Chris Hoke

“The effect of love is to wound, that it may enkindle with love and cause delight. . . . Love is ever throwing out sparks.”
― Chris Hoke, Wanted: A Spiritual Pursuit Through Jail, Among Outlaws, and Across Borders – A Moving Memoir of Ministry, Redemption, and Life with Outcasts

“Opening yourself directly to the spiritual sources—be they evil or holy—is dangerous business. You risk opening the front door of your heart to forces as complicated and conflicted as the streets and prisons. (As inmates have made sure to remind me, regarding such environments: “Not everyone’s there to help you, Chris. You can get fucked up really quickly.” Those words, I think, apply to the unmediated spiritual realm.) But there’s an even greater danger. You risk making contact with a Love somewhere out there that is so pure, so good, it makes you feel more, hurt more, notice more, care more, makes you embarrassingly odd and terribly sensitive, welcoming strangers, touching the lepers like Francis in Assisi, or getting dragged to court and stuck with the death penalty between two thieves like Jesus did. Or—and this is most common—if you lose that connection that filled you like the sun, it can be a loss so disorienting that even the hope required for real prayer—someone suggesting you open up again, say, to God—can drive you mad. Any way you come at it, it’s a dangerous game.”
― Chris Hoke, Wanted: A Spiritual Pursuit Through Jail, Among Outlaws, and Across Borders – A Moving Memoir of Ministry, Redemption, and Life with Outcasts