Abi

“I, too, stood on the sacred image. For a moment this foot was on his face. It was on the face of the man who has been ever in my thoughts, on the face that was before me on the mountains, in my wanderings, in prison, on the best and most beautiful face that any man can ever know, on the face of him whom I have always longed to love. Even now that face is looking at me with eyes of pity from the plaque rubbed flat by many feet. « Trample ! » said those compassionate eyes. « Trample ! Your foot suffers in pain ; it must suffer like all the feet that have stepped on this plaque. But that pain alone is enough. I understand your pain and your suffering. It is for that reason that I am here. »
« Lord, I resented your silence. »
« I was not silent. I suffered beside you. »”
― Shūsaku Endō, Silence

“It is easier, of course, to find dignity in one's solitude. Loneliness is solitude with a problem. Can blue solve the problem, or can it at least keep me company within it?—No, not exactly. It cannot love me that way; it has no arms. But sometimes I do feel its presence to be a sort of wink—Here you are again, it says, and so am I.”
― Maggie Nelson, Bluets

“Violence in the developing world is like grief in the developed world—it’s everywhere, but we just don’t see it.”
― Gary A. Haugen, The Locust Effect: Why the End of Poverty Requires the End of Violence

“...but what grieved him most was his inability to love these people as Christ had loved them.”
― shusaku endo, Silence