John > John's Quotes

“The only wisdom we can hope to acquire
Is the wisdom of humility: humility is endless.

The houses are all gone under the sea.

The dancers are all gone under the hill.”
― T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets

“especially want to draw white Americans’ attention to this. White fragility is a lie, a dodge, a myth, and a form of denial. White Americans can create culture that confronts and dismantles white-body supremacy. Any suggestion that they are unable to rise to this challenge is a lie. White Americans are anything but helpless or fragile; they are (of course) precisely as capable as other human beings. But they need to refuse to dodge the responsibility of confronting white-body supremacy—or the responsibility of growing up.”
― Resmaa Menakem, My Grandmother's Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Mending of Our Bodies and Hearts

“We think it’s about returning to an original, unsullied state, when in reality the prophetic way is to pass through disorder to a new stage that does not eliminate or deny the tears of things but instead includes them at a new level. Divine perfection is precisely the ability to include imperfection! God forgives by including the mistake and letting go of the need to punish it. We can do the same.”
― Richard Rohr, The Tears of Things: Prophetic Wisdom for an Age of Outrage