Andrew

“We have been winning, to our inestimable loss, a competition against our own land and our own people.”
― Wendell Berry, Bringing it to the Table: Writings on Farming and Food

“Ultimately mourning means facing what wounds us in the presence of One who can heal.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, Turn My Mourning into Dancing: Finding Hope in Hard Times

“Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? It ought to be an easy question, but it is not. One of the reasons finding the true king is hard is that so many of the strongest candidates look alike. Herod the Great. Herod Antipas. Caesar Augustus. Caesar Tiberius. Of course they are all unique individuals with their own strengths and weaknesses. But they have more in common than they have differences. Their lives are about power, about ambition, about glory and making a name for themselves. They are all in the 1 percent, and they ultimately all seek to be rulers in the same kingdom—the kingdom of the world.”
― Mark R. Rigg, Preaching in Place: Wendell Berry and the Agrarian Sermon

“But while presidents and popes came and went, while wars exploded and came to an end, while some lost their jobs only later to have their talents recognized, while children grew sickly and later became sports heroes, while all this and more transpired, something was being formed that neither death nor illness could destroy. For those who have eyes to see and ears to hear, much in our fleeting lives is not passing but lasting, not dying but coming to life, not temporary but eternal. Amid the fragility of our lives, we have wonderful reason to hope. Some call this hidden reality “grace,” others “God’s life in us,” others still “the kingdom of God among us.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, Turn My Mourning into Dancing: Finding Hope in Hard Times