Communion Quotes

“Whether an action is good or bad isn’t determined by outcome alone, but by the nature of the act and the intentions behind it.”
― J.D. Vance, Communion: Finding My Way Back to Faith

“I had joined the rat race of modern meritocracy without any finish line in mind. I had gotten all the grades, the credentials, the degrees, and the job offers to impress other people. And man, were they impressed. Family would show me off at social functions and introduce me as the kid who went to Yale. I had all the external validation anyone could want, and yet I found this world unsatisfying. I found it unsatisfying because it couldn’t answer the big questions, and it seemed designed to distract from them or even to replace the normal yearnings of a healthy soul with something else. Many couples I met in this world were at some stage of a long-distance relationship. It always felt a bit bizarre—to give up a year with the person you love to make way for a job. Some couples would spend years apart to pursue their respective careers. What the hell is wrong with these people? I thought. In sixty years, we’ll all be dead, and they’ll have wasted so much of that time away from the person they apparently loved. The obsession with achievement and credentials had left me lost. But if anything made me feel tethered, it was Usha. And she didn’t care if I got a Supreme Court clerkship or made a lot of money. She just wanted me to watch old movies with her and take the dogs on walks and read classic novels and send her the interesting articles I found during the day. She wanted me to be a good person, a good husband, and a good father (eventually). And the truth is that I had a lot of work to do on those fronts. I needed to be more patient. Less hot-tempered. I needed to address my past without wallowing in it. I needed to be able to drive to Middletown and help my family, while still being able to set boundaries on things like how much money we lent them. Usha depended on me now, and my first obligation was to her. Though I would hardly have described myself as a Christian in 2013, I was now clearly “Christian curious.” The”
― J.D. Vance, Communion: Finding My Way Back to Faith