Gordon Atkinson

Quotes

• When life seems chaotic, you don't need people giving you easy answers or cheap promises. There might not be any answers to your problems. What you need is a safe place where you can bounce with people who have taken some bad hops of their own.

• I’m telling you, things are getting out of hand. Or maybe I’m discovering that things were never in my hands.

• The only comfort comes in thinking about how nice it was to know them, and how nice it was to brush against goodness for a season.

• I believe love is primarily a choice and only sometimes a feeling. If you want to feel love, choose to love and be patient.

• Fidelity to commitment in the face of doubts and fears is a very spiritual thing.

• My life is the story of a man who always wants to carry too much. My spiritual quest is the painful process of learning to let go of things not essential.

• We think having faith means being convinced God exists in the same way we are convinced a chair exists. People who cannot be completely convinced of God’s existence think faith is impossible for them. Not so. People who doubt can have great faith because faith is something you do, not something you think. In fact, the greater your doubt the more heroic your faith.

• God, I don’t have great faith, but I can be faithful. My belief in you may be seasonal, but my faithfulness will not. I will follow in the way of Christ. I will act as though my life and the lives of others matter. I will love. I have no greater gift to offer than my life. Take it.

• When someone allows you to bear his burdens, you have found deep friendship.

• I don’t think anyone can DO anything that would make him worthy of love. Love is a gift and cannot be earned. It can only be given.

• Integrity combined with faithfulness is a powerful force and worthy of great respect.

• EVERY path may lead you to God, even the weird ones. Most of us are on a journey. We’re looking for something, though we’re not always sure what that is. The way is foggy much of the time. I suggest you slow down and follow some of the side roads that appear suddenly in the mist.

• It's not foresight or hindsight we need. We need sight, plain and simple. We need to see what is right in front of us.

• Forgiveness is the healing of wounds caused by another. You choose to let go of a past wrong and no longer be hurt by it. Forgiveness is a strong move to make, like turning your shoulders sideways to walk quickly on a crowded sidewalk. It's your move.

• It really doesn't matter if the person who hurt you deserves to be forgiven. Forgiveness is a gift you give yourself. You have things to do and you want to move on.

• You can pray for someone even if you don't think God exists.

• Forgiveness does not always lead to a healed relationship. Some people are not capable of love, and it might be wise to let them go along with your anger. Wish them well, and let them go their way.

• There isn’t much better in this life than finding a way to spend a few hours in conversation with people you respect and love. You have to carve this time out of your life because you aren’t really living without it.

• The universe seems wondrous to me, with or without God. It has powerful lines and uncompromising ways. Patience and time sit like sages on the planets, strong and impersonal. There is a stark beauty to all of this.

• And so faith is closing your eyes and following the breath of your soul down to the bottom of life, where existence and nonexistence have merged into irrelevance. All that matters is the little part you play in the vast drama.