“The very effort to be honest before God may well define the task that lies at the heart of the spiritual life. It is not, as some suppose, a mystical experience, or transcendent high. It is not, as others suppose, encounters with silence and emptiness. Nor, as still others suppose, is it the task of spiritual discipline. It is the elemental business of shedding the masks behind which we hide, until we are able to own our prodigal nature as human beings who are deeply flawed, but greatly loved.”

~ Frederick Schmidt