Quotes

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

Are you familiar with the picture of the Good Shepherd Jesus? You know, the one where he is wearing a beautiful white robe, with a perfectly scrubbed, gentle little lamb lounging across his shoulders as he brings it home? That picture is wrong. A lamb in that situation would not look good or smell good, and neither would Jesus. They would both be scratched and sweaty and have brambles in their hair. They would be exhausted and filthy. That is simply how it is when we are at last on our way home. — Desmond Tutu, then Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town, South Africa, in comments celebrating communion in a women’s prison north of New York City

To be sane in a mad time Is bad for the brain, worse For the heart. The world Is a holy vision, had we clarity To see it — Wendell Berry

You use steel to sharpen steel, and one friend sharpens another. — Proverbs 27:17, The Message

It is much cheaper to make friends than to fight enemies. — David Hartsough

I took part in organizing a silent worship service in the gallery of the U.S. Senate, while the legislators below us debated and voted for more funding for the war [in Vietnam]. When the vote was over, we were arrested on a charge of "praying without a permit." — David Hartsough

I remembered Bayard Rustin, a conscientious objector who had served time in prison during the Second World War and then became a leader in the civil rights movement, saying that being a pacifist is one-tenth conscientious objection and nine-tenths working to do away with the things that make for war. — David Hartsough

The surprise came at the end of a banjo lesson. Cary Fridley, my teacher, began describing the ​work involved in “cutting” her next CD: recruiting musicians, practicing privately, practicing ​together again and again — all in preparation for the final recording session coming up ​the next week. ​“I get increasingly anxious as we approach the recording,” she admitted. ​“Well,” I asked, “what helps you with your anxiety?” ​Her response was profound beyond her knowing.“When I can get to that place within myself and with others where the music is more important than me, then I am not anxious.” — Mahan Siler, quoting his banjo teacher

If we can let ourselves go in prayer and speak all that is in our minds and hearts, if we can sit quietly and bear the silence, we will hear all the bits and pieces of ourselves crowding in on us, pleading for our attention. Prayer’s confession begins with this racket, for prayer is noisy with the clamor of all the parts of us demanding to be heard. The clamor is the sound of the great river of being flowing in us — Ann and Barry Ulanov

All disrespect, all irreverence, all hard-heartedness, all contempt is nothing else than killing. And it is possible to kill not only what is in the present, but also that which is in the future. With just a little witty skepticism we can kill a good deal of the future in a child or young person. Life is waiting everywhere, flowering everywhere, but we only see a small part of it and trample much of it with our feet. — Hermann Hesse