“The way of the cross looks like failure. In fact, we could say that Christianity is about how to win by losing, how to let go creatively, how the only real ascent is descent. We need to be more concerned with following Jesus, which he told us to do numerous times, and less with worshipping Jesus—which he never once told us to do” (Richard Rohr).

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“In the stillness of the quiet, if we listen, we can hear the whisper in the heart giving strength to weakness courage to fear, hope to despair” (Howard Thurman).

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” When you and I embrace Jesus’ essential paradox—that to lose is to gain and to die is to live—we come to God, who gathers up the broken pieces of the world and makes them more complete and beautiful than they were before they broke. God integrates all fractious dualities into the wholeness of life that Christians call eternal salvation. It’s a life we get to live here and now, by grace and faith” (Rachel Srubas).

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Part of our collective story is how to meaningfully hold grief and hope, acknowledging what cannot be changed and still envisioning all that can” (Carrie Newcomer).

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” It has been said that “evil never rests.” So I practiced resting . . . that I would become the opposite of Evil” (Scott Erickson).

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“Nothing erases the past. There is repentance, there is atonement, and there is forgiveness. That is all, but that is enough” (Ted Chiang).