Andrew

“Ultimately mourning means facing what wounds us in the presence of One who can heal.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, Turn My Mourning into Dancing: Finding Hope in Hard Times

“we see the eternal through the particular; only by entering fully into our particular place can we participate in the Great Economy of God.”
― Mark R. Rigg, Preaching in Place: Wendell Berry and the Agrarian Sermon

“Here is the node, you who hate change and fear revolution. Keep these two
squatting men apart; make them hate, fear, suspect each other. Here is the anlage of the
thing you fear. This is the zygote. For here "I lost my land" is changed; a cell is split
and from its splitting grows the thing you hate—"We lost our land." The danger is
here, for two men are not as lonely and perplexed as one. And from this first "we"
there grows a still more dangerous thing: "I have a little food" plus "I have none." If
from this problem the sum is "We have a little food," the thing is on its way, the
movement has direction. Only a little multiplication now, and this land, this tractor are
ours. The two men squatting in a ditch, the little fire, the side-meat stewing in a single
pot, the silent, stone-eyed women; behind, the children listening with their souls to
words their minds do not understand. The night draws down. The baby has a cold.
Here, take this blanket. It's wool. It was my mother's blanket—take it for the baby.
This is the thing to bomb. This is the beginning—from "I" to "we."
If you who own the things people must have could understand this, you might
preserve yourself. If you could separate causes from results, if you could know that
Paine, Marx, Jefferson, Lenin, were results, not causes, you might survive. But that
you cannot know. For the quality of owning freezes you forever into "I," and cuts you
off forever from the "we."
The Western States are nervous under the beginning change. Need is the stimulus to
concept, concept to action. A half-million people moving over the country; a million
more, restive to move; ten million more feeling the first nervousness.
And tractors turning the multiple furrows in the vacant land.”
― John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath

“Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? It ought to be an easy question, but it is not. One of the reasons finding the true king is hard is that so many of the strongest candidates look alike. Herod the Great. Herod Antipas. Caesar Augustus. Caesar Tiberius. Of course they are all unique individuals with their own strengths and weaknesses. But they have more in common than they have differences. Their lives are about power, about ambition, about glory and making a name for themselves. They are all in the 1 percent, and they ultimately all seek to be rulers in the same kingdom—the kingdom of the world.”
― Mark R. Rigg, Preaching in Place: Wendell Berry and the Agrarian Sermon