123
" I do not know which impulse was stronger in me when I began to think: the original thirst for knowledge or the urge to communicate with man. Knowledge attains its full meaning only through the bond that unites men; however, the urge to achieve agreement with another human being was so hard to satisfy. I was shocked by the lack of understanding, paralyzed, as it were, by every reconciliation in which what had gone before was not fully cleared up. Early in my life and then later again and again I was perplexed by people’s rigid inaccessibility and their failure to listen to reasons, their disregard of facts, their indifference which prohibited discussion, their defensive attitude which kept you at a distance and at the decisive moment buried any possibility of a close approach, and finally their shamelessness, that bares its own soul without reserve, as though no one were present. When ready assent occurred I remained unsatisfied, because it was not based on true insight but on yielding to persuasion; because it was the consequence of friendly cooperation, not a meeting of two selves. True, I knew the glory of friendship (in common studies, in the cordial atmosphere of home or countryside). But then came the moments of strangeness, as if human beings lived in different worlds. Steadily the consciousness of loneliness grew upon me in my youth, yet nothing seemed more pernicious to me than loneliness, especially the loneliness in the midst of social intercourse that deceives itself in a multitude of friendships. No urge seemed stronger to me than that for communication with others. If the never-completed movement of communication succeeds with but a single human being, everything is achieved. It is a criterion of this success that there be a readiness to communicate with every human being encountered and that grief is felt whenever communication fails. Not merely an exchange of words, nor friendliness and sociability, but only the constant urge towards total revelation reaches the path of communication. "
― Karl Jaspers
124
" Beginning in 1519 and continuing until the end of his life, Luther expounded a theme that the Sacrament brings and means a fellowship of love and mercy: " This fellowship consists in this, that all the spiritual possessions of Christ and his saints are shared with and become the common property of him who receives this sacrament. Again all sufferings and sins also become common property; and thus love engenders love in return and [mutual love] unites . . . It is like a city where every citizen shares with all the others the city's name, honor, freedom, trade, customs, usages, help, support, protection, and the like, while at the same time he shares all the dangers of fire and flood, enemies and death, losses taxes and the like. For he who would share in the profits must also share in the costs, and ever recompense love with love . . ." For Luther, unity with respect to the Sacrament meant both doctrinal agreement and love. When the prerequisite to church fellowship is defined merely (however important!) in terms of doctrinal fellowship, it can end in a Platonic pursuit of a frigid and rigid mental ideal. Doctrinal unity, true unity in Christ's body and blood, is also a unity of deep love and mercy. If I will not lay down my burden on Christ and the community, or take up the burdens of others who come to the Table, then I should not go to the Sacrament. Close(d) Communion is also a fellowship of love and mercy with my brother and sister in Christ as Luther taught in the previous citation. "
127
" Brian is a deeply compassionate man who was sad to learn that his work colleague, Tom, had lost his 17-year-old daughter to a drug overdose. When Tom returned to work weeks later, Brian approached him and said, “Man, I am so sorry. There are no words to express my condolences.
“Brian reached out to hug Tom. At first, he was rigid and on guard, but with Brian’s genuine embrace, he felt Tom release into his safety. Tom had been so incredibly strong for his wife and family that Brian’s powerful hug allowed him to surrender into another man’s strength. It was a memorable and powerful step towards healing. Sometimes a hug at the right time, even if spontaneous, can be the kindest thing you can do for another human being. "
― Susan C. Young , The Art of Body Language: 8 Ways to Optimize Non-Verbal Communication for Positive Impact (The Art of First Impressions for Positive Impact, #3)
130
" My family subscribed to this rigid belief system. They were unaware of the reality that gender, like sexuality, exists on a spectrum. By punishing me, they were performing the socially sanctioned practice of hammering the girl out of me, replacing her with tenets of gender-appropriate behavior. Though I would grow up to fit neatly into the binary, I believe in self-determination, autonomy, in people having the freedom to proclaim who they are and define gender for themselves. Our genders are as unique as we are. No one's definition is the same, and compartmentalizing a person as either a boy or a girl based entirely on the appearance of genitalia at birth undercuts our complex life experiences. "
― Janet Mock , Redefining Realness: My Path to Womanhood, Identity, Love & So Much More
131
" Hundreds of men crowded the yard, and not a one among them was whole. They covered the ground thick as maggots on a week old carcass, the dirt itself hardly anywhere visible. No one could move without all feeling it and thus rising together in a hellish contortion of agony. Everywhere men moaned, shouting for water and praying for God to end their suffering. They screamed and groaned in an unending litany, calling for mothers and wives and fathers and sisters. The predominant color was blue, though nauseations of red intruded throughout. Men lay half naked, piled on top of one another in scenes to pitiful to imagine. Bloodied heads rested on shoulders and laps, broken feet upon arms. Tired hands held in torn guts and torsos twisted every which way. Dirty shirts dressed the bleeding bodies and not enough material existed in all the world to sop up the spilled blood. A boy clad in gray, perhaps the only rebel among them, lay quietly in one corner, raised arm rigid with a finger extended, as if pointing to the heavens. His face was a singular portrait of contentment among the misery. Broken bones, dirty white and soiled with the passing of hours since injury, were everywhere abundant. All manner of devices splinted the damaged and battered limbs: muskets, branches, bayonets, lengths of wood or iron from barns and carts. One individual had bone splinted with bone: the dried femur of a horse was lashed to his busted shin. A blind man, his eyes subtracted by the minié ball that had enfiladed him, moaned over and over “I’m kilt, I’m kilt! Oh Gawd, I’m kilt!” Others lay limp, in shock. These last were mostly quiet, their color unnaturally pale. It was agonizingly humid in the still air of the yard. The stink of blood mixed with human waste produced a potent and offensive odor not unlike that of a hog farm in the high heat of a South Carolina summer. Swarms of fat, green blowflies everywhere harassed the soldiers to the point of insanity, biting at their wounds. Their steady buzz was a noise straight out of hell itself, a distress to the ears. "
― Edison McDaniels , Not One Among Them Whole: A Novel of Gettysburg
137
" On one hand she seems so agile, so athletic, and yet I've seen her appear so awkward that it embarrassed me. She gives the impression of a hard, worldly adroitness, and in some situations she's like an adolescent: rigid with ancient, middle class attitudes, unable to think for herself, falling back on old verities...victim of her family teaching, shocked by what shocks people, wanting what people usually want. She wants a home, a husband, and her idea of a husband is a man who earns a certain amount of money, helps around the garden, does the dishes...the idea of a good husband that's found in This Week magazine; a viewpoint from the most ordinary stratum, that great ubiquitous world of family life, transmitted from generation to generation. Despite her wild language. "
― Philip K. Dick , Confessions of a Crap Artist
138
" She disliked him more for having mastered her inner will. How dared he say that he would love her still, even though she shook him off with contempt? She wished she had spoken more - stronger. Sharp, decisive speeches came thronging to her mind, now that it was too late to utter them. The deep impression made by the interview was like that of a horror in a dream; that will not leave the room although we waken up, and rub our eyes, and force a stiff rigid smile upon our lips. It is there - there, cowering and gibbering, with fixed ghastly eyes, in some corner of the chamber, listening to hear whether we dare to breathe of its presence to anyone. And we dare not; poor cowards that we are! "
― Elizabeth Gaskell , North and South
