Diane Gabriel

“Happy as a clam, is what my mother says for happy. I am happy as a clam: hard-shelled, firmly closed.”
― Margaret Atwood, Cat’s Eye

“It is funny,’ she said, ‘That even after all this time, you still believe you should be rewarded, just because you have been obedient. I thought you would have learned that lesson in your father’s halls. None shrank and simpered as you did, and yet the great Helios stepped on you all the faster, because you were already crouched at his feet.’ She was leaning forward, her golden hair loose, embroidering the sheets around her. ‘Let me tell you the truth about Helios and all the rest. They do not care if you are good. They barely care if you are wicked. The only thing that makes them listen is power.”
― Madeline Miller, Circe

“I would go to the deeps a hundred times to cheer a downcast spirit. It is good for me to have been afflicted, that I might know how to speak a word in season to one that is weary.”
― Charles Spurgeon

“What is Strange and disconcerting about Jesus is the fact that he rarely makes demands. The style of teaching he engages in is not rote on memorization or indoctrination but Socratic, propositional and inductive. The listener is invited to explore and come to a conclusion. It is the desire of Christ for his audience to reach a conclusion and not be told what to think.
Stories, sayings, reversals, parables and other forms of teaching used by Jesus are not good teaching tools for people who seek simplistic answers. Jesus teaches but requires more of a listener. We are invited to join the journey, wrestle with our assumptions, confront our spiritual bigotry and struggle with the humbling mystery and profound profundity of God.
This is HARD faith, especially for the modern reader. We want the speaker to tell us what to think. We want our stories tidy, without complication, and we do not want questions designed to coerce us beyond easy answers. This is the LIFE and MINISTRY of Jesus. He was a walking mobile university, a theological gadfly, a spiritual teacher and Savior who cannot be contained by tradition, conformity or assimilation. Jesus is loose in the world quietly upending all assumptions, ideas and concepts we hold true.”
― Otis Moss II