Tim Graves

“We all distrust people we don’t know; it’s instinctive. This is why to be a Christian demands that we stretch well beyond what is natural, beyond what is instinctive.”
― Sandhya Rani Jha, Pre-Post-Racial America: Spiritual Stories from the Front Lines

“Love Dogs

One night a man was crying,
Allah! Allah!
His lips grew sweet with the praising,
until a cynic said,
"So! I have heard you
calling out, but have you ever
gotten any response?"

The man had no answer to that.
He quit praying and fell into a confused sleep.

He dreamed he saw Khidr, the guide of souls,
in a thick, green foliage.
"Why did you stop praising?"
"Because I've never heard anything back."
"This longing
you express is the return message."

The grief you cry out from
draws you toward union.

Your pure sadness
that wants help
is the secret cup.

Listen to the moan of a dog for its master.
That whining is the connection.

There are love dogs
no one knows the names of.

Give your life
to be one of them.”
― Jalal Al-Din Rumi

“The world for which you have been so carefully prepared is being taken away from you,' he said, 'by the grace of God.' (Walter Brueggemann)”
― Barbara Brown Taylor, Leaving Church: A Memoir of Faith

“Bleak, dark, and piercing cold, it was a night for the well-housed and fed to draw round the bright fire, and thank God they were at home; and for the homeless starving wretch to lay him down and die. Many hunger-worn outcasts close their eyes in our bare streets at such times, who, let their crimes have been what they may, can hardly open them in a more bitter world.”
― Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist