Thirteen Qualities of a Spiritual Life

Posted by in letters to the boys

I stumbled upon this blog post and I love this list.  I think about all of the qualities in myself and in my interactions with other but I think it would have taken me a long time to name all of these qualities.  This is a great list for reflecting on a moment, on a day, on the way I live my life.  Which one(s) are most important in your life?  Which do you struggle with?  Click here to read the original post by Phil Bolsta.

ACCEPTANCE

Love is blind; friendship closes its eyes.      Friedrich Nietzsche


APPRECIATION

People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.  Bonnie Jean Wasmund

 

COMPASSION

Fear is the cheapest room in the house. I would like to see you living in better conditions.   Hafiz

 

DISCERNMENT

If it is not truthful and not helpful, don’t say it.
If it is truthful and not helpful, don’t say it.
If it is not truthful and helpful, don’t say it.
If it is truthful and helpful, wait for the right time.

Buddha

 

EMPATHY

Suffering and joy teach us, if we allow them, how to make the leap of empathy, which transports us into the soul and heart of another person. In those transparent moments we know other people’s joys and sorrows, and we care about their concerns as if they were our own.  Fritz Williams

 

GENEROSITY

Do things for people not because of who they are or what they do in return, but because of who you are.
Rabbi Harold S. Kushner

 

HONOR

Treat people as if they were what they ought to be and you help them to become what they are capable of being.
 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

 

HUMILITY

Humility doesn’t mean you think less of yourself. It meansyou think of yourself less.
          Ken Blanchard

 

INTEGRITY

You may be the only Bible somebody else reads.  Mark Twain

 

INTIMACY

If you had an hour to live and could only make one phone call, who would you call, what would you say, and why are you waiting?   Stephen Levine

 

KINDNESS

Let no one ever come to you without leaving better and happier. Be the living expression of God’s kindness; kindness in your face, kindness in your eyes, kindness in your smile, kindness in your warm greeting.   Mother Teresa

 

LOVE

To love someone means to see him as God intended him.   Fyodor Dostoevsky

 

REVERENCE

Then it was as if I suddenly saw the secret beauty of their hearts, the depths of their hearts where neither sin nor desire nor self-knowledge can reach, the core of their reality, the person that each one is in God’s eyes. If only they could all see themselves as they really are. If only we could see each other that way all the time. There would be no more war, no more hatred, no more cruelty, no more greed. I suppose the big problem would be that we would fall down and worship each other.   Thomas Merton