“The most important thing to remember is this: to be ready at any moment to give up what you are for what you might become” (W.E.B. Du Bois).

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“The prophets are “radical” teachers in the truest sense of the word. The Latin radix means root, and the prophets go to the root causes and root vices and “root” them out! Their educational method is to expose and accuse with no holds barred. Ministers and religion in general tend to concentrate on effects and symptoms, usually a mopping up exercise after the fact. As someone once put it, we throw life preservers to people drowning in the swollen stream, which is all well and good—but prophets work far upstream to find out why the stream is swollen in the first place”(Richard Rohr).

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“This call for a worldwide fellowship that lifts neighborly concern beyond one’s tribe, race, class, and nation is in reality a call for an all-embracing and unconditional love for all [humankind].… When I speak of love I am not speaking of some sentimental and weak response. I’m not speaking of that force which is just emotional bosh. I am speaking of that force which all of the great religions have seen as the supreme unifying principle of life. Love is somehow the key that unlocks the door which leads to ultimate reality” (Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.).

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“Change is brought about because ordinary people do extraordinary things” (Barack Obama).

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“And if you follow your truth down the road to peace and the affirmation of love, if you shine like a beacon for all to see, then the poetry of all the great dreamers and philosophers is yours to manifest in a nation, a world community, and a Beloved Community that is finally at peace with itself” (John Lewis).

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“One day at a time – this is enough. Do not look back and grieve over the past for it is gone; and do not be troubled about the future, for it has not yet come. Live in the present, and make it so beautiful it will be worth remembering” (Mary Morrison).

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“The importance of a God who engages in lament with God’s people cannot be overestimated. For, at bottom, the practice of lament is the practice of truth-telling, the practice of naming the injustice, naming the pain, naming the horror that violence and lies create” ( Sylvia C. Keesmaat and Brian J. Walsh).

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“. . . many of us seek community solely to escape the fear of being alone. Knowing how to be solitary is central to the art of loving. When we can be alone, we can be with others without using them as a means of escape” (bell hooks).