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Vanessa Johnson
https://www.goodreads.com/vanessaannajohnson
Vanessa Johnson
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read in January 2026
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""The only really effective apologia for Christianity comes down to two arguments, namely the saints the Church has produced and the art which has grown in her womb.... If the Church is to continue to transform and humanize the world, how can she dispense with beauty in her liturgies, that beauty which is so closely linked with love and with the radiance of the Resurrection?”- BXVI" — 21 hours, 23 min ago
""The only really effective apologia for Christianity comes down to two arguments, namely the saints the Church has produced and the art which has grown in her womb.... If the Church is to continue to transform and humanize the world, how can she dispense with beauty in her liturgies, that beauty which is so closely linked with love and with the radiance of the Resurrection?”- BXVI" — 21 hours, 23 min ago
“The legend of my mom is that she can’t be stopped. Not when you hit her. Not when a whole country full of goons puts her in a cage. Not even if you make her poor and try to kill her slowly in the little-by-little poison of sadness. And the legend is true. I think because she’s fixed her eyes on something beyond the rivers of blood, to a beautiful place on the other side. How else would anybody do it?”
― Everything Sad Is Untrue
― Everything Sad Is Untrue
“If happiness is a skill, then sadness is, too. Perhaps through all those years at school, or perhaps through other terrors, we are taught to ignore sadness, to stuff it down into our satchels and pretend it isn’t there. As adults, we often have to learn to hear the clarity of its call. That is wintering. It is the active acceptance of sadness. It is the practice of allowing ourselves to feel it as a need. It is the courage to stare down the worst parts of our experience and to commit to healing them the best we can. Wintering is a moment of intuition, our true needs felt keenly as a knife.”
― Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times
― Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times
“But like you, I was made carefully, by a God who loved what He saw. Like you, I want a friend.”
― Everything Sad Is Untrue
― Everything Sad Is Untrue
“If we’re going to become kinder, that process has to include taking ourselves seriously—as doers, as accomplishers, as dreamers. We have to do that, to be our best selves.”
― Congratulations, by the Way: Some Thoughts on Kindness
― Congratulations, by the Way: Some Thoughts on Kindness
“I feel about Olenka the way I think God might. I know so much about her. Nothing has been hidden from me. It’s rare, in the real world, that I get to know someone so completely. I’ve known her in so many modes: a happy young newlywed and a lonely old lady; a rosy, beloved darling and an overlooked, neglected piece of furniture, nearly a local joke; a nurturing wife and an overbearing false mother.
And look at that: the more I know about her, the less inclined I feel to pass a too-harsh or premature judgment. Some essential mercy in me has been switched on. What God has going for Him that we don’t is infinite information. Maybe that’s why He’s able to, supposedly, love us so much.”
― A Swim in a Pond in the Rain
And look at that: the more I know about her, the less inclined I feel to pass a too-harsh or premature judgment. Some essential mercy in me has been switched on. What God has going for Him that we don’t is infinite information. Maybe that’s why He’s able to, supposedly, love us so much.”
― A Swim in a Pond in the Rain
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Vanessa’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Vanessa’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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