For Such a Time as This Quotes

“We’ve been here before.

This is not the first end of the world. Many worlds have ended” (p. 131).

“The question ‘Where was God at Auschwitz?’ marked perhaps the biggest crisis of the Christian faith since the demise of the first Roman Empire. The numbers of the Nazis’ victims and the highly organized manner of their execution are unfathomable.”
― Hanna Reichel, For Such a Time as This: An Emergency Devotional

“We might stop this wave of authoritarianism.

We might rebuild some semblance of democracy and social order. I hope we will.

Even so, the world we are inhabiting is collapsing. Authoritarianism is a symptom of the crisis, not its singular cause.”
― Hanna Reichel, For Such a Time as This: An Emergency Devotional

“Learn from those far away and long ago. Learn to recognize similarities and differences.”
― Hanna Reichel, For Such a Time as This: An Emergency Devotional

“You don't have to like your neighbors. You have to be there for them.”
― Hanna Reichel, For Such a Time as This: An Emergency Devotional

“Being a neighbor does not depend on shared commitments, shared goals, or a shared way of life, only that you attend to those God puts in your path.”
― Hanna Reichel, For Such a Time as This: An Emergency Devotional

“Once one has followed one order, it becomes more difficult to resist the next.

Authoritarian regimes will even make inconspicuous and small demands strategically, to gain that crucial first compliance.”
― Hanna Reichel, For Such a Time as This: An Emergency Devotional

“If you seek good wherever you can find it, you will find that we are many. You will find unexpected collaborators and people of different beliefs and motivations, and form surprising alliances with people of different goals.

Seek solidarity, not purity.

Cherish multiplicity and diversity, even where it is inconvenient.”
― Hanna Reichel, For Such a Time as This: An Emergency Devotional

“When people ‘move fast and break things,’ decency and kindness insist on the humanity of those otherwise crushed under the wheels. Decorum and politeness can be radical in a world that scoffs at empathy.”
― Hanna Reichel, For Such a Time as This: An Emergency Devotional

“It takes a village to raise a child. For which children are you part of the village? Take responsibility, respond to them.”
― Hanna Reichel, For Such a Time as This: An Emergency Devotional

“Honor your ancestors; talk to your children. Taking responsibility is about responding to the past and preparing for the future in the present.”
― Hanna Reichel, For Such a Time as This: An Emergency Devotional

“Never again’ means ‘never again for anyone’.”
― Hanna Reichel, For Such a Time as This: An Emergency Devotional

“Remember those who have come before you, those who have left, and those who have been taken away. Recall their faces. Name their names. Tell their stories. Eat their foods. Dream their dreams. Weave their absence into your presence; it will thicken your social fabric. Their souls will nourish yours.”
― Hanna Reichel, For Such a Time as This: An Emergency Devotional

“As she chronicled the mounting horrors around her, Etty [Hillesum] refused to confine her emotional energy to anger or despair. She reveled in fierce mystic spirituality, insatiable erotic love, and celebration of beauty. Etty saw lucidly that each one depended on the other.”
― Hanna Reichel, For Such a Time as This: An Emergency Devotional

“More important than being a hero is choosing to not go along.”
― Hanna Reichel, For Such a Time as This: An Emergency Devotional

“Indifference is consent to what is happening. Inaction is a choice to leave it unchallenged. Under conditions of injustice and violence, there is no neutrality, only active resistance or enablement.”
― Hanna Reichel, For Such a Time as This: An Emergency Devotional

“Not speaking out does not make you neutral. It makes you a bystander. The main moral difference is not between perpetrators and victims but between those who choose action and those who look on. Bystanders enable cycles of violence and systemic injustice to go unchecked. No system of oppression can succeed at scale without bystanders.”
― Hanna Reichel, For Such a Time as This: An Emergency Devotional

“It is easier for you to speak up and stand out if you see others already doing so. So, find these others. Run with them.

Let their examples strengthen your resolve.

Then, be such an Other for others, in turn.”
― Hanna Reichel, For Such a Time as This: An Emergency Devotional

“The Nazis never were in the majority. Those who simply ‘went along’ were absolutely critical to the regime's success.”
― Hanna Reichel, For Such a Time as This: An Emergency Devotional

“Make no mistake: Trying to achieve invulnerability would be the worst form of ‘anticipatory obedience’ to totalitarian grasp. It is impossible to lead your life in such a way that nothing can be used against you by those with ill will and sufficient resources.”
― Hanna Reichel, For Such a Time as This: An Emergency Devotional

“Totalitarianism seeks to incorporate all areas of life. That also means all areas of life become sites of resistance.”
― Hanna Reichel, For Such a Time as This: An Emergency Devotional

“Oppressive politics target the most vulnerable before they turn to the population as a whole.”
― Hanna Reichel, For Such a Time as This: An Emergency Devotional

“What difference does belief in God make in such a time as this? Belief in God is not a comfort in affliction; If anything, it makes injustice and suffering more acute. Belief in God is not a special talisman that will keep you safe, or a miracle weapon that will save the day.

Belief in God is a commitment to stand where God stands.”
― Hanna Reichel, For Such a Time as This: An Emergency Devotional

“If you can think and speak beyond the current moment, you can participate in the life that already exists beyond it.”
― Hanna Reichel, For Such a Time as This: An Emergency Devotional

“Books offer bigger and more complex worlds when the language around you diminishes and the world gets smaller.

Read widely and dig deep to find language that you will need: rich and surprising and sprawling and not reducible to the current panic. Your tradition — holy and mundane, literary and cultural, scriptures and confessions — will allow you to think with a richer past and speak to a more promising future.”
― Hanna Reichel, For Such a Time as This: An Emergency Devotional

“Of the ten stages of genocide extrapolated from historical evidence, dehumanization through language marks stage four.”
― Hanna Reichel, For Such a Time as This: An Emergency Devotional

“The Bible does not talk about happiness, but it does talk about joy.”
― Hanna Reichel, For Such a Time as This: An Emergency Devotional

“There will be days when you feel that all hope is lost. But hope is not an object that can be misplaced or taken away. Hope is not an emotion that you may or may not feel. Hope is not a positive outlook that may may be hard to come by.

Hope is a practice, a discipline, a horizon.”
― Hanna Reichel, For Such a Time as This: An Emergency Devotional

“Wait for God’ means to watch out for God's action in history and participate in it. Not inaction or surrender, but a renewed commitment.”
― Hanna Reichel, For Such a Time as This: An Emergency Devotional

“God is in control,’ some will say. ‘Be silent, be still, wait for the Lord.’ Sentences like these can excuse inaction, dress paralysis in pious garb, and frame cowardice as an act of faith.”
― Hanna Reichel, For Such a Time as This: An Emergency Devotional

“Believe the demons, too — they're often the earliest to recognize the Spirit of God. If they flinch and yell, trust that something real is happening. Their violent response is a sign of anxiety and despair, not of true power, but it points you the way. It reveals their weakness and allows you to leverage it.”
― Hanna Reichel, For Such a Time as This: An Emergency Devotional