Paula

“While he washed his hands in spirits he took a look at Querry over his shoulder. The dispenser was shepherding the lepers out and they were alone. He said, ‘Are you wanted by the police? You needn’t be afraid of telling me–or any of us. You’ll find a leproserie just as safe as the Foreign Legion.’ ‘No. I’ve committed no crime. I assure you there’s nothing of interest in my case. I have retired, that’s all. If the fathers don’t want me here, I can always go on.’ ‘You’ve said it yourself–the boat goes no farther.’ ‘There’s the road.’ ‘Yes. In one direction. The way you came. It’s not often open though. This is the season of rains.’ ‘There are always my feet,’ Querry said. Colin looked for a smile, but there was none on Querry’s face.”
― Graham Greene, A Burnt Out Case

“Imaginative literature is otherness, and as such alleviates loneliness”
― Harold Bloom, How to Read and Why

“It is the core argument of this book that these simultaneous accelerations in the Market, Mother Nature, and Moore’s law together constitute the “age of accelerations,” in which we now find ourselves. These are the central gears driving the Machine today. These three accelerations are impacting one another—more Moore’s law is driving more globalization and more globalization is driving more climate change, and more Moore’s law is also driving more potential solutions to climate change and a host of other challenges—and at the same time transforming almost every aspect of modern life.”
― Thomas L. Friedman, Thank You for Being Late: An Optimist's Guide to Thriving in the Age of Accelerations

“the pervasive element in our two-thousand-year pastoral tradition is not someone who “gets things done” but rather the person placed in the community to pay attention and call attention to “what is going on right now” between men and women, with one another and with God—this kingdom of God that is primarily local, relentlessly personal, and prayerful “without ceasing.” I want to give witness to this way of understanding pastor, a way that can’t be measured or counted, and often isn’t even noticed. I didn’t notice for a long time. I would like to provide dignity to this essentially modest and often obscure way of life in the kingdom of God. Along the way, I want to insist that there is no blueprint on file for becoming a pastor. In becoming one, I have found that it is a most context-specific way of life: the pastor’s emotional life, family life, experience in the faith, and aptitudes worked out in an actual congregation in the neighborhood in which she or he lives—these people just as they are, in this place. No copying. No trying to be successful. The ways in which the vocation of pastor is conceived, develops, and comes to birth is unique to each pastor. The only modifier I can think of that might be useful in honoring the ambiguity and mystery involved in the working life of the pastor is “maybe.” Anne Tyler a few years ago wrote a novel with the title Saint Maybe. How about Pastor Maybe? That would serve both as a disclaimer to expertise (that if we could just copy the right model, we would have it down) and a ready reminder of the unavoidable ambiguity involved in this vocation. Pastor Maybe: given the loss of cultural and ecclesiastical consensus on how to live this life, none of us is sure of what we are doing much of the time, only maybe.”
― Eugene H. Peterson, The Pastor: A Memoir