This is a page for Quotes and Verses that inspire me.

“Earth is so thick with divine possibility that it is a wonder we can walk anywhere without cracking our shins on altars.” Barbara Brown Taylor

“I am wanting to create space for exploration…to encourage people that their doubts belong to the journey, and that faith is a resource we can draw on right in the middle of all the non-churchy things we have going on.” -Cathy Stoner

Seneca scholar John Mohawk wrote that according to his culture, “an individual is not smart […] but merely lucky to be part of a system that has intelligence. Be humble about this. The real intelligence isn’t the property of an individual; the real intelligence is the property of the universe itself.” -in an article about the intelligence of the more-than-human by Robin Wall Kimmerer in Yes! Magazine. She continues “The story of intelligences other than our own is one of continual expansion. I am not aware of a single research study that demonstrates that other beings are dumber than we think. Octopi solve puzzles, chickadees create language, crows make tools, rats feel anxiety, elephants mourn, parrots do calculus, apes read symbols, nematodes navigate, and honeybees dance the results of cost-benefit analysis of sucrose rewards like an economic ballet. Even the slime mold can learn a maze, enduring toxic obstacles to obtain the richest reward. The blinders are coming off, and the definition of intelligence expands every time we ask the question.”

“Because love is an act of courage, not of fear, love is commitment to others. No matter where the oppressed are found, the act of love is commitment to their cause – the cause of liberation… As an act of bravery, love cannot be sentimental; as an act of freedom, it must not serve as a pretext for manipulation. It must generate other acts of freedom, otherwise, it is not love.” – Paulo Freire

“Justice is what love looks like in public.” -Cornel West

“Buddha taught that his teachings are like boats for us to cross the river. The point is to cross the river, not to hang on to the boat. If various religions are different ways to cross the same River of Life, why should we fight over which boat is the right, supreme boat, and sink each other before we even get halfway across the river?” -Zilong Wang in his Huff Post reflection ’10 Lessons I Learned While Biking Across the USA’

“Activism, when properly conceived, aims at revolution by striking at the root. It deploys an essential critique of society that cannot be resolved, or recuperated, without a major cultural shift. Each era must find and hone that critique and with persistence use it to repeatedly attack the prevailing social order. The essential critique of our generation is the mental environmentalist perspective which understands consumerism to be a plague upon the earth supported by pollution of our mental ecology by advertisers. The future of activism is not online; it is a spiritual insurrection against pollution of the mind. And that begins with turning off our screens.” -Micah White, Adbusters Blog 4Aug10

“Vivir y construir el internacionalismo, no es solamente fundamental como proyecto política, pero también personal. Y así lo he sentido, a pesar de no conocernos antes entre nosotras y nosotros y vivir en realidades distintas, compartimos análisis parejos de la realidad, propuestas y lucha de cambios, sentimiento de compromiso… ¡Reconocernos en el otro, y comprendernos! Los campas de jóvenes revolucionarios, la escuela de formación, son pequeñas grandes experiencias de internacionalismo. Me alegro cada vez que participo en ellas, y me digo que nos corresponde a quien participemos de ellas movilizar y animar a otras y otras a que también lo hagan.” -Comrada de Venezuela

Translation: “Building and living internationalism, it is not only key as a political project, but also as a personal one. And thus, this is what I have felt. In spite of not knowing each other before between and living in different realities, we share similar analysis of the reality, proposals and struggles for change, feelings of commitment… We recognize and understand ourselves in the other! The Revolutionary Youth camp, the Youth school, represent small big experiences of internationalism. I am happy each time I take part in them, and I say to myself that now it is us to mobilize and to encourage other to take also part.” -Comrade from Venezuela

“Enlightenment can be measured by how compassionately and wisely you interact with others—with all others, not just those who support you in the way that you want. How you interact with those who do not support you shows how enlightened you really are.” -Adyashanti

When speaking about faith stories or social movements that inspire me, I wish to “proclaim the good news that frees me and gives me joy. And you too should offer me the good that you have encountered in your faith. We must rid ourselves of diatribes, of intellectual arguments and practices aimed at winning the other over, rather witness to truth with one another.” From an article by Samir Khalil Samir in this article from Pope Francis.

