BETH

“You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, who had ever been alive.”
― James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room

“Respect only has meaning as respect for those with whom I do not agree.”
― Karen Armstrong, A History of God: The 4000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam

“Theologians in all the great faiths have devised all kinds of myths to show that this type of kenosis, of self-emptying, is found in the life of God itself. They do not do this because it sounds edifying, but because this is the way that human nature seems to work. We are most creative and sense other possibilities that transcend our ordinary experience when we leave ourselves behind.”
― Karen Armstrong, The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness

“[T]he family is a school of compassion because it is here that we learn to live with other people. (68)”
― Karen Armstrong, Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life