Neither revolution nor reformation can ultimately change a society, rather you must tell a new powerful tale, one so persuasive that it sweeps away the old myths and becomes the preferred story, one so inclusive that it gathers all the bits of our past and our present into a coherent whole, one that even shines some light into our future so that we can take the next step... If you want to change a society, then you have to tell an alternative story.
Ivan Illich
There are far, far better things ahead than any we leave behind.
C.S. Lewis
Why wonder about the loaves and the fishes
If you say the right words, the wine expands.
If you say them with love
And the felt ferocity of that love
And the felt necessity of that love
The fish explode into many.
Imagine him speaking,
And don’t worry about what is reality,
Or what is plain, or what is mysterious.
If you were there, it was all those things.
If you can imagine it, it is all those things.
Eat, drink be happy.
Accept the miracle.
Accept, too, each spoken word
Spoken with love.
Mary Oliver
4 hours.
An introduction,
a conversation,
a shared moment,
a shared meal.
40 hours.
An opportunity in my mind,
a possibly in my heart,
an future in my life.
That does
not come.
I am again,
learning.
Receive 4.
Reel not for 40.
Live in reality.
Do not long in reverie.
Let 4 hours be,
what 4 hours is.
4 hours.
But when it comes to putting broken lives back together— when it comes, in religious terms, to the saving of souls— the human best tends to be at odds with the holy best. To do for yourself the best that you have it in you to do — to grit your teeth and clench your fists in order to survive the world at its harshest and worst — is, by that very act, to be unable to let something be done for you and in you that is more wonderful still. The trouble with steeling yourself against the harshness of reality is that the same steel that secures your life against being destroyed secures your life also against being opened up and transformed by the holy power that life itself comes from. You can survive on your own. You can grow strong on your own. You can even prevail on your own. But you cannot become human on your own.
Frederick Buechner
Do not try to save
the whole world
or do anything grandiose.
Instead, create
a clearing
in the dense forest
of your life
and wait there
patiently,
until the song
that is your life
falls into your own cupped hands
and you recognize and greet it.
Only then will you know
how to give yourself
to this world
so worth of rescue.
Martha Postlewaite
God has no more stopped being Revelation than he has stopped being Love.
Louis Evely
The secret that we share I cannot tell in full. But this much I will tell. What's lost is nothing to what's found, and all the death that ever was, set next to life, would scarcely fill a cup.
Frederick Buechner
Godric
Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery it is. In the boredom and pain of it, no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it, because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace.
Frederick Buechner
Now and Then: A Memoir of Vocation