Micah Balu

“Without friendship, the ring never would have made it, and Middle Earth would have been destroyed. Actually, we never would have imagined Middle Earth in the first place because, without friendship, Tolkien never would have finished writing the story. He said that it was only C. S. Lewis’s steady encouragement that kept him writing. Perhaps this is why the theme of friendship stands out so prominently in the story. In Tolkien’s day, authors only produced “fairy stories” (as they were called) for children, not adults. But Tolkien wrote for adults too. He eventually wrote The Lord of the Rings, but it was only because of his relationship with Lewis. Two years after Lewis died, Tolkien reflected on Lewis’s role in his life: The unpayable debt that I owe to him was not “influence” as it is ordinarily understood, but sheer encouragement. He was for long my only audience. Only from him did I ever get the idea that my “stuff” could be more than a private hobby. But for his interest and unceasing eagerness for more I should never have brought the L. of the R. to a conclusion.13 Lewis and Tolkien experienced true friendship. They knew that their experience was both wonderful and rare in their culture. This is why both men wrote to promote the joys of true friendship in their own day—Tolkien in The Lord of the Rings, and Lewis in The Four Loves.”
― Drew Hunter, Made for Friendship: The Relationship That Halves Our Sorrows and Doubles Our Joys

“A great truth comes over him: Trees fall with spectacular crashes. But planting is silent and growth is invisible.”
― Richard Powers, The Overstory

“The person who loves their dream of community will destroy community, but the person who loves those around them will create community.”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Christian Community

“Jesus says God isn’t like a gumball machine; he’s more like the wind: unpredictable, uncontrollable, no more containable than wind in a bottle.”
― Skye Jethani, The Divine Commodity: Discovering a Faith Beyond Consumer Christianity