Dirt Quotes

“Grief is a liar and an ocean. Just when you think you’ve reached the shore, it rises up again and swallows you whole. Weeks can go by without any tears at all, and then an unexpected card stuck in a book can knock you flat on your face sure as any tsunami. And your throat burns and sputters and chokes, drowning in a torrent of salt-stung water, as you gasp for air and try so desperately to wake up from this dream.”
― Mary Marantz, Dirt: Growing Strong Roots in What Makes the Broken Beautiful

“I think about that often.

I think about the boots and the bones, and how I didn't want to be so lowly as to stoop down and help another human being take off their layers of mud. to wind up with their dirt on my hands.

I think that's because for a long time I believed freedom looked like getting to a place where none of the people were muddy. Where everyone was shiny and clean and took care of their own front yards. Where everywhere you looked, there were white picket fences and perfectly manicured pansies lining the front walkway.
...
And then I think about God and what neighborhood He would live in.

I think about Jesus washing the feet of the disciples. Those dusty busted-up, sandal-blistered feet they rolled up with to His supper table. I think about the Savior of the world kneeling there at His last meal, before His body was broken and His blood was poured out, first making sure that none of them had to walk around with muddy feet.

At this I picture Jesus kneeling at the feet of my father.

I think about the conversation those two might have. I think about the care Jesus would take in removing those heavy weights from around Dad's ankles. how He would hold all those broken parts in His light-filled hands and weep with Dad for all the pain he'd been walking around with. I think He would tell him that He sees how hard he's been fighting to hold it all together, sees all the sacrifices that he's made. I think Jesus would sit with him there for a while in the mud, not even caring about Dad's boots leaving marks all up and down His crisp, white robes.

There comes a time when every person who believes in God also has to decide what kind of character they believe He has.

Is He a cold and distant God, withholding every good thing, just waiting for the chance to take back what little He has given?

Is He a God who only gives out begrudging scraps of joy after first putting you in very hot water, His red-letter way of ensuring that you've been washed clean?

Or is He a God who sits with you in the mud, who stoops to serve before the sacrifice?

I used to think freedom looked a lot like being around people who aren't muddy.

Now I realize we're all pretty muddy and maybe just a little bit broken too, no matter what kind of place we call home.

And when it comes right down to it, getting each other's mud on our hands--this serving one another in love--that's what true freedom has always been about anyway.

Because love, like integrity, is also about what we do when no one else is looking.

And how we do anything is how we do everything.”
― Mary Marantz, Dirt: Growing Strong Roots in What Makes the Broken Beautiful

“Because God does His best work in the muddy, messy, and broken – if we only learn to dig in.”
― Mary Marantz, Dirt: Growing Strong Roots in What Makes the Broken Beautiful

“I remember the first time I decided to try to put on more Joy.

As if Joy was a perfume sample I tried on briefly at the mall and liked so much--how it made me feel to walk into a room smelling like distilled righteousness--that I decided to buy a travel size so I could carry it with me at all times. An easy application for a quick cover-up. a potent enough aroma of pep in my step to cover all manner of bad days.
...
The first time I tried to put on Joy like it's something that you wear, it ended up biting me in the backside.

Because that's what happens when we try to use Joy to mask, to cover up, but never to actually heal.
...
Either way, it's not fooling anyone.

And either way, that's not how true Joy works.

True Joy doesn't overpower. It doesn't accost someone until we are the only thing they can smell in the room. True Joy is a breath of fresh air. It is a permission to breathe easier. It is an invitation, not a full-scale assault on the senses.

It also isn't an overdesigned, overstaged, mass-marketed picture of perfection. To me, true Joy is like a tree planted by the water.

It gives more oxygen than it takes. It provides shade and shelter to those who want to come and sit by it for a while. It is a welcome place of belonging. A much-needed respite for the weary. A place to come and rest their tired souls.
... (reference to Jeremiah 17:8)...
Joy was never only for those found laughing in a field of flowers. It is also for anyone who finds themselves weeping in the thickest part of the weeds.

Joy doesn't mean the drought won't come and the storms won't rage.

It just means that when they do, you'll know where you're planted. You'll know what it is you're anchored to.”
― Mary Marantz, Dirt: Growing Strong Roots in What Makes the Broken Beautiful

“There comes a time in every story when the hero finally gets everything they ever wanted. And that's usually when the music swells and the credits roll or the last page turns or we just flip the channel. I believe there's a reason for that.

We don't want to spend too much time with somebody once they've gotten everything they've ever wanted. They become insufferable. They become unsympathetic. They start using words like whom properly in a sentence. There's no more mountain left for them to climb, so we're out.

We're underdog people. Get out of here with your all my dream already came true nonsense. Just take your football and go home, Rudy. Go live your happy life and let us be. We're already on to the next unlikely story.

But what if success was where the real trouble began?

What if we got everything we ever wanted, only to find out it doesn't change a thing about not liking this skin we have to do life in, this dirt still caked under our fingernails. That once we go home and tuck ourselves between the cool cotton sheets, where it's just us and the darkness settled in, it hasn't changed a thing about how easily we can lay our head down and fall asleep at night.
...
The hero, it turns out, is flawed. Deeply, deeply, deeply flawed.

And no amount of success is going to undo that. No relentless pursuit of more is going to erase what was missing. It's going to take digging in and doing the hard work of healing if there's any hope of changing all that. but how do e you gather up the nerve when it already feels so damaged? And is that the kind of story anybody will ever care about?
...
We don't really make movies about what happened after someone got everything they ever wanted.

About what happens when the hero at last has to come face-to-face with what no amount of success will ever fix.

But that's the story we're living now.”
― Mary Marantz, Dirt: Growing Strong Roots in What Makes the Broken Beautiful

“It takes courage to chase a dream. Raw, unfettered, lion-hearted, caution-to-the-wind courage.

It takes confidence and patience and perseverance too. And lest we forget, there will be tears. Whether proverbial or actual, we shed our blood, sweat, and tears in pursuit of these dreams. We give our everything. And then we give more.

Frustration. Failure. Fight for it and forward.

It takes all these things to chase a dream.”
― Mary Marantz, Dirt: Growing Strong Roots in What Makes the Broken Beautiful

“Here’s why: it is so much easier to be admired for the pretend version of us than it is to be truly loved up close for the hard, messy, broken person we might actually be.”
― Mary Marantz, Dirt: Growing Strong Roots in What Makes the Broken Beautiful