Abby Stevens

“How long, O God, will we go on with a mock Christianity that takes the tribalism of our world for granted?

How long, O God, will we be satisfied with the way things are?

How long, O God, will we try to "make some difference in the world" while leaving the basic patterns of the world unaffected?

How long, O God will we take consolation in numbers, buildings, and structures, when millions of your children are dying?

How long, O Sovereign Lord, will we remain blind to the lessons of history?”
― Emmanuel Katongole, Mirror to the Church: Resurrecting Faith After Genocide in Rwanda

“Gun up,' he whispered to Skosh. The word went back to invisible kids lying on the jungle floor. 'Set it in here,' Mellas whispered to Conman. 'Put Vancouver with his machine gun one-eighty from it.'

'He won't like it.'

'To hell with him. Send a fire team around to the left. We'll cover with Mole if they get into the shit. Who do you want to go?'

Now it was Conman's turn to play God, at age nineteen. He shut his eyes. 'Rider.'

So some are chosen to die young.”
― Karl Marlantes

“Running to join them, he felt overwhelming joy. It was as if he were coming home from a lashing winter storm to the warmth of his living room. The sky seemed brilliantly blue and clear, although he knew it was overcast. If he didn't move his legs faster, his heart would outpace his feet and burst. His heart, his whole body, was overflowing with an emotion that he could only describe as love.”
― Karl Marlantes, Matterhorn

“Human beings are settlers, but not in the pioneer sense. It is our human occupational hazard to settle for little. We settle for purity and piety when we are being invited to an exquisite holiness. We settle for the fear-driven when love longs to be our engine. We settle for a puny, vindictive God when we are being nudged always closer to this wildly inclusive, larger-than-any-life God. We allow our sense of God to atrophy. We settle for the illusion of separation when we are endlessly asked to enter into kinship with all.”
― Gregory Boyle, Barking to the Choir: The Power of Radical Kinship