Quotes

There is a difference between being nice and choosing kindness. — anonymous

Authority is exercised by standing with others by seeking to share power and authority. Power is seen as something to be multiplied and shared rather than accumulated at the top. A leader is one who inspires others to be leaders, especially those on the margins of church and society who do not think they are "somebody.” — Letty M. Russell

Being means: not numbering and counting, but ripening like a tree, which doesn’t force its sap, and stands confidently in the storms of spring, not afraid that afterward summer may not come. It does come. But it comes only to those who are patient, who are there as if eternity lay before them, so unconcernedly silent and vast. I learn it every day of my life, learn it with pain I am grateful for: patience is everything! — Rainer Maria Rilke

What I really enjoy is not you; it’s something that’s greater than both you and me. It is ​something that I discovered, a kind of symphony, a kind of orchestra that plays one melody in your presence, but when you depart, the orchestra doesn’t stop. When I meet someone else, it plays another melody, which is also very delightful. And when I’m alone, it continues to play. There’s a greater repertoire and it never cease to play. — Anthony DeMello

The supreme religious challenge is to see God’s image in one who is not in our image. — Rabbi Jonathan Sacks

If grace is to be real, then it must have real effects. And these effects must be palpable, visible. When the divine enters the world, it produces changes everyone can see, not invisible craters, but manifest "monuments of mercy." — Theodore W. Jennings

It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong. — Voltaire

America is beyond power, it acts as in a dream, as a face of God. Wherever America is, there is freedom, and wherever America is not, madness rules with chains, darkness strangles millions. Beneath her patient bombers, paradise is possible. — Harry, aka “Rabbit,” in John Updike’s Rabbit Redux

True love is embodied in expectancy, an eagerness to love God now as a preparation for God’s Kingdom. Our ultimate hopes are expressed by whom and what and how we now love. . . . True love is embodied in the act of giving and forgiving, without stint or stipulations, without anxiety or compulsion. The forgiven is not made dependent upon the giver, but upon a free un-coerced love. — Paul S. Minear

When we breathe, we do not stop inhaling because we have taken in all the oxygen we will ever need, but because we have all the oxygen we need for this breath. Then we exhale, release carbon dioxide, and make room for more oxygen. Sabbath, like the breath, allows us to imagine we have done enough work for this day. Do not be anxious about tomorrow, Jesus said again and again. Let the work of this day be sufficient. — Wayne Muller