What Grows in Weary Lands Quotes

“One of the gifts of aridity is that, in desolation, our naïve, unexamined ideas about God, and about what God’s love ought to look like, are dashed against the rocks of reality so that a truer, more enduring trust might be built from the wreckage.”
― Tish Harrison Warren, What Grows in Weary Lands: On Christian Resilience

“We collectively lack a framework for what Thomas Aquinas called “arduous goods,”[10] those things that imbue our lives with meaning but also make them more difficult, those sturdy commitments that cost us something, that interrupt our ease and add friction to our days—the common kinds of “doing good” that make us weary.”
― Tish Harrison Warren, What Grows in Weary Lands: On Christian Resilience

“Acacia trees have taproots that plunge down as deep as one hundred feet to find water underground. The drier it is, the deeper their roots grow. Then there are resurrection plants, which seem to entirely wither and die, only to spring back to life as soon as they meet with any moisture. Botanists have seen some resurrection plants revive after they appeared to be dead for over a century. All it took was a trickle. To survive in these arid lands, plants have to become doggedly and creatively resilient. And that is what I hope grows in me in seasons that seem spiritually and emotionally dry.”
― Tish Harrison Warren, What Grows in Weary Lands: On Christian Resilience

“Our consumer culture demands convenience, efficiency, and ease. When God seems distant, we want him to show off for us and make himself known.[18] We want the secret knowledge or program that will unlock all our potential and free us from difficulties, desolation, and death. We want a strategy and plan that will make the good in our life not so arduous. Offering the promise of this, even in the spiritual life, is the way to make faith marketable. It is not, however, the way to make disciples.”
― Tish Harrison Warren, What Grows in Weary Lands: On Christian Resilience

“Christian hope is born from the belief that the very best things in heaven and earth will not pass away into fire or emptiness, but will be made more solid, lasting, and real—not in some far-off heaven, but in the renewal and resurrection of this beloved world.”
― Tish Harrison Warren, What Grows in Weary Lands: On Christian Resilience

“Burnout. Languishing. Exhaustion. These terms were helpful, and certainly part of the malaise that I and many around me were experiencing. Yet none of these terms, alone, is enough to sum up my experience. And to me, the popular solutions offered for my sense of weariness often felt shallow or futile. Experts and friends suggested increased exercise, prioritizing self-care, more vitamin B12 or D, mood teas, or vacations—all worthy suggestions, but none of them probed deeply enough. I felt like the Psalmist, wandering through a wasteland crying, “My soul thirsts…my flesh faints…in a dry and weary land where there is no water,”[6] and some think-piece writer would pop up from a gopher hole and yell, “But have you tried finding a better work-life balance?”
― Tish Harrison Warren, What Grows in Weary Lands: On Christian Resilience

“But I can wait. I can keep going. The practices of our faith, acts of perseverance and trust that may feel futile, are at last the fragile kindling set ablaze by the Spirit, at just the right time. In the end, it all feeds the flame. In the end, nothing will be wasted.”
― Tish Harrison Warren, What Grows in Weary Lands: On Christian Resilience

“She said that spiritual growth and artmaking alike are usually not found in a sudden insight, like a burst of a flame, but in “the steady laying on of the logs”—in the long, sometimes monotonous tending of a fire—a fire that sputters, dwindles, burns out, and then, at times unexpectedly, flickers back to life.”
― Tish Harrison Warren, What Grows in Weary Lands: On Christian Resilience

“Many claim to have been born again, but the evidence for mature Christian discipleship is slim. In our kind of culture anything, even news about God, can be sold if it is packaged freshly; but when it loses its novelty, it goes on the garbage heap. There is a great market for religious experience in our world; there is little enthusiasm for the patient acquisition of virtue, little inclination to sign up for a long apprenticeship in what earlier generations of Christians called holiness.”
― Tish Harrison Warren, What Grows in Weary Lands: On Christian Resilience

“Garvey asks, How does one get from our practical, little efforts to becoming all flame? His answer is that we continue to participate in the sacramental life of the church; we continue to seek God in prayer, fasting, silence, the scriptures, and sacraments. I would only add: We get there slowly.”
― Tish Harrison Warren, What Grows in Weary Lands: On Christian Resilience

“What I mean is that conversion—the transformation of our hearts and minds—is not just a moment but the project of a lifetime. We are converted and converted and converted, day by day, sometimes hour by hour.”
― Tish Harrison Warren, What Grows in Weary Lands: On Christian Resilience

“This rhythm adopted by Jesus shows us the true purpose of contemplation. Jesus—like the Desert Fathers and Mothers—did not withdraw because he was a misanthrope who wanted to get away from the burden of people. The point of withdrawal is to watch and wait for communion with God.”
― Tish Harrison Warren, What Grows in Weary Lands: On Christian Resilience

“The miracle of the furnace is not the three young men’s internal composure or steadfast faith. The miracle is that God himself showed up when everything seemed past hope.”
― Tish Harrison Warren, What Grows in Weary Lands: On Christian Resilience

“More often, the things in life that feel most exhausting and even depleting are the things we most love, though in times of weariness, that sense of love often feels barely detectable. What is most arduous are often the deepest and most meaningful “goods” in our lives—our commitments to marriage and children or to celibacy, to our close family and friends, to service of our community and church, to creative work, and to our pursuit of God.”
― Tish Harrison Warren, What Grows in Weary Lands: On Christian Resilience