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How We Spend Our Lives – Evelyn Underhill – Quote of the Week

October 18, 2014 By Jean Wise

healthyspirituality.org

We mostly spend our lives conjugating three verbs:

to Want, to Have and to Do.

Craving, clutching, and fussing, on the material, political, social, emotional, intellectual, even on the religious plane,

we are kept in perpetual unrest, forgetting that none of these verbs have any ultimate significance,

except so far as they are transcended by and included in the fundamental verb,

to Be,

and that Being,

not wanting, having and doing,

is the essence of the spiritual life.

Evelyn Underhill

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Comments

  1. Sherrey Meyer says

    October 19, 2014 at 2:29 pm

    A beautiful quote, and a beautiful lesson found in its words. I followed Dolly here via Disqus and am so glad I did. Enjoyed perusing your site and discovered a link to the Henri Nouwen Society, for which I shall thank you as well as thank you for your post.

    • blankJean Wise says

      October 19, 2014 at 7:08 pm

      Hi Sherrey, so good to have you here and appreciate you taking the time to leave a comment. Dolly is a great commenter and i do enjoy my interactions with her and others here. I love Henri Nouwen. He is one of my favorites.
      Please come back; it will be fun to get to know each other. Blessings on your week.

  2. blanksoulstops says

    October 18, 2014 at 10:47 pm

    Jean,
    What a great quote…God in His being…and from that being, His doing…but He is never grasping the way I can be sometimes…I always need to remember to go back and be with God and remember His greatness and my smallness but yet the mystery is…God sees me as beloved…blessings to you, Jean…praying God is giving you writing time and words…I haven’t done much lately on my dog stories….

    • blankJean Wise says

      October 19, 2014 at 7:04 pm

      I really need to read more about Evelyn Underhill the one who write this quote, Dolly. I know a little about her but think we could learn much from her writings.

      I am with you on the writing lately. seasons, times will come. I did attend a great one day writing workshop yesterday that feed my spirit and made me think about next steps. Being around other writers made a difference too.

      Blessing on your week, Dolly!

Healthy Spirituality – a sacred space to nurture your faith, grow closer to God, and belong to a community, walking together on life’s journey. This blog is written by author, speaker and retreat leader Jean Wise

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