The Farm was established as a "spiritual community" and registered with the state of Tennessee as The Farm Church. Stephen taught and the community recognized that intentional communities founded on spiritual principles were much more likely to survive beyond a few years, and there was history to back up that belief. Over the last 200 years of intentional communities in America, those based on political or social economic ideals had a life span of around 10 years, while those founded on spiritual principles typically endured 25 years or more. The spiritual awakening experienced by the hippie generation is what made The Farm happen, and why it exists today. Community is so much more than the buildings and the roads and the trees. It takes spiritual connection to endure. ~ Douglas Stevenson

In the mystic traditions of the different religions we have a remarkable unity of spirit. Whatever religion they may profess, they are spiritual kinsmen. While the different religions in their historic forms bind us to limited groups and militate against the development of loyalty to the world community, the mystics have already stood for the fellowship of humanity in harmony with the spirit of the mystics of ages gone by. ~ Haile Selassie

At its best, a coven is a spiritual community or a mutual aid society of witches who hang out. ~ Mya Spalter

Buddhas continue to live on through their teachings as dharma bodies. Their spirits become manifest in the sangha (spiritual community) where their teachings are passed on. ~ Shinjo Ito

If you're lucky you find your way into a spiritual community and you start to find the great teachers of all the ages who said the same thing. There's only love, you're made of love. ~ Anne Lamott

A Tribe Called Quest music was so inclusive, so conscious, it brought such a community together. ~ Michael Rapaport

For students who have not been required to confess that it is easier to learn theology then live it, it is tempting to think maturity is more a matter of knowing in a matter of living ~ Paul David Tripp

Renewed mind, revived spirit and restored strength. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

For as long as human beings are forced to live in a system that at every turn impedes the fulfillment of their basic human needs - not only for love but for creative and spiritual expression - they will try to compensate for this in other ways, including the compulsive acquisition of ever more material goods. ~ Riane Eisler

The Republican Party just isn't held in high repute in the black community. Under Bill Brock we were reaching out to broaden the base of the party. We have to go back to that. ~ Charles H. Percy

Prayer is easily ruined when we make it a project - part of a spiritual self-improvement plan. Rather than pushing yourself forward by resolve, allow God to lead you by desire. The most typical evidence of grace at work within us is not awareness of duty but awareness of desire. ~ David G. Benner

Williams, having awarded Orwell the title of exile, immediately replaces it with the description 'vagrant'. A vagrant will, for example, not be reassured or comforted by Williams's not-very-consoling insistence that '"totalitarian" describes a certain kind of repressive social control, but, also, any real society, any adequate community, is necessarily a totality. To belong to a community is to be a part of a whole, and, necessarily, to accept, while helping to define, its disciplines.' In other words, Williams is inviting Orwell and all of us to step back inside the whale! Remember your roots, observe the customs of the tribe, recognise your responsibilities. The life of the vagrant or exile is unwholesome, even dangerous or deluded. The warmth of the family and the people is there for you; so is the life of the 'movement.' If you must criticize, do so from within and make sure that your criticisms are constructive.

This rather peculiar attempt to bring Orwell back into the fold is reinforced by this extraordinary sentence: 'The principle he chose was socialism, and Homage to Catalonia is still a moving book (quite apart from the political controversy it involves) because it is a record of the most deliberate attempt he ever made to become part of a believing community.' I leave it to any reader of those pages to find evidence for such a proposition; it is true that Orwell was very moved by the Catalan struggle and by the friends he made in the course of it. But h ~ Christopher Hitchens

Saigon, U.S.A. aptly documents the birth of a new American community, uprooted in the aftermath of war and forever torn apart by the wounds of the past, yet one capable of healing against all odds. An engrossing yet succinct film that captures not only a major incident in Vietnamese American life, but also an important chapter of American history. A profound film that manages to confront us with the deepest sorrow while allowing us to be hopeful about what it means to be human. ~ Nguyen Qui Duc

Spiritual lust causes me to demand an answer from God, instead of seeking God Himself who gives the answer. ~ Oswald Chambers

It was a costly triumph. But God's values are not so easily reckoned. If God had simply terminated Satan, then it would not have been so clear that God is both stronger and infinitely more to be desired than Satan. God wills for his glory to shine forth not only through acts of physical power, but also through acts of moral and spiritual power that display the beauty of his grace with lavish colors. To take sinners out of Satan's hands by virtue of Christ's sin-bearing sacrifice and his law-fulfilling obedience to the Father was a more glorious victory than mere annihilation of the enemy. ~ John Piper

For what is worth: Slazinger claims to have learned from history that most people cannot open their minds to new ideas unless a mind-opening team with a peculiar membership goes to work on them. Otherwise, life will go on exactly as before, no matter how painful, unrealistic, unjust, ludicrous, or downright dumb that life may be.
The team must consist of three sorts of specialists, he says. Otherwise, the revolution, whether in politics or the arts or the sciences or whatever, is sure to fail.
The rarest of these specialists, he says, is an authentic person, capable of having seemingly good ideas not in general circulation. „Such a person, working alone", he says, „is invariably ignored as a lunatic."
The second sort of specialist is a lot easier to find: a highly intelligent citizen in good standing in his or her community, who understands and admires the fresh ideas, and who testifies that the first specialist is far from mad. „A person like that working alone", he says, „can only yearn out loud for changes, but fail to say what their shapes should be".
The third sort of specialist is a person who can explain anything, no matter how complicated, to the satisfaction of most people, no matter how stupid or pig-headed they may be. „He will say almost anything in order to be interesting and exciting," says Slazinger. „Working alone, depending solely on his own shallow ideas, he would be regarded as being as full of shit as a Christmas turkey. ~ Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

