In this rerun episode, Cynthia and Susan add a few new thoughts to their conversation from Season 1 about going off the edge of one’s map in pursuit of a more personalized spiritual life. In this discussion ALSSI listeners will recognize the seeds of many foundational ideas about the importance of spiritual empowerment for Latter-day Saint women that this podcast has continued to develop and explore in depth.

Notes & Quotes:
Learning to Hold On, Learning to Let Go with Richard Rohr, Everything Happens podcast, Season 7 Episode 13, Kate Bowler
Spiritual Capacity, by Michelle Craig, 10/2019
Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life, by Richard Rohr
The Sin of Certainty: Why God Desires Our Trust More Than Our “Correct” Beliefs, by Peter Enns

“Mystery is not that which is not understandable. It’s that which is infinitely understandable. And so, you’re always on a search.” — Richard Rohr

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.” — Rainer Maria Rilke

“Be spiritually independent enough that your relationship with the Savior doesn’t depend on your circumstances or on what other people say and do. Have the spiritual independence to be a Mormon—the best Mormon you can—in your own way. Not the bishop’s way. Not the Relief Society president’s way. Your way.” — Chieko Okazaki

 “…at times we struggle to distinguish between our own thoughts and the gentle impressions of the Spirit. Prophets, ancient and modern, have taught that if something ‘invites and entices to do good, it comes from Christ.’ …President Russell M. Nelson has extended a simple, powerful invitation: ‘My beloved […] sisters, I plead with you to increase your spiritual capacity to receive revelation. … Chose to do the spiritual work required to enjoy the gift of the Holy Ghost and hear the voice of the Spirit more frequently and more clearly.'” — Michelle Craig

“Sooner or later if you are on any kind of a ‘spiritual schedule,’ some event, person, death, or idea will enter your life that you simply cannot deal with using your present skill set, your acquired knowledge, or your strong willpower. Spiritually speaking, you will be, you must be, led to the edge of your own private resources. At that point you will stumble over a necessary stumbling stone as Isaiah calls it; or to state it in our language here, you will and you must ‘lose’ at something.
This is the only way that Life-Fate-God-Grace-Mystery can get you to change, let go of your egocentric preoccupations, and go on the further and larger journey. I wish I could say this is not true, but it is darn near absolute in the spiritual literature of the world.
There is no practical or compelling reason to leave one’s present comfort zone in life. Why should you or would you?” — Richard Rohr, Falling Upward

“When any real progress is made, we unlearn and learn anew what we thought we knew before.”
— Henry David Thoreau

“What if the darkness is actually a moment of God’s presence that seems like absence; a gift of God to help us grow up out of our little ideas of God? Doubting God is painful and frightening because we think we are leaving God behind, when in fact we are only leaving behind ideas about God that we are used to surrounding ourselves with, the small God, the God within our control, the God who moves in our circles, the God who agrees with us.” — Pete Enns (The Sin of Certainty, p. 158)

“We need to find God, and He cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence. See how nature—trees, flowers, grass—grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence… We need silence to be able to touch souls.” — Mother Teresa

“With every step I do, I go towards you. Because who am I and who are you if we don’t understand one another?” — Rainer Maria Rilke

 “Each of us has a different mission to perform, and at times the Spirit may call us in ‘another way.’ There are many ways to build the kingdom of God…as disciples of Jesus Christ.” — Michelle Craig