Making Room Quotes

“One great reason why the rich in general have so little sympathy for the poor is because they so seldom visit them. Hence it is that [according to the common observation] one part of the world does not know what the other suffers. Many of them do not know, because they do not care to know: they keep out of the way of knowing it -and then plead their voluntary ignorance as an excuse for their hardness of heart.”
― Christine D. Pohl, Making Room: Recovering Hospitality as a Christian Tradition

“Isolation from local needs and overexposure to overwhelming but distant need, make our responses to strangers uncertain and tentative at best”
― Christine D. Pohl, Making Room: Recovering Hospitality as a Christian Tradition

“At times we deliberately turn away from vulnerable strangers, choosing not to see them, quietly steeling ourselves to resist their intrusions into our lives. This is not only a contemporary problem; Chrysostom and Wesley criticized parishioners who ignored the poor and the strangers they encountered. They had strong words for Christians who pled ignorance when they had actually chosen not to see.”
― Christine D. Pohl, Making Room: Recovering Hospitality as a Christian Tradition