ADOLESCENCE

'We become adolescents when the words that adults exchange with one another become intelligible it us; intelligible, but of not interest because we longer care whether peace reigns in the house or not. Now we are able to follow the ins and outs of family rows and to foresee their course and how long they will last; and we are are not afraid of them any more, doors slam ad we do not jump. The house is no longer what it was for us before, it is no longer the point from which we look out on the rest of the universe, it is a place where - by chance - we eat and live: we eat quickly, lending our inattentive ear to the adults' conversation - a conversation which is intelligible to us but which strikes us as useless; eat and quickly escape to our rooms so that we don't have to listen to their useless conversation, and we are able to be perfectly happy even if the adults around us are arguing and sulking day in day out. The things that matter to us no longer happen within the walls of our house but outside, in the street and at school; we feel that we cannot be happy if the other children at school look down on us in any way. We would do anything to escape their contempt; and we do anything.'

Natalia Ginzburg, The Little Virtues, p.121.

THE PROBLEM OF OUR RELATIONSHIPS

'The problem of our relationships with other human beings lies at the centre of our life: as soo as we become aware of this - that is, as soon as we clearly see it as a problem and no longer as the muddle of unhappiness, we start to look for its origins, and to reconstruct its course throughout our whole life.'

Natalia Ginzburg, The Little Virtues, p.119.

FREEDOM OF CHOICE IS NOT NATURAL

'When we go to be psychoanalysed we are told that we must stop hating ourselves so violently. But in order to free us from this hatred, free us from this guilt, this feeling of panic, this silence, we are told we must live according to nature, that we must indulge our instincts, that we must follow our desires: that we must make a free choice of our lives. But to make a free choice of your life is not to live according to nature; it is to live unnaturally, because man is not always given a free choice; he does not choose the hour of his birth, or his face, or his parents, or his childhood; he does not normally choose the hour of his death. A man has no choice but to accept his destiny: and the only choice he is permitted is the choice between good and evil, between justice and injustice, between truth and lies.'

Natalia Ginzburg, The Little Virtues, p.115.

A TEST OF REAL FRIENDSHIP

'...a friendship which, like all real friendships, has passed through the fire of violent disagreements.'

Natalia Ginzburg, The Little Virtues, p.xvii.

SCRIPTURE & TRADITION

'The history of the church is a history of debate in which the truths of the Bible have been been successively defined so as to exclude the opinions of those who have questioned, obscured or denied them.'

John Stott, But I Say To You...Christ the Controversialist, p.35.

CHURCH IS FAMILY

'A church true to Jesus will organize congregational life around the family of believers and order domestic life toward God's kingdom.'

Darrin W Synder Belousek, Marriage, Scripture, and the Church, p.83. 

LOOOKING WITH JESUS AT MARRIAGE

'When we look back with Jesus to creation, we see marriage established: God's purpose at creation's beginning for marriage as man-woman monogamy. And we look forward with Jesus to resurrection, we see marriage surpassed: God's promise at creation's completion of life-beyond-marriage in life-beyond-death. When we look with the vision of Jesus in the Gospels - whether from the beginning or toward the end - same-sex union does not appear on either horizon.'

Darrin W Synder Belousek, Marriage, Scripture, and the Church, p.78.

WHAT IS MARRIAGE?

'Theologically, marriage is a living icon of the divine economy - an embodied and enacted reflection of God's design in creation and plan of salvation.'

Darrin W Synder Belousek, Marriage, Scripture, and the Church: Theological Discernment on the Question of Same-sex Union, p.51.

CHARACTER TRUMPS POLITY

'Considering God's immense love for the church, it may come as a surprise to some that Scripture provides few details on how the church should be governed. Scripture does, however, tells us a fair amount about the character of church leaders. This disparity highlights a key axiom for church government: great character overcomes the weakest polity, and poor character undermines the strongest polity. In either case the character of church leaders trumps governing structure.'

Brad House & Gregg Allison, MultiChurch: Exploring the Future of Multisite p.143.

DIVINE REVELATION THROUGH CREATION

'The God of the Sahara must be vast, boundless, and expansive. The God of quarks must have an unimaginable eye for detail. The God of wombats must have a sense of humor. Everything in creation has theological implications, and one of the joys of being human is figuring out what they are.'

Andrew Wilson, God of All Things: Rediscovering the sacred in an everyday world, p.3.