Sarah Stewart Holland QUOTES

21 " A BUILDER OR A WRECKER As I watched them tear a building down A gang of men in a busy town With a ho-heave-ho, and a lusty yell They swung a beam and the side wall fell I asked the foreman, “Are these men skilled, And the men you’d hire if you wanted to build?” He gave a laugh and said, “No, indeed, Just common labor is all I need. I can easily wreck in a day or two, What builders have taken years to do.” And I thought to myself, as I went my way Which of these roles have I tried to play Am I a builder who works with care, Measuring life by rule and square? Am I shaping my work to a well-made plan Patiently doing the best I can Or am I a wrecker who walks to town Content with the labor of tearing down? “O Lord let my life and my labors be That which will build for eternity! "

― Sarah Stewart Holland , I Think You're Wrong (But I'm Listening): A Guide to Grace-Filled Political Conversations

22 " People are complicated. People are more than our candidates of choice. People are more than our ideologies. People believe things for reasons we might not fully understand. "

― Sarah Stewart Holland , I Think You're Wrong (But I'm Listening): A Guide to Grace-Filled Political Conversations

23 " Think about an election that was important to you. How did you feel when your candidate won or lost? Did the results have the impact you predicted? 2.In what ways do you see neighbors in trouble? 3.Choose one way that you see your neighbors in trouble. What talents, resources, or abilities do you have to be of service to them? As you answer, consider the parts of your answer that involve political participation and the parts that do not. "

― Sarah Stewart Holland , I Think You're Wrong (But I'm Listening): A Guide to Grace-Filled Political Conversations

24 " President Obama negotiated the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, a complex set of standards on Iranian nuclear proliferation reached after years of negotiations among the United States, other P5+1 members,3 the European Union, and Iran. Most Americans have a deeply entrenched opinion on “the Iran deal” that became a talking point in the 2016 presidential campaign, but few of us can begin to describe the deal and its impacts. More dishearteningly, it seems we don’t care to. We’re just interested in who negotiated it and whether they are on our team or not. "

― Sarah Stewart Holland , I Think You're Wrong (But I'm Listening): A Guide to Grace-Filled Political Conversations

25 " I no longer hold God responsible for illnesses, accidents, and natural disasters, because I realize that I gain little and I lose so much when I blame God for those things. I can worship a God who hates suffering but cannot eliminate it, more easily than I can worship a God who chooses to make children suffer and die, for whatever exalted reason. . . . The painful things that happen to us are not punishments for our misbehavior, nor are they in any way part of some grand design on God’s part. Because the tragedy is not God’s will, we need not feel hurt or betrayed by God when tragedy strikes. We can turn to Him for help in overcoming it, precisely because we can tell ourselves that God is as outraged by it as we are.21 "

― Sarah Stewart Holland , I Think You're Wrong (But I'm Listening): A Guide to Grace-Filled Political Conversations

26 " The mainstream wings of both the Democratic and Republican parties had agreed on a free-trade approach for decades. Both Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders were able to exploit frustrations among huge swaths of the electorate who did not believe free trade had been a boon for every American. "

― Sarah Stewart Holland , I Think You're Wrong (But I'm Listening): A Guide to Grace-Filled Political Conversations

27 " the end, what we realized is that debates aren’t problem-solving. They are dramatized events filled with manufactured conflict. We weren’t trying to find a solution that would make both sides happy. We were arguing that we were a better choice to solve the problem. And conflict prevents the giving of grace and the prioritizing of connection. We didn’t need to reinvent debates or do them right. There is no real way to give grace while trying to score points. "

― Sarah Stewart Holland , I Think You're Wrong (But I'm Listening): A Guide to Grace-Filled Political Conversations

28 " when we begin with offering grace, the ways in which we orient our conversations fundamentally change. We begin by offering each other the benefit of the doubt instead of being ready to pounce on the first weakness or illustration of conflict. We begin by prioritizing our shared connection to one another instead of our conflicts. We move forward instead of shutting down. "

― Sarah Stewart Holland , I Think You're Wrong (But I'm Listening): A Guide to Grace-Filled Political Conversations

29 " there is something tremendously wrong with prioritizing our differences over our sameness and abdicating our personal responsibility to independently consider and act on issues in favor of following the group’s checklist. "

― Sarah Stewart Holland , I Think You're Wrong (But I'm Listening): A Guide to Grace-Filled Political Conversations

30 " This hardened response to those on the “other team” is not an invention of modern American politics. It seems to be hardwired into the circuitry of our brains. The Old Testament is filled with stories of sometimes deadly tribalism, and scientific data gives us insight into why that happens. In 1968, elementary school teacher Jane Elliott conducted a famous experiment with her students in the days after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. She divided the class by eye color. The brown-eyed children were told they were better. They were the “in-group.” The blue-eyed children were told they were less than the brown-eyed children—hence becoming the “out-group.” Suddenly, former classmates who had once played happily side by side were taunting and torturing one another on the playground. Lest we assign greater morality to the “out-group,” the blue-eyed children were just as quick to attack the brown-eyed children once the roles were reversed.6 "

― Sarah Stewart Holland , I Think You're Wrong (But I'm Listening): A Guide to Grace-Filled Political Conversations

31 " Our driving force shouldn’t be ensuring that a particular party controls a particular wing of government. Our driving force should be the values that are most important to us in living in community with other people. "

― Sarah Stewart Holland , I Think You're Wrong (But I'm Listening): A Guide to Grace-Filled Political Conversations

32 " When we don’t understand our “why”—the values behind our positions—we are too easily tempted to follow our confirmation bias down an amoral or immoral black hole of support for politicians who simply don’t deserve it. "

― Sarah Stewart Holland , I Think You're Wrong (But I'm Listening): A Guide to Grace-Filled Political Conversations

33 " The inescapable conclusion of curious, openhearted dialogue on politics is that conflicting opinions and data can and do exist simultaneously "

― Sarah Stewart Holland , I Think You're Wrong (But I'm Listening): A Guide to Grace-Filled Political Conversations

34 " Jesus was fully human and the divine Son of God. We are asked to believe that Mary was both a virgin and a mother. "

― Sarah Stewart Holland , I Think You're Wrong (But I'm Listening): A Guide to Grace-Filled Political Conversations

35 " Whether you believe our country’s problem is generational, geographical, or partisan, the most "

― Sarah Stewart Holland , I Think You're Wrong (But I'm Listening): A Guide to Grace-Filled Political Conversations

36 " We have to thoroughly and critically examine our beliefs and values, and we have to face our weaknesses, mistakes, and limitations with humility and grace. "

― Sarah Stewart Holland , I Think You're Wrong (But I'm Listening): A Guide to Grace-Filled Political Conversations

37 " We have to let go of the idea that there is too much at stake or that one issue is too important to honestly and realistically question our positions on other issues. "

― Sarah Stewart Holland , I Think You're Wrong (But I'm Listening): A Guide to Grace-Filled Political Conversations

38 " The polarization manifesting in nearly every aspect of our political culture results from a grace deficiency. "

― Sarah Stewart Holland , I Think You're Wrong (But I'm Listening): A Guide to Grace-Filled Political Conversations

39 " America has never been and will never be homogeneous. "

― Sarah Stewart Holland , I Think You're Wrong (But I'm Listening): A Guide to Grace-Filled Political Conversations

40 " For values or guiding principles to be truly effective they have to be verbs. It’s not “integrity,” it’s “always do the right thing.” It’s not “innovation,” it’s “look at the problem from a different angle.” Articulating our values as verbs gives us a clear idea—we have a clear idea of how to act in any situation. "

― Sarah Stewart Holland , I Think You're Wrong (But I'm Listening): A Guide to Grace-Filled Political Conversations