HOW BEAUTY CREATES A HUNGER FOR TRUTH

'The beautiful, almost without any effort of its own, acquaints us with the mental event of conviction, and so pleasurable a mental state is this that ever afterwards one is willing to labor, struggle, wrestle with the world to locate enduring sources of conviction - to locate what is true.'

Elaine Scarry in Karen Swallow Prior, You Have a Calling, p.118.

TELLING THE TRUTH

Tell all the truth but tell it slant —
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth's superb surprise

As Lightning to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind —

Emily Dickinson in Karen Swallow Prioer, You Have a Calling, p.95.

OVERVALUING CHURCH MINISTRY

'This persistent assumption that church work is higher or nobler than "worldy" work (a form of neomonasticism) is the source of all kinds of evil.'

Karen Swallow Prior, You Have a Calling, p.62.

LISTEN TO WHAT PEOPLE ASK YOU TO DO

'When someone calls, it means they think they have a need you can fill. This is the heart of vocation. Vocation is not being able to fulfil our desires, pursue our passions, or follow our bliss. Vocation is about being called by others to serve.'

Karen Swallow Prior; You Have a Calling, p.65.

MOTHERS

'She, like all mothers, constantly casts out her thoughts, like fishing lines, towards her children, reminding herself of where they are, what they are doing, how they fare.'

Maggie O'Farrell, Hamnet, p.260.

OUR BUSINESS: CO-CREATION

'That is our calling: co-creation. Every single one us, without exception, is called to co-create with God.'

Madeleine L'Engle in Karen Swallow Prior, You Have a Calling: Finding Your Voaction in the True, Good & Beaitiful, p.13. 

WHAT BIBLICAL LAMENT DOES

'Lament allows a person to do two critical things: to express the pain and bewilderment of suffering, and to do so in a way that maintains an orientation towards God.'

Steve Midgley, Understanding Trauma: A Biblical Introduction for Church Care, p.151.

FRIENDSHIP PERFECTIONISM

'We friendship fans have an obvious vice, which is to set the bar too high, unwittingly laying a trap for those who are much more casual about what friendship involves. Falling out is much my fault as theirs, because those poor friends flunked an exam they didn't even know they were sitting.'

Andrew O'Hagan, On Friendship, p.56.

DEATH & FRIENDSHIP

'Death doesn't really end a friendship, it sanctifies it. It makes a closeness permanent. The fact that you won't see the friend again is a bitter loss, but at another level their vital presence may be guaranteed, a friendship that is now safe from the vagaries of human nature and changeable weather. Death is a disaster but also a fixity, I suppose, which traps in aspic every brilliant relationship it touches. There will be no more to add, just a perpetual reflection on the living value of what has been.'

Andrew O'Hagan, On Friendship, p.43.

FRIENDSHIP VS. ROMANCE

'Ironically a friend is someone whom you repay for not wanting to possess you, and it may count among the nuances of love that we cannot extend that same consideration to those we fancy.'

Andrew O'Hagan, On Friendship, p.12.