Janet Devries

“To say that I was born again, to use that traditional phrase, is to say too much because I remained in most ways as self-centered and squeamish after the fact as I was before, and God knows remain so still. And in another way to say that I was born again is to say too little because there have been more than a few such moments since, times when from beyond time something too precious to tell has glinted in the dusk, always just out of reach, like fireflies.”
― Frederick Buechner, The Sacred Journey: A Memoir of Early Days

“I believe without the miracles I have prayed for then; that is what I am explaining. I believe because certain, uncertain things have happened, dim half-miracles, sermons and silences and what not. Perhaps it is the believing itself that is the miracle I believe by. Perhaps it is the miracle of my own life, that I, who might so easily not have been, am; who might so easily at any moment, even now, give the whole thing up, nonetheless by God’s grace do not give it up and am not given up by it.”
― Frederick Buechner

“...
May I live this day

Compassionate of heart,
Clear in word,
Gracious in awareness,
Courageous in thought,
Generous in love.”
― John O'Donohue, Benedictus: A Book of Blessings

“We’ve all had saints in our lives, by which I mean not plaster saints, not moral exemplars, not people setting for us a kind of suffocating good example, but I mean saints in the sense of life givers. People through knowing whom we become more alive.”
― Frederick Buechner, The Remarkable Ordinary: How to Stop, Look, and Listen to Life