Quotes from Exclusion & Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation

“The sufferings of Christ on the cross are not just his sufferings; they are “the sufferings of the poor and weak, which Jesus shares in his own body and in his own soul, in solidarity with them” (Moltmann 1992, 130). And since God was in Christ, “through his passion Christ brings into the passion history of this world the eternal fellowship of God and divine justice and righteousness that creates life” (131). On the cross, Christ both “identifies God with the victims of violence” and identifies “the victims with God, so that they are put under God's protection and with him are given the rights of which they have been deprived”
― Miroslav Volf, quote from Exclusion & Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation

“In the final analysis, the only available options are either to reject the cross and with it the core of the Christian faith or to take up one's cross, follow the Crucified-and be scandalized ever anew by the challenge.”
― Miroslav Volf, quote from Exclusion & Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation

“Sin is here the kind of purity that wants the world cleansed of the other rather than the heart cleansed of the evil that drives people out by calling those who are clean “unclean” and refusing to help make clean those who are unclean. Put”
― Miroslav Volf, quote from Exclusion & Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation

“All sufferers can find comfort in the solidarity of the Crucified; but only those who struggle against evil by following the example of the Crucified will discover him at their side. To claim the comfort of the Crucified while rejecting his way is to advocate not only cheap grace but a deceitful ideology.”
― Miroslav Volf, quote from Exclusion & Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation

“By embracing the “outcast,” Jesus underscored the “sinfulness” of the persons and systems that cast them out.”
― Miroslav Volf, quote from Exclusion & Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation

“If others neither have goods we want nor can perform services we need, we make sure that they are at a safe distance and close ourselves off from them so that their emaciated and tortured bodies can make no inordinate claims on us.”
― Miroslav Volf, quote from Exclusion & Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation

“When people are kept in abject poverty and illiteracy while others grow rich and “develop their personalities” at the former’s expense we speak of oppression; when structures and persons that perpetuate powerlessness are replaced by structures that allow people to stand on their own feet and have their own voice, we speak of liberation.2 Both”
― Miroslav Volf, quote from Exclusion & Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation

“The crucial question, therefore, is not how to accomplish the final reconciliation. That messianic problem ought not to be taken out of God's hands. The only thing worse than the failure of some modern grand narratives of emancipation would have been their success! Merely by trying to accomplish the messianic task, the have already done too much of the work of the antichrist. In demasking anti-messianic projects that offer universal salvation, Lyotard helps us ask the right kind of question, which is not how to achieve the final reconciliation, but what resources we need to live in peace in the absence of the final reconciliation.”
― Miroslav Volf, quote from Exclusion & Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation

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“It’s all right,’ said Julian, putting his arm round Anne.”
― Enid Blyton, quote from Five on a Treasure Island

“winter wonderland

We snowshoe to the river. Take gorgeous and times it by ten. The trees in the forest are heavy, their limbs sagging, the brilliant white snow glimmering by the reflection of the moon. I think I’m walking in a dream.
What I didn’t know is how close Ava’s cabin is to the dollhouse. There is a shortcut up the back of the hill, along the side ridge of trees. And before I know it, Teague and I are on the shore of the rumbling, spitting, ice-cold, mostly frozen river.
My heart is shivering. “Please tell me we don’t have to cross this thing.”
Teague smiles. “You’ll see.”
We snowshoe a ways up the shore of the river, until he stops, takes off his pack, and sets it down on the ice.
“We could possibly get across by foot,” he tells me as he effortlessly climbs up a tree. “But this is more fun.”
He pulls down a handle attached to a pulley thingamajig, and I suddenly realize we are going to be flying across the river, like circus performers on a trapeze.
I’m going first.
Teague straps me in, attaching the pulley to a cable suspended across the water.
He checks and rechecks all the cords, making sure they are snug. “You’re set!” he says, smiling at me.
I shimmy up the tree and, holding the trapeze bar tight, leap out over the crackling glacial ice.
On the other side I scream with exhilaration.
My voice echoes across the forest, waking, I’m sure, every moose within miles. I can’t stop smiling as I unhook myself and hurl the bar as hard as I can back over the wire toward Teague. He makes fast work, joining me in a matter of minutes. He is quiet in his confidence. His hands are warm, and I hold one as the two of us walk together up the snow-covered steps to the dollhouse cabin.”
― Megan Shull, quote from Amazing Grace

“The electron is first of all your concept of the electron.”
― Thich Nhat Hanh, quote from Being Peace

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― Tove Jansson, quote from Moominpappa's Memoirs

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