The Time Is Now: A Call to Uncommon Courage

by Joan D. Chittister

The lack of understanding pierces the heart.

The prophet becomes a country of one.

There is no denying the pain or the hurt and anger and sadness that attends it. There are no cures for such rejection.

But there is a built-in balm.

The prophet must reject the rejections.

Sometimes it is about sending you on a path you would not travel but without which you can never complete the enterprise.

your own opportunity to evolve beyond your old self.

Remember always that it is the revelation you are about, not yourself, not the preservation of the institution, not the past.

We are here to be messengers of God. We are here to be a rudder on the ship of life.

Whose respect would we risk to have?

Because of them, the entire society was better in the end—no matter how much resistance they faced as they began their small and local projects for peace, justice, and equality.

immigrants and refugees that moved back and forth across the planet in greater numbers than in any other time of recorded history.

Peace groups began to teach tactics of nonviolent resistance in contradistinction to all the guerrilla wars and terrorist activities on the globe.

Buildings and professional ministries are not what prophecy is about.

They need your name and mine, your voice and mine, your care and mine, your commitment and mine.

Now the call is for a clear and common voice to challenge oppression and discrimination of any kind, to call out injustice and invisibility of every kind.

And so my hope for this book is that we might all see the place of prophetic spirituality in our own spiritual lives.