Eugene H. Peterson Quotes

That's why we cannot love, because with the ego, love is impossible. That's why we go on talking so much about love, but we never are in love. And whatsoever we call love is more or less sex, it is not love; because you cannot lose your ego, and love cannot exist unless the ego has disappeared. Love, meditation, godliness, they all require one thing - the ego must not be there. That's why Jesus is right in saying that God is love, because both phenomena happen only when the ego is not.

Prayer immediately turns us into something greater than ourselves.

Life itself suggests a higher good than life itself can yield.

I'd rather be able to pray than to be a great preacher; Jesus Christ never taught his disciples how to preach, but only how to pray.

It's hard to rest knowing that millions of people merely carry on religious traditions but don't actually reach God.

This Catholic thing, I think what it does is it makes a place for mystery in a person. And even when the faith goes away, there's that space where you crave something bigger than yourself. For me, that's kind of where art came in, after that.

Sexual union is a holy moment in which a part of Heaven flows into the Earth.

On the higher plane the soul is sexless, and those who wish to rise higher than the physical plane must eliminate the idea of sex.

Jesus made it clear that the most important thing in the world is our relationship to God and to others. When we achieve that, everything good will follow.

Religious ecstasy is a madness of thought freed of its bodily bonds, whereas in the ecstasy of love, the forces of twin natures unite, blend and embrace one another.

Your worst day with God is still better than your best day without Him.

Everyone's looking for the perfect teacher, but although their teachings might be divine, teachers are all too human, and that's something people find hard to accept. Don't confuse the teacher with the lesson, the ritual with the ecstasy, the transmitter of the symbol with the symbol itself.

There must be some part of Man that is more than his daily round. Some part of him that will use his profit on a matter of no profit.

It's only by forgetting yourself that you draw near to God.

The greatest comfort in this life is having a close relationship with God.

Only when all images of Earth are hushed and the clamor of the senses be stilled, and the soul has passed beyond thought of self, can the eternal wisdom be revealed to the mystic who seeks that highest communion with the unseen.

I’ve got to push everything out of mind save the name of Jesus. I say His name over and over again, for as long as fifteen minutes, until I find my soul suspended in what the ancient Celtic Christians called a “thin place”–a state where the boundary between heaven and earth, divine and human, dissolves. You could say that I use the name of Jesus as my koan.

If one feels the need of something grand, something infinite, something that makes one feel aware of God, one need not go far to find it.

Oh you, unceasing sun, to me Your particles communicate The luminous essence of God, Are you our God? I do not know. Intoxicated, I say nought, Bewitched by the magic potion. I cannot differentiate Between my drunk and sober state.

And I want to rise up, throw my arms open for a vast embrace, address an ample, luminous discourse to the invisible crowds. I would start like this: "O rainbow-colored gods. . .

What the sunshine is to the flower, the Lord Jesus Christ is to my soul.

Me and Jesus got our own thing going on. We don't need anybody to tell us what it's all about.

The desire for transcendence is intimately connected with the desire for creativity. It is just as essential to who and what we are.

Dear young friends, learn to pray every day: this is the way to know Jesus and invite him into your lives.

Whenever a human being ceases to live for themselves and begins to care about that which is greater than themselves, the personality begins to experience ecstasy, joy and spontaneous liberation. And that's found through doing, through action, through giving, through deeply embracing the human experience.