Michelle Walker

“Remember Who God Is Calling God “Father” is dismissible today. It rolls off the tongue as unconsciously as the lyrics of “Happy Birthday” as you carry a candlelit cake to the dinner table. It’s become just cheesy enough to edge past in search of some more sophisticated insight from Jesus in the lines that follow. Worse yet, for some its use is grouped in with a centuries-long patriarchal history of male superiority and female oppression. But the disciples likely gasped when Jesus said it. The temple that served as the training ground for their prayers had taught them to pray with supreme reverence. The grounding text for the Jewish people’s understanding of God was the book of Exodus—when the Lord appeared to the people in the form of a cloud by day and fire by night.6 The big question in ancient days wasn’t, “Does God exist?” It would be foolish to ask such a question. “Of course God exists! Open your eyes, man! He’s the cylindrical pillar of fire stretching from the desert floor into the night sky and serves as our trail guide!” Instead, the existential question in ancient days was, “Is God knowable?” Because a pillar of fire doesn’t provoke doubt, but neither does it provide intimacy. These disciples knew a God of cleansing rituals and animal sacrifices, a God of ten plagues and blood on the doorpost, a God who parts seas and floods the earth, a God with a heavy hand of deliverance and a heavy hand of judgment—awesome in power but hard to get to know. Jesus did nothing to diminish the reverence, nothing to minimize the power of God. Jesus made that powerful God knowable.”
― Tyler Staton, Praying Like Monks, Living Like Fools: An Invitation to the Wonder and Mystery of Prayer

“How do you give someone a piece of sky? Late in February, she stood on Munich Street and watched a single giant cloud come over the hills like a white monster. It climbed the mountains. The sun was eclipsed, and in its place, a white beast with a gray heart watched the town. “Would you look at that?” she said to Papa. Hans cocked his head and stated what he felt was the obvious. “You should give it to Max, Liesel. See if you can leave it on the bedside table, like all the other things.” Liesel watched him as if he’d gone insane. “How, though?” Lightly, he tapped her skull with his knuckles. “Memorize it. Then write it down for him.” “… It was like a great white beast,” she said at her next bedside vigil, “and it came from over the mountains.”
― Markus Zusak, The Book Thief

“The boy from the plane, I thought. The one with the teddy bear. Where was Rudy’s comfort? Where was someone to alleviate this robbery of his life? Who was there to soothe him as life’s rug was snatched from under his sleeping feet?”
― Markus Zusak, The Book Thief

“People posting pictures of “Elvis” at a mall in Tuscaloosa.”
― Emily Henry, Great Big Beautiful Life