Kissing Fish Quotes

“You can meditate and pray, go to church, get baptized and take communion, light candles and burn incense, read sacred texts, chant, fast and do yoga, and even help out at soup kitchens, but if you aren’t doing them with love, it’s all a bunch of vapid, empty horse apples. I know what I’m talking about. I’ve got a shed full of them.”
― Roger Wolsey, Kissing Fish: christianity for people who don’t like christianity

“Agape doesn’t necessarily involve high heroics, and it certainly doesn’t involve syrupy sentiment. It’s practical. It makes a difference. And it matters. It’s evident when someone cooks a nutritious meal for his children after an exhausting day at work. It’s seen when a mother takes on three or more jobs to do what it takes to keep her family clothed, housed, and fed. It’s donating blood on a regular basis to the local blood bank. It’s risking looking un-cool, and perhaps far more than that, by interrupting people as they’re telling a racist or anti-gay joke. It’s when someone decides to use the year end bonus that he received from his employer to repair the car of the struggling single mother down the street, or purchase a burial plot for someone without means, instead of buying that boat or motorcycle he’s been wanting.”
― Roger Wolsey, Kissing Fish: christianity for people who don’t like christianity

“In my experience, conservative Christians often think they are accepting others, but then they undermine that alleged acceptance by saying that they, “Love the sinner, but hate their sin.” Genuine empathy doesn’t mean, “accepting” the person while criticizing everything about that person. As Thomas Merton put it, “The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them.”
― Roger Wolsey, Kissing Fish: christianity for people who don’t like christianity

“Many progressive Christians aren’t particularly concerned about going to heaven after they die. In fact, many are openly agnostic about whether or not there is a heaven. Our concern is more upon living and loving in God’s Kingdom right now, and faithfully helping to manifest it all the more. We don’t really know if there is an actual heaven, but if there is, none of us know who will be there and who won’t be. Only God determines this, and God’s inclusive mercy and grace far exceed human capacities.”
― Roger Wolsey, Kissing Fish: christianity for people who don’t like christianity

“People, even more than things, have to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone. Audrey Hepburn”
― Roger Wolsey, Kissing Fish: christianity for people who don’t like christianity

“You can safely assume you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.” Anne Lamott”
― Roger Wolsey, Kissing Fish: christianity for people who don’t like christianity

“One of the great liabilities of life is that all too many people find themselves living amid a great period of social change, and yet they fail to develop the new attitudes, the new mental responses, that the new situation desires. They end up sleeping through a revolution. Martin Luther King, Jr.”
― Roger Wolsey, Kissing Fish: christianity for people who don’t like christianity

“As Thomas Merton put it, “The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them.”
― Roger Wolsey, Kissing Fish: christianity for people who don’t like christianity

“The story is told of a man named John who had once been faithful to attend his church regularly, but had grown lackadaisical recently. The Pastor knew that he hadn’t seen the gentleman in a while, so he went for a visit. 

John greeted the Pastor and welcomed him in, directing him to the chair beside the fireplace. The pastor didn’t mention anything about his concern about not having seen him in awhile, instead he simply said, “So, what’s up with you these days? How are you doing?” As John started responding, the pastor listened. After John had finished talking. The pastor casually grabbed the fireplace tongs, picked up a hot coal from the fire, and set it away from the fire, out on the hearth. Both men then watched the coal. While the fire roared on, the coal that had been red hot began to lose its heat. It gradually lost its red color, and then cooled off so that it became cool to the touch. The Pastor picked up the coal, and handed it to John for a moment . . . neither man said a word. Then the Pastor reached out and took the coal back from John, and returned it to the roaring fire . . . and in just a few short moments, the coal once again glowed red hot, as the pile of flaming coals caused it to heat up again. The pastor then got to his feet, put his hat on, and shook John’s hand. At that point, John looked at the pastor and said, “You know, I think you might start seeing a bit more of me in church again.”
― Roger Wolsey, Kissing Fish: christianity for people who don’t like christianity

“Agape happens when someone decides to forgive someone who wronged them instead of retaliating—and even to go out of their way to help him or her. It happens whenever people willingly decide to put the needs of others ahead of themselves; speak truth to power;[307] feed the hungry; clothe the naked; visit the imprisoned; release the captive; love the unlovable; forgive the unforgivable; associate with the disreputable; and to eat and drink with the unsavory. As theologian Søren Kierkegaard observed, this is a rigorous kind of love.”
― Roger Wolsey, Kissing Fish: christianity for people who don’t like christianity

“A young Cherokee brave once went to his tribal elder saying, “I can’t figure out what’s going on inside me! I want to do right but I end up doing wrong. I want to love but I end up hating. Can you help me?” The elder paused for a moment and then responded saying, “Inside every brave are two dogs that are always at war. One of them is the dog of love, compassion, and kindness. The other is the dog of selfishness, violence, and vengeance.” The brave pondered this and said, “Which dog wins?” The elder said, “That depends upon which dog you feed.”
― Roger Wolsey, Kissing Fish: christianity for people who don’t like christianity