Quotes

America must move off a permanent war footing. — President Barack Obama, State of the Union speech, 28 Jan 2014

The top 1% took 95% of all new wealth created in the US from 2009 to 2012. Six of the top 10 fastest-growing job categories are $15/hr service gigs. And median income has fallen not since the crisis and recovery but since 1999—that was the last time the American family got a raise. — Rana Foroohar

Remember that: •Where you stand will determine what you see; •Whom you stand with will determine what you hear; •What you see and hear will determine what you say and how you act. — Robert McAfee Brown

Dear Abby: My father is a businessman who travels. Each time he returns from one of his trips, his shoes and trousers are covered with blood—but he never forgets to bring me a nice present. Should I say something? Signed, America. — Tony Hoagland

We can only live the changes we wish to see; we cannot think our way to humanity. Every one of us, and every group with which we live and work, must become the model of the era which we desire to create. . . . All of us are crippled—some physically, some mentally, some emotionally. We must therefore strive cooperatively to create the new world. There is no time left for destruction, for hatred, for anger. We must build, in hope and joy and celebration. — Ivan Illich

When our days become dreary with low hovering clouds of despair, and when our nights become darker than a thousand midnights, let us remember that there is a creative force in this universe, working to pull down the gigantic mountains of evil, a power that is able to make a way out of no way and transform dark yesterdays into bright tomorrows. Let us realize the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice. — Martin Luther King Jr.

When six corporations control more than 90% of media communications, the media does not inform, it indoctrinates. Corporate media provides selective information, often unreliable, for the express purpose of controlling public opinion, rather than informing it. The mainstream corporate media giants cannot be trusted to accurately report political corruption or collusion. — Egberto Willies and Keyan Bliss

Jesus says, “Forgive, and you will also be forgiven” (Mt. 6:14). That is to say, forgiveness is forgiveness. Your forgiveness of another is your own forgiveness; the forgiveness you give is the forgiveness you receive. If you wholeheartedly forgive your enemy, you may dare hope for your own forgiveness, for it is one and the same. — Søren Kierkegaard

We tend to forget that in his famous “Beyond Vietnam” sermon at Riverside Church, 4 April 1967 Martin Luther King Jr. claimed that the US is “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today, my own government.” The older he got, the deeper his analysis of the causes of poverty and violence became, the more often he talked about the need for our country to “be born again.” This is the kind of born again faith we need to herald. — Ken Sehested

When Jesus speaks about the world, he is very realistic. He speaks about wars and revolutions, earthquakes, plagues and famines, persecution and imprisonment, betrayal, hatred and assassinations. There is no suggestion at all that these signs of the world’s darkness will ever be absent. But still, God’s joy can be ours in the midst of it all. It is the joy of belonging to the household of God whose love is stronger than death and who empowers us to be in the world while already belonging to the kingdom of joy — Henri Nouwen