{"id":43,"date":"2010-11-24T13:29:53","date_gmt":"2010-11-24T13:29:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/insweetcompany\/2010\/11\/you-can-quote-me.html"},"modified":"2010-11-24T13:29:53","modified_gmt":"2010-11-24T13:29:53","slug":"you-can-quote-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany\/2010\/11\/you-can-quote-me.html","title":{"rendered":"You Can Quote Me"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><i>[My greatest accomplishment and the secret of my success is] &#8221; &#8230; my relationship with God. It&#8217;s the root of the tree. Everything, everything, branches out from that.&#8221; <\/i>&#8212; Gail Williamson, IN SWEET COMPANY: CONVERSATIONS WITH EXTRAORDINARY WOMEN ABOUT LIVING A SPIRITUAL LIFE<\/p>\n<p>I am a collector of quotes. I tape quotes on my fridge, on my computer, on my mirror, on my dashboard. I fix them in the places where I do most of my living, so that I can swallow them whole, digest them and embody their wisdom and joy. <\/p>\n<p>All my quotes are my favorites, not just for the wisdom or inspiration they contain, but because they always seem to find their way to me at just the right time. What&#8217;s not to love about words that lift your heart, that remind you that God has heard your secret prayer, proven to you that you are a treasured affiliate, a Platinum card-carrying member Her creation? As Thornton Wilder said, &#8220;We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>In this time of trial, in this time of Thanksgiving, I am reminded of the words of Albert Einstein: &#8220;There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.&#8221; I vote for miracles. Mary Oliver wrote, &#8220;When it&#8217;s over, I want to say: all my life I was a bride married to amazement. I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.&#8221; Living as though everything is a miracle, even the tough stuff, keeps me from being a guest at the wedding that is my life. <\/p>\n<p>Some days it&#8217;s very hard to see the miraculous, to find a single thing to be in awe about. Those are the days when the rubber hits the road, when I call up the words of Meister Eckhart: &#8220;If the only prayer you say in your life is thank you, that would suffice.&#8221; I say thank you for the Unseen, for Not Knowing, for the Absence of a Reply, for the Darkness. I repeat Paramahansa Yogananda&#8217;s affirmation: &#8220;I am submerged in eternal light. It permeates every particle of my being. I am living in that light. The Divine spirit fills me within and without.&#8221;&nbsp; I am awed. And I am grateful.<\/p>\n<p>Happy Thanksgiving!<\/p>\n<p>Your thoughts?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[My greatest accomplishment and the secret of my success is] &#8221; &#8230; my relationship with God. It&#8217;s the root of the tree. Everything, everything, branches out from that.&#8221; &#8212; Gail Williamson, IN SWEET COMPANY: CONVERSATIONS WITH EXTRAORDINARY WOMEN ABOUT LIVING A SPIRITUAL LIFE I am a collector of quotes. I tape quotes on my fridge,&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":231,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gratitude"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>You Can Quote Me - In Sweet Company<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany\/2010\/11\/you-can-quote-me.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"You Can Quote Me - In Sweet Company\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"[My greatest accomplishment and the secret of my success is] &#8221; &#8230; my relationship with God. It&#8217;s the root of the tree. Everything, everything, branches out from that.&#8221; &#8212; Gail Williamson, IN SWEET COMPANY: CONVERSATIONS WITH EXTRAORDINARY WOMEN ABOUT LIVING A SPIRITUAL LIFE I am a collector of quotes. 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I tape quotes on my fridge,&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany\/2010\/11\/you-can-quote-me.html","og_site_name":"In Sweet Company","article_published_time":"2010-11-24T13:29:53+00:00","author":"Margaret Wolff","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany\/2010\/11\/you-can-quote-me.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany\/2010\/11\/you-can-quote-me.html","name":"You Can Quote Me - In Sweet Company","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany\/#website"},"datePublished":"2010-11-24T13:29:53+00:00","dateModified":"2010-11-24T13:29:53+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany\/#\/schema\/person\/9e1d77d12de19dd0d4fbc84d1f7fc52a"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany\/2010\/11\/you-can-quote-me.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany\/2010\/11\/you-can-quote-me.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany\/2010\/11\/you-can-quote-me.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"You Can Quote Me"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany\/","name":"In Sweet Company","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Margaret Wolff","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany\/#\/schema\/person\/9e1d77d12de19dd0d4fbc84d1f7fc52a","name":"Margaret Wolff","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/673\/67331f0571f27a0987e8cbfde3e832b4x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/673\/67331f0571f27a0987e8cbfde3e832b4x96.jpg","caption":"Margaret Wolff"},"description":"Margaret Wolff has a gift of luring people into becoming who they really are. She speaks and writes about things women care about: how to make our lives and our work be about what we value most; how to navigate challenge and change; how to live with integrity and grace, to look at error in ourselves and others in a forgiving way and view life as an invitation to transform ourselves into instruments for the Greater Good. \"I laughed, I cried, I was silent, I cheered. Most of all, I loved.\" Spoken by a woman at In Sweet Company Retreat, these words express what women experience when Margaret engages them in dynamic, soul-searching conversations about their lives. Margaret holds degrees in art therapy, psychosynthesis, and leadership and human behavior. Her work takes her to universities, to conferences and retreat settings, to living rooms and board rooms -- wherever women gather. Her articles, essays, and stories are featured in numerous magazines; her women\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s spirituality retreats are held throughout the U.S. Margaret\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s last book, In \"Sweet Company: Conversations With Extraordinary Women About Living a Spiritual Life\" (Jossey Bass), is a collection of intimate conversations she had with 14 famous women of various ages, faiths, and backgrounds about how their spirituality nourishes them and serves as a steady compass for their decision-making. Olympia Dukakis, Riane Eisler, Zainab Salbi, Margaret Wheatley, Sri Daya Mata, Lauren Artress, and other women artists, activists, religious leaders, and visionary thinkers shared their lives with her. 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