Quotes

The world is God's and it will not fall apart. The new age which the Lord has begun cannot be driven out or held back. The church need not live out of fear as though the gospel were not true. It is destined to live toward freedom, toward the pain of the world, toward the hurt of the world, toward the joy of the world—the hurt and pain the world does not understand and the joy the world does not anticipate. As he left he reminded the church that we are able to risk much because we are safe. We may need to focus much on shalom as a task, but it begins at the table as assurance. — Walter Brueggemann

The needs of the world are too great, the suffering and pain too extensive, the lures of the world too seductive for us to begin to change the world unless we are changed, unless conversion of life and morals becomes our pattern. The status quo is too alluring. It is the air we breathe, the food we eat, the six-thirty news, our institutions, theologies, and politics. The only way we shall break its hold on us is to be transferred to another dominion, to be cut loose from our old certainties, to be thrust under the flood and then pulled forth fresh and newborn. Baptism takes us there. — William Willimon

How easy it is to denounce structural injustice, institutionalized violence, social sin! And it is true, this sin is everywhere, but where are the roots of this social sin? In the heart of every human being. Present-day society is a sort of anonymous world in which no one is willing to admit guilt, and everyone is responsible. We are all sinners, and we have all contributed to this massive crime and violence in our country. Salvation begins with the human person, with human dignity, with saving every person from sin. — Oscar Romero

There are some people who can receive a truth by no other way than to have their understanding shocked and insulted. — Carl Sandburg

The meek shall inherit the earth, but that does not say anything about mineral rights under the earth. — American industrialist J. Paul Getty

If you do the prayer, the prayer will do you. — Fr. Thomas Keating

Where there is great love there are always miracles. — Willa Cather

When you say [something is] “impossible” you ought to say, “relative to my present state of ignorance it’s impossible.” — Mortimer Adler

The purpose of God is framed, and the passion of God is fired, in the wounds of the world. That is to say, God bleeds. — Ken Sehested

Faith steals upon you like dew: some days you wake and it is there. And like dew, it gets burned off in the rising sun of anxieties, ambitions, distractions. — Christian Wiman