Hannah Berg

“So these Kings and Queens entered the thicket, and before they had gone a score of paces, they all remembered that the thing they had seen was called a lamppost, and before they had gone twenty more, they noticed that they were making their way not through branches but through coats. And next moment they all came tumbling out of a wardrobe door into the empty room, and they were no longer Kings and Queens in their hunting array but just Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy in their old clothes. It was the same day and the same hour of the day on which they had all gone into the wardrobe to hide. Mrs. Macready and the visitors were still talking I the passage; but luckily they never came into the empty room and so the children weren’t caught.
And that would have been the very end of the story if it hadn’t been that they felt they really must explain to the Professor why four of the coats out of his wardrobe were missing. And the Professor, who was a very remarkable man, didn’t tell them not to be silly or not to tell lies, but believed the whole story. “No,” he said, “I don’t think it will be any good trying to go back through the wardrobe door to get the coats. You won’t get into Narnia again by that route. Nor would the coats be much use by now if you did! Eh? What’s that? Yes, of course you’ll get back to Narnia again someday. Once a King in Narnia, always a King in Narnia. But don’t go trying to use the same route twice. Indeed, don’t try to get there at all. It’ll happen when you’re not looking for it. And don’t talk too much about it even among yourselves. And don’t mention it to anyone else unless you find that they’ve had adventures of the same sort themselves. What’s that? How will you know? Oh, you’ll know all right. Odd things they say--even their looks--will let the secret out. Keep your eyes open. Bless me, what do they teach them at these schools?”
And that is the very end of the adventures of the wardrobe. But if the Professor was right, it was only the beginning of the adventures of Narnia.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Chronicles of Narnia The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe

“We refuse to despair of mankind. Without having the unreasonable ambition to save men, we still want to serve them.”
― Albert Camus, The Plague

“Christ was sent not to mend wounded people or wake sleepy people or advise confused people or inspire bored people or spur on lazy people or educate ignorant people, but to raise dead people.
... we can vent our fleshly passions by breaking all the rules, or we can vent our fleshly passions by keeping all the rules, but both ways of venting the flesh still need resurrection. We can be immoral dead people, or we can be moral dead people. Either way, we're dead.
The mercy of God reaches down and rinses clean not only obviously bad people but fraudulently good people, both of whom equally stand in need of resurrection.
God is rich in mercy. He doesn't withhold mercy from some kinds of sinners while extending it to others. because mercy is who he is - "being rich in mercy" - his heart gushes forth mercy to sinners one and all. His mercy overcomes even the deadness of our souls and the hollowed-out, zombie-like existence that we are all naturally born into.
The mercy of Ephesians 2:4 does not seem far off and abstract when we feel the weight of our sin.”
― Dane Ortlund, Doux et humble de cœur: L'amour de Christ pour les pécheurs et les affligés

“You're inside at the kitchen table wolfing cereal when she says, 'you have accomplished a great thing.'

You say, 'and what would that be, bwana?'

Meredith says, 'you're your same self.'

The truth of this flickers past you, gnat-like. For years, you've felt only half done inside, cobbled together by paper clips, held intact by gum wads and school paste. But something solid is starting to assemble inside you.

You say, 'I am my same self. That's not nothing, is it?'

That catchphrase will serve as a touchstone for years to come, an instant you'll return to after traveling the far roads. Like everything else, Meredith thought it up.

You were there solely for embellishment and witness: you were there to watch.”
― Mary Karr, Cherry