INTIMACY WITH YOURSELF

'To be a real agent for God to connect with the neighbour in the way we have been thinking about, each of us needs to know the specific truth about himself or herself; that is to say, it's no good just saying to yourself, 'I'm a sinner,' in general terms. The specific facts of your experience may or may not be helpful to another - you should not assume that you always need to share the detail, but you need to know it yourself. To be the means of reconciliation for another within the body of Christ, you must be consciously yourself, knowing a bit about what has made you who you are, what your particular problems and brick walls are, what your gifts are.'

Rowan Williams, Silence and Honey Cakes, p.39.

CHURCH AS A COMMUNITY OF FAILURE

'The church is a community that exists because something has happened which makes the entire process of self-justification irrelevant. God's truth and God's mercy have appeared in concrete form in Jesus and, in his death and resurrection, have worked the transformation that only God can perfom and told us what only God can tell us: that he has already dealt with the dreadful consequences of our failure, so that we need not labour anxiously to save ourselves and put ourselves right with God. The church's aim is to be a community that demonstrates this decisive transformation as really experiencable. One of the chief sources of the anxiety from which the gospel delivers us is the need to protect my picture of myself as right and good. So one of the most obvious characteristics of the church ought to be a willingness to abandon anything like competitive virtue (or competitive suffering or competitive victimage, competitive tolerance or competitive intolerance or whatever). The church points to the all-sufficiency of Christ when it is full of people whose concern is not to seperate others from the hope of reconciliation and life by their fears and obssessions. A healthy church is one in which we seek to stay connected to God by seeking to connect others with God; one in which we 'win God' by converting one another by our truthful awareness of fraility. And a church that is living in such a way is the only church that will have anything different to say to the world: how deeply depressing if all the church offered were new and better ways to succeed at the expense of others, reinstating the scapegoat mechanisms that the cross of Christ should have exploded once and for all.'

Rowan Williams, Silence and Honey Cakes, p.33. 

THE BASIS OF GOOD CHRISTIAN COUNSELLING

'The fundamental need as far as the counsellor is concerned is first of all to put themselves on the level of the one who has sinned, to heal by solidarity not condemnation.'

Rowan Williams, Silence and Honey Cakes: The wisdom of the desert, p.28.

A COMPLEMENTARY MARRIAGE

'The big surprise that marriage to Vincent had sprung on her was contentment. She had moments of desolation and moments of great joy, but underneath was some steady current of feeling. Misty's propensity toward pessimism and Vincent's towards optimism really did complement. Vincent was not less cheerful, and Misty was only slightly less judgmental, but they seemed to have formed a third person who smoothed out their edges and made life together possible and profirtable.'

Laurie Colwin, Happy All the Time, p.205.

KNOW YOUR FAMILY TREE

'Andy could not have understood his father until he had understood his grandfather.'

Wendell Berry, Marce Catlett, p.110.

WHAT IT FEELS LIKE TO COME HOME

'What was his homecoming like for Andy? It was like being naked and cold and then getting into his clothes.'

Wendell Berry, Marce Catlett, p.106.

TRUE MEMBERSHIP

'They followed the only rule of membership: When any of them needed help, the others came to help. By extension of their one rule, there was no "settling up." All help was paid for in advance by the knowledge that there would be no end to anybody's need for help, which would be given to the limit of life and strength.'

Wendell Berry, Marce Catlett, p.106.

THE IMPORTANCE OF PLACE

'...he had misplaced himself...'
Wendell Berry, Marce Catlett, p.103.

THE SUFFERINGS THAT COME FROM FRIENDSHIP

'Jim Stedman then felt in his heart one of the hardest of human sufferings: the wish to help his friend more than he knew he could.'

Wendell Berry, Marce Catlett: The Force of a Story, p.25.

THE MIRACLE OF THE ORDINARY

'When God does something awe-inspiring one time, we call it a miracle. When he does it a billion times, we call it ordinary. Look a little closer, and you'll see that "ordinary" is just another word for the miracles God decided to repeat. And he repeats them on purpose - the natural world is overflowing all around us with a constant stream of God's language, with never-ending messages from our Creator.'

Seth Lewis, The Language of Rivers and Stars, p.159.