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“I once knew a man who didn’t know his own birthday. He was a lucky man. He lived his life each day like any other, never quite knowing his age, therefore never knowing a birth date’s yearly tyranny. I can do without them, thank you, having had many, many more than my share. The thing about birthdays is you’re rocking along drawing breath, living sunrise to sunrise, becoming who you’ll become without a thought put to it—until the day you popped into this world arrives. Then whatever happens, good or bad, you’ll forever mark it in memory along with the passage of ticking time, a date on a calendar forcing you to look behind with no way to change things and look ahead with no way to know what’s coming.”
― West With Giraffes
― West With Giraffes
“All I can do is try to draw closer to your uniqueness, to feel linked by the small overlaps between us. This is how empathy works. It’s how differentness starts to weave itself into togetherness. Empathy fills the gaps between us, but never closes them entirely. We get pulled into the lives of others by virtue of what they feel safe and able to show us, and the generosity with which we are able to meet them. Piece by piece, person by person, we begin to apprehend the world in more fullness.”
― The Light We Carry: Overcoming in Uncertain Times
― The Light We Carry: Overcoming in Uncertain Times
“As well as religion, human history is full of depressing things like colonization, disease, racism, sexism, homophobia, class snobbery, environmental destruction, slavery, totalitarianism, military dictatorships, inventions of things which they had no idea how to handle (the atomic bomb, the Internet, the semicolon), the victimization of clever people, the worshipping of idiotic people, boredom, despair, periodic collapses, and catastrophes within the psychic landscape. And through it all there has always been some truly awful food.”
― The Humans
― The Humans
“when we listen to the scriptures during the liturgy, Denys explained, we should reverently deny the names they give to God, finding each one inadequate, and fall into a humbled silence in the presence of the ineffable.”
― Sacred Nature: Restoring Our Ancient Bond with the Natural World
― Sacred Nature: Restoring Our Ancient Bond with the Natural World
“Jimmy’s gaze when he greets a person derives from a certain conception of what a person is. Jimmy is a pastor. When Jimmy sees a person—any person—he is seeing a creature who was made in the image of God. As he looks into each face, he is looking, at least a bit, into the face of God. When Jimmy sees a person, any person, he is also seeing a creature endowed with an immortal soul—a soul of infinite value and dignity. When Jimmy greets a person, he is also trying to live up to one of the great callings of his faith: He is trying to see that person the way Jesus would see that person. He is trying to see them with Jesus’s eyes—eyes that lavish love on the meek and the lowly, the marginalized and those in pain, and on every living person. When Jimmy sees a person, he comes in with the belief that this person is so important that Jesus was willing to die for their sake. As a result, Jimmy is going to greet people with respect and reverence. That’s how he’s always greeted me.”
― How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen
― How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen
Peter’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Peter’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
22 books
|
63 friends
934 books
|
121 friends
1,017 books
|
35 friends
1,936 books
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23 friends
64 books
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11 friends
429 books
|
7 friends
45 books
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67 friends
541 books
|
47 friends
More friends…
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Polls voted on by Peter
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