Quotes

In Spanish, levantarse is a reflexive verb that means to rise, to get up, like when you stand up from a chair or get out of bed in the morning. It is often used in command form, and I surmised that Jesus heard this verb in some language when he was in his darkest hour, most abandoned by the holy, in the tomb. And he responded. Levantarse has the same root as levadura, which is leaven. The Jews had that interesting relationship with leavening agents, as in regulations prohibiting them, but I figured that Jesus' new bread and wine were both well-leavened with that never-ending love and mercy and grace, and the reflexive nature of it (that part of Spanish grammar is always tricky to understand) tells me that when we make it a practice to gather around the table and partake of the love-leavened bread and wine, then eventually love and mercy and grace become reflex actions for us. Stan Yes, it's that last part in particular that's intriguing, where (if I'm understanding correctly) there is no gap between the commanding and the doing; or the "be doers of the word and not hearers only" of James, but especially of the King James Version's rendition of "One who doeth the truth," where there's no distinguishing between the doing and the truth, or truth separated from hearing. I'm looking for more organic ways to speak of this. What dominates English language is like the operating logic of many machines, like computers: you tell it what to do in one action, then to do it in a second. Biblically speaking, if the truth is not being done, it has not been heard, regardless of how theologically orthodox or pietistically rigorous your demeanor. Ken Yes, that's the sense of the reflexive verb, you are an active participant in doing what is being done to you. Stan Stan — Conversation between Stan Dotson and Ken Sehested

The resurrection does not solve our problems about dying and death. It is not the happy ending to our life’s struggle, nor is it the big surprise that God has kept in store for us. No, the resurrection is the expression of God’s faithfulness…. The resurrection is God’s way of revealing to us that nothing that belongs to God will ever go to waste. What belongs to God will never get lost. — Henri Nouwen

In the old days, on Easter night, the Russian peasants used to carry the blest fire home from church. The light would scatter and travel in all directions through the darkness, and the desolation of the night would be pierced and dispelled as lamps came on in the windows of the farm houses, one by one. Even so the glory of God sleeps everywhere, ready to blaze out unexpectedly in created things. Even so his peace and his order lie hidden in the world, even the world of today, ready to reestablish themselves in his way, in his own good time: but never without the instrumentality of free options made by free people. — Thomas Merton

“Piglet sidled up to Pooh from behind. "Pooh?" he whispered. "Yes, Piglet?" "Nothing," said Piglet, taking Pooh's hand. "I just wanted to be sure of you.” — A.A. Milne in Winnie-the-Pooh

To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one. . . . Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket – safe, dark, motionless, airless – it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is hell. — C. S. Lewis

David Swanson, author of War Is a Lie, put it: “The search for a good war is beginning to look as futile as the search for the mythical city of El Dorado. And yet that search remains our top public project.” — Robert C. Koehler

Said the cynic: Christian ethics is a 2,000 year old efforts to find loopholes in the Sermon on the Mount. — anonymous

It is not love in the abstract that counts. Men have loved a cause as they have loved a woman. They have loved the brotherhood, the workers, the poor, the oppressed – but they have not loved man; they have not loved the least of these. They have not loved “personally.” It is hard to love. It is the hardest thing in the world, naturally speaking. Have you ever read Tolstoy’s Resurrection? He tells of political prisoners in a long prison train, enduring chains and persecution for the love of their brothers, ignoring those same brothers on the long trek to Siberia. It is never the brothers right next to us, but the brothers in the abstract that are easy to love. — Dorothy Day

When lost in the woods, if the map doesn't agree with the terrain, in all cases believe the terrain. — Swiss Army Survival Guide

Christians whose loyalty to the Prince of Peace puts them out of step with today’s nationalistic world, because they are willing to love their nation’s friends but not to hate their nation’s enemies, are not unrealistic dreamers who think that by their objections they will end all wars. On the contrary, it is the soldiers who think they can put an end to wars by preparing for just one more. Christians love their enemies because God does so, and commands his followers to do so. That is the only reason, and that is enough. — John Howard Yoder