I have sought to offer humanists a detailed analysis of a technology sufficiently magnificent and spiritual to convince them that the machines by which they are surrounded are cultural artifacts worthy of their attention and respect. ~ Bruno Latour

I had been an activist on the issue of HIV, primarily in the African American and Latino communities here in the U.S. for many years. It was horrifying to me how the pandemic was raging right here in this country but no one was talking about it. ~ Gloria Reuben

See it, learn it, do it ALL. ~ Jamie McCall

Prayer is the key discipline whereby all spiritual work is done. ~ Chuck Pierce

You do not have to be religious to be spiritual and moral. ~ Toni Sorenson

I see those picketers, and I think you know, if I weren't a loving, non-violent, spiritual person, I would really go over there and grab those signs and smash them over their heads and shove them up their asses. But ... I'm a loving, spiritual person. ~ Ellen DeGeneres

Spiritual empowerment is evidenced in our lives by our willingness to tell ourselves the truth, to listen to the truth when it's told to us, and to dispense truth as lovingly as possible, when we feel compelled to talk from the heart. ~ Christina Baldwin

The inlet of a man's mind is what he learns; the outlet is what he accomplishes. If his mind is not fed by a continued supply of new ideas which he puts to work with purpose, and if there is no outlet in action, his mind becomes stagnant. Such a mind is a danger to the individual who owns it and is useless to the community. ~ Jeremiah Jenks

Join the community of saints and know the delight of your own Soul. Enter the ruins of your Heart and Learn the Meaning of Humility. ~ Rumi

Things come into your memory even when you don't want them to; that is because 'pratikraman dosh' is pending (mistake for which pratikraman was not done yet). ~ Dada Bhagwan

It is not the poverty of individuals and the community, not indebtedness to foreign nations, not the unfavourableness of the conditions of production, that force up the rate of exchange, but inflation. ~ Ludwig Von Mises

Les Miserables is first of all the product of a varied experience of the world, containing the perceptions of an entire life. And this image of reality is also a realistic image. The symbol, as Hugo uses it, does not idealize things; rather, it expresses their spiritual meaning without disguising them. ~ Victor Hugo

Whatever work you do in this world; the work itself has no value. If there is attachment-abhorrence behind that work, then only you are responsible for the next life. You are not responsible if attachment-abhorrence don't occur. ~ Dada Bhagwan

I have an increasing sense that the most important crisis of our time is spiritual and that we need places where people can grow stronger in the spirit and be able to integrate the emotional struggles in their spiritual journeys. ~ Henri Nouwen

This is the power of the Goliath, that no one on earth, Clanker or Darwinist, can escape. So we all must learn to share the globe, or perish together! ~ Scott Westerfeld

Prayer in Benedictine spirituality is not an interruption of our busy lives nor is it a higher act. Prayer is the filter through which we learn, if we listen hard enough, to see our world aright and anew and without which we live life with souls that are deaf and dumb and blind. ~ Joan Chittister

Gratitude is a Short-Cut which Speeds the Journey to Love :-) ~ Raymond D. Longoria Jr.

Today everybody admits that something is wrong with the world, and the critics of Christianity are the very people who feel this most. The most violent attacks on religion come from those who are most anxious to change the world, and they attack Christianity because they think that it is an obstructive force that stands in the way of a real reform of human life. There has seldom been a time in which men were more dissatisfied with life and the more conscious of the need for deliverance, and if they turn away from Christianity it is because they feel that Christianity is a servant of the established order and that it has no real power or will to change the world and to rescue man from his present difficulties. They have lost their faith in the old spiritual traditions that inspired civilization in the past, and they tend to look for a solution in some external practical remedy such as communism, or the scientific organisation of life; something definite and objective that can be applied to society as a whole. ~ Christopher Henry Dawson

God has created each soul in God's image, and every soul is inherently good. Just as certain conditions can cause mold to grow on food, so too do certain circumstances cause an un-spiritual mold to grow on a person's soul. Before long, the mold has taken control of the spirit and a person seems possessed of that mold. But no matter how controlled by the mold a person is, their soul still belongs to God, and is absolutely, always redeemable. ~ Sean Patrick Brennan

Being in Cuba has allowed me to live in a society that is not at war with itself. There is a sense of community. It's a given in Cuba that, if you fall down, the person next to you is going to help you get up. ~ Assata Shakur

The history of the Church of Christ from the days of the Apostles has been a history of spiritual movements. ~ Henry Parry Liddon

Basically it is your choice. No matter what spiritual path you have taken, no matter what experiences you have had, choice is still choice. Spiritual development doesn't happen automatically. It is choosing the eye of Tao that sees both the whole view of things from a distance and the core of reality from deep inside. ~ Ilchi Lee

Reconciliation is a step beyond the domain of conflict resolution, which, as traditionally defined and practiced, is coming to be viewed as inadequate for creating true healing, harmony, and effective community in arenas where they has been long-standing conflict. ~ William Keepin

What constitutes a good manager in this field? He must be knowledgeable in the art with which he is concerned, an impresario, labor negotiator, diplomat, educator, publicity and public relations expert, politician, skilled businessman, a social sophisticate, a servant of the community, a tireless leader - becomingly humble before authority - a teacher, a tyrant, and a continuing student of the arts. ~ John D. Rockefeller

In these times - where social appearance is more important than spiritual substance - what has become our longing to change is really the unconscious desire to control not just the shape of our bodies (according to prevailing values) but to dominate our environment as well, regardless of the cost. ~ Guy Finley

We need community action and policies to support healthy communities. ~ Mark Hyman