Elisa Romagnoli > Elisa's Quotes

“It is the mind that makes the body.”
― Sojourner Truth

“I want to be outside with the misfits, with the rebels, the dreamers, second-chance givers, the radical grace lavishers, the ones with arms wide open, the courageously vulnerable, and among even—or maybe especially—the ones rejected by the Table as not worthy enough or right enough.”
― Sarah Bessey, Jesus Feminist: An Invitation to Revisit the Bible's View of Women

“She is too fond of books, and it has turned her brain.”
― Louisa May Alcott, Work: A Story of Experience

“I am a Christian,” I concluded, “because the story of Jesus is still the story I’m willing to risk being wrong about.”
― Rachel Held Evans, Inspired: Slaying Giants, Walking on Water, and Loving the Bible Again

“There’s a great episode of The Office in which this strategy lands Michael Scott and Dwight Schrute in a lake during a sales trip, Michael shouting, “The machine knows!” as he follows the GPS instructions and drives his SUV off the road into the water. I’ve watched a lot of good people drive their lives, their families, their churches, their communities, even their countries into a lake, shouting, “The Bible knows!” all the way down.”
― Rachel Held Evans, Inspired: Slaying Giants, Walking on Water, and Loving the Bible Again

“Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind.”
― Bernard M. Baruch

“The apostles remembered what many modern Christians tend to forget—that what makes the gospel offensive isn’t who it keeps out but who it lets in.”
― Rachel Held Evans, Inspired: Slaying Giants, Walking on Water, and Loving the Bible Again

“The truth is, you can bend Scripture to say just about anything you want it to say. You can bend it until it breaks. For those who count the Bible as sacred, interpretation is not a matter of whether to pick and choose, but how to pick and choose. We’re all selective. We all wrestle with how to interpret and apply the Bible to our lives. We all go to the text looking for something, and we all have a tendency to find it. So the question we have to ask ourselves is this: are we reading with the prejudice of love, with Christ as our model, or are we reading with the prejudices of judgment and power, self-interest and greed? Are we seeking to enslave or liberate, burden or set free?”
― Rachel Held Evans, Inspired: Slaying Giants, Walking on Water, and Loving the Bible Again

“So in considering the writings of Paul, the question is not, Are head coverings good or bad? The question is, in that context, Did head coverings help or hurt the advancement of the gospel and the preservation of unity? The question is not, Should Christians eat meat? but rather, in that context, Did eating meat help or hurt the advancement of the gospel and the preservation of unity? And as we consider the application of Paul’s teachings in our various contexts today, the question is not, Should women be allowed to preach? but Do women preachers help or hurt the advancement of the gospel and the preservation of unity? Paul was smart enough to know the answers to these questions would vary from church to church and person to person, so surely he was smart enough to also know they would vary from culture to culture and century to century. Was Paul a man of his time? Of course. But that’s exactly the point. God meets us where we are, as we are. The Spirit shows up in the thick of it.”
― Rachel Held Evans, Inspired: Slaying Giants, Walking on Water, and Loving the Bible Again

“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”
― Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere's Fan

“This is partly what makes the fragility of whiteness so damn dangerous. It ignores the personhood of people of color and instead makes the feelings of whiteness the most important thing.”
― Austin Channing Brown, I'm Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness

“Dear Church, it’s time to stop prioritizing tradition and civility over the lives of the marginalized. Our well-meaning desires to be tolerant and welcoming have left us ill equipped to face radical evil.”
― Lenny Duncan, Dear Church: A Love Letter from a Black Preacher to the Whitest Denomination in the US

“Dear Church, I’ll say it again: systemic racism, white supremacy, and the whiteness of the ELCA constitute a theological problem, not a sociological one. And theological problems are often rooted in the symbolism of our liturgy and ritual. After all, we access God primarily through symbols and ritual.”
― Lenny Duncan, Dear Church: A Love Letter from a Black Preacher to the Whitest Denomination in the US

“I don’t want a church of false unity. And some fundamental truths are worth fighting over.”
― Lenny Duncan, Dear Church: A Love Letter from a Black Preacher to the Whitest Denomination in the US

“Dear Church, we have to wage peace in the name of Jesus Christ for this generation. We have to break the chains of sin and death holding all of us captive.”
― Lenny Duncan, Dear Church: A Love Letter from a Black Preacher to the Whitest Denomination in the US

“Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul
And sings the tune without the words
And never stops at all.”
― Emily Dickinson

“Nobody in this nation feels safe, and I'm still a reason why.”
― Jericho Brown, The Tradition

“I’m sure Somebody died while We made love. Some- Body killed somebody Black. I thought then Of holding you As a political act.”
― Jericho Brown, The Tradition

“I promise if you hear Of me dead anywhere near A cop, then that cop killed me.”
― Jericho Brown, The Tradition

“There is no one way to be black. Blackness is not a monolith and you are not someone who is lost in the abiss of uniformity. Blackness is a kelidoscope where, if you look closely, you will see many colorful patterns within the many reflections in the mirror. There is no one way to be black.”
― Morgan Jerkins, This Will Be My Undoing: Living at the Intersection of Black, Female, and Feminist in (White) America

“White people think that it is a compliment when they do not 'see' you as a black person.”
― Morgan Jerkins, This Will Be My Undoing: Living at the Intersection of Black, Female, and Feminist in (White) America

“Ash, ash —-
You poke and stir.
Flesh, bone, there is nothing there——

A cake of soap,
A wedding ring,
A gold filling.

Herr God, Herr Lucifer
Beware
Beware.

Out of the ash
I rise with my red hair
And I eat men like air.”
― Sylvia Plath, Ariel: The Restored Edition

“I lean to you, numb as a fossil. Tell me I'm here.”
― Sylvia Plath, The Collected Poems

“There is a sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness but of power. They are messengers of overwhelming grief and unspeakable love.”
― Washington Irving

“There are some secrets which do not permit themselves to be told. Men die nightly in their beds, wringing the hands of ghostly confessors, and looking them piteously in the eyes — die with despair of heart and convulsion of throat, on account of the hideousness of mysteries which will not suffer themselves to be revealed.”
― Edgar Allan Poe, The Man of the Crowd - an Edgar Allan Poe Short Story

“I think you travel to search and you come back home to find yourself there.”
― Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

“I'm not such an idiot that I don't realize that if a man calls me a nigger it's his fault the first time, but mine if he has the opportunity to do it again.”
― Nella Larsen, Passing

“Well, what of it? If sex isn’t a joke, what is it”
― Nella Larsen, Passing

“It’s funny about ‘passing.’ We disapprove of it and at the same time condone it. It excites our contempt and yet we rather admire it. We shy away from it with an odd kind of revulsion, but we protect it.”
― Nella Larsen, Passing

“Clare Kendry cared nothing for the race. She only belonged to it.”
― Nella Larsen, Passing