EVERYONE'S PATCHWORK QUILT SPIRITUALITY MUST BE UNIQUE

I have been collecting quotes for sometime that point to the fact that each of us need to develop our own, one-of-a-kind spirituality. Some of the best follow:


"Asking important questions is far more important than answering them, and of course no one can ask your questions for you, far less answer them."

[from Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi in his book, Jewish With Feeling, (c) 2005]

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"Only you can decide for you. That doesn't mean that you don't listen to others input or advice, but it's really up to oneself after all, isn't it?"

[from Lama Surya Das in his book Make Me One with Everything  (c)2015]

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"Quakers may have been the most faithful to the wisdom of Jesus. Believing that everyone has the ability to experience the love and leadership of God and that no ecclesiastical authority has to mediate or direct that experience..."

[from Robin R. Myers in Saving Jesus from the Church (c) 2009]

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After reading William James book, The Varieties of Religious Experience, the great basketball coach Phil Jackson realized "that mystical experience didn't have to be a big production...and he experienced a quiet feeling of inner peace...(he) no longer felt compelled to run from my (Pentecostal) past or cling to it out of fear. I could take from it what worked for me and let the rest go. I could also explore other traditions more fully without feeling as if I was committing a major sacrilege against God and family."

[from Phil Jackson in his autobiography, Sacred Hoops. This is one of the best descriptions of how a person develops their own patchworkquilt spirituality.]

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"The ultimate authority of my life is not the Bible;

it is not confined between the covers of a book.

It is not something written by men and frozen in time.

It is not from a source outside myself.

My ultimate authority is the divine voice in my own soul.  Period.

[from Dance of the Dissident Daughter by Sue Monk Kidd]

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And finally, a description of what it feels like to live with your own version of a patchwork quilt spirituality from How to Pray When You're Pissed at God by Ian Punnett (c) 2013:

"I carry my faith and my desire to understand the mysteries of life with me everywhere I go...

Like anybody, I struggle and succeed in equal spurts.

Mine is a tattered faith...

I wear my faith like an old corduroy jacket that has patches on the elbows and scars all over it from my haphazard mending...

I often use my faith as a blanket when I'm lounging under a tree...

My faith-jacket has coffee stains, is hopelessly wrinkled...

Even so, after all these years it keeps me warm and protected.

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And so the process of developing a patchwork quilt spirituality continues...