“Even when boys and girls end up in the same place in terms of being in trouble, they get there by different routes. Part of the answer in how we help them is to understand the routes they traveled so that we can find ways to guide them…More and more I have become concerned with what boys think they should be, with what they believe it means to be a man. Our beliefs about maleness, the mythology that surrounds being male, has led many boys to ruin.  The image of male as strong is mixed with the image of male as violent.  Male as virile gets confused with male as promiscuous. Male as adventurous equals male as reckless.  Male as intelligent often gets mixed with male as arrogant, racist, and sexist.  If we look around and see too many men in jail, on drugs, abandoning their families, acting without compassion or even violently, we as a society must shoulder the blame and take responsibility for change.  Boys find themselves pulled and tugged by forces beyond their control as they make the confusing and sometimes perilous trip to manhood.  While reaching up for manhood they tumble over a moral and ethical precipice and many can never scale their way back up.”  -Geoffrey Canada in his book “Reaching Up for Manhood”

From Niklas Büscher’s article in January-February 2014 The Catholic Worker about St. Joseph’s house: “During the soupline, the ground floor of St. Joe’s would turn into a complete madhouse. There were bowls being thrown through the air, wild applauding from guests and volunteers with nobody knowing exactly for what reason, people singing along to the ever-same songs played by classic rock radio stations…and others just yelling at each other.  This resulted in a great atmosphere in which both guests and workers were having fun. Of course this was not the case every day in the three months I stayed. The picture I will keep in my head, though is the one of a gathering of equal people that more likely to be compared to a festive lunch together with friends than anything else. The characters I got to meet while living in the house are ones I will certainly never forget. Everyone was unique in their own way and definitely beyond my capabilities of description. People…shared a sense of humor that I’d say is best called semi-intellectual nonsense…Humor though was not the only thing that made me feel at home at St. Joe’s but also the fact that I could identify with the Catholic Worker way of living. Some of my coworkers became true friends…

I found a bunch of quotes saved from a high school English project:
“Life is better than death, I believe, if only because it is less boring, and because it has fresh peaches in it.” – Alice Walker
“We picture lovers face to face, but friends side to side; their eyes look ahead.” -C.S. Lewis I also add that comrades sit or stand back to back, so they can see further
“One who asks a question is a fool for a minute, one who does not ask is a fool for life.” -Confucius 
“Fear less, hope more; eat less, chew more; whine less, breathe more; talk less, say more; hate less, love more; and all good things are yours.” -Swedish proverb
“Always look on the bright side of life.” -Eric Idle (and Life of Brian)
“The extremities of nuclear life exceed daily milk limits.” -Jason and Kristin (I have no idea how this quote got preserved but this must have been generated from a VERY funny moment.
“When you have nothing to say, say nothing.” -Charles Caleb Colton
“You do not destroy an idea by killing people; you replace it with a better one.” -Edward Keating
“Guns don’t kill people. Stupid people with guns kill people.” -Forrest R
“Difficulties are meant to arouse, not discourage.” -William Ellery Channing
“Six essential qualities that are the key to success: sincerity, personal integrity, humility, courtesy, wisdom, and charity.” -Dr. William Menninger
“I shall pass through this world but once. If therefore, there be any kindness I can show, or any good thing I can do, let me do it now: let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.” ― Etienne de Grellet
“A faithful friend is the medicine of life.” -Apocrypha
“Life is hard by the yard, but by the inch its a cinch.” -Brian Tracy
“Just to be is a blessing. Just to live is holy.” – Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel
“A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable but more useful than a life spent in doing nothing.” -George Bernard Shaw
“God can do great things with broken pieces, provided God is given all of the pieces.” -Dwight Moody
“Sometimes on the way to your dream, you get lost and find a better one.” -Source unknown
“The [Goshen College] history department has always sought to recover the histories of people who are marginalized. That is tied to service–caring about the poor and disenfranchised and valuing their experiences.” -Jan Bender Shetler. I have written myself a note in the margins of the torn out paragraph, “the descendents of the marginalized–how can our insights be catalysts for change?”

“Somewhere in the world it is raining. -Josh Nisly (quote donated by class clown and genius Zac Albrecht)
“What kind of world are we living in, when an evil teacher can take a poor, defenseless student and move his seat?” -Mark Twain (actually, Zac Albrecht). You really had to be in our class and know Zac and our class culture to appreciate these witty sayings.

“Inspired by Landsmanshaftn (mutual aid societies), a reminder that Shmita can only be done collectively, releasing isolation, and asking for what we need as we co-create the world to come, olam haba, we will be practicing offering/requesting support using a reciprocity circle. Take a minute and breathe into/out what you would like to release holding by yourself, what projects you are dreaming/doing, what you need to do these projects, and ways you want to be offering support to be more powerfully leaning into this Shmita/release year and beyond.” -someone in a webinar whose name I can’t remember right now, but it was great for 2022.