Jody

“In times of deep pain in my own life, the belief of the church has carried me. When we confess the creeds in worship, we don’t say, “I believe in God the Father . . .” because some weeks I do and some weeks, I can’t climb that high. Instead we confess, “We believe . . .” Belief isn’t a feeling inside of us, but a reality outside of us into which we enter, and when we find our faith faltering, sometimes all we can do is fall on the faith of the saints. We believe together. Thank God belief isn’t left to me and my ever-fluctuating faithfulness.”
― Tish Harrison Warren, Prayer in the Night: For Those Who Work or Watch or Weep

“In a gift economy, wealth is understood as having enough to share, and the practice for dealing with abundance is to give it away. In fact, status is determined not by how much one accumulates, but by how much one gives away. The currency in a gift economy is relationship, which is expressed as gratitude, as interdependence and the ongoing cycles of reciprocity. A gift economy nurtures the community bonds that enhance mutual well-being; the economic unit is “we” rather than “I,” as all flourishing is mutual.”
― Robin Wall Kimmerer, The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World

“The crisis of the modern world is not a crisis of technology or politics or greenhouse gases. It is a spiritual war. What the Machine represents is our ultimate rebellion against nature: against reality itself. We have seen this rebellion before. Now our culture’s rejection of its spiritual core has opened us up to powers and principalities that we have no idea how to manage”
― Paul Kingsnorth, Against the Machine: On the Unmaking of Humanity

“Art expresses beauty and truth," Georgia said. "It's a gift. It's meant to be experienced and interacted with not used. That's what's so gross about what the Distortionists do. They use art instead of making it or even enjoying it. They turn art into propaganda.”
― Carolyn Leiloglou, Beneath the Swirling Sky