How the Light Gets in: Writing as a Spiritual Practice

Pat Schneider has been deeply involved in spirituality since college, and she's led writing groups for many years. This book is the culmination of her work with the intersection between writing and spirituality.

Quotes from the book:

Writing is for me the surest way to find out where I am and to open the gate to where I might go next.

Schneider, Pat. How the Light Gets In (p. 7). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.

Although my understanding of spirituality has changed throughout my life, the central experience has not changed: There has been for me a deep and a continual sense of presence, and there have been experiences of meeting, or encounter, with that presence.

Schneider, Pat. How the Light Gets In (p. 10). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.

Although my understanding of spirituality has changed throughout my life, the central experience has not changed: There has been for me a deep and a continual sense of presence, and there have been experiences of meeting, or encounter, with that presence.

Schneider, Pat. How the Light Gets In (p. 10). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.

When we write deeply—that is, when we write what we know and do not know we know—we encounter mystery. Similarly, when we pray deeply, we encounter mystery.

Schneider, Pat. How the Light Gets In (pp. 10-11). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.

Putting words onto paper—when it is done as an honest act of search or connection, rather than as an act of manipulation, performance, self-aggrandizement or self-protection—is a holy act.

Schneider, Pat. How the Light Gets In (p. 15). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.

Meister Eckardt says, “The eye with which I see God is the same eye with which [God] sees me.”

Schneider, Pat. How the Light Gets In (p. 16). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.

In our writing practice, though, I teach my workshop members that the open sesame into writing is almost always a concrete image, almost never a general idea.

Schneider, Pat. How the Light Gets In (p. 57). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.