Good fiction is about what is true. It takes the true stuff of life and helps us look at it. If the story compels a good reading, it probably raises questions. It brings life to life, as it were; it helps us see what is true and what is good and what is not so good. Everything we do has meaning; fiction helps us find meaning. Because fiction is about human beings and their lives, it cannot help having an ethical dimension.
— Gladys Hunt, Honey for a Woman’s Heart, p. 44
But in reading all of the passages in which Jesus uses the word “hell,” what is so striking is that people believing the right or wrong things isn’t his point. He’s often not talking about “beliefs” as we think of them — he’s talking about anger and lust and indifference. He’s talking about the state of his listeners’ hearts, about how they conduct themselves, how they interact with their neighbors, about the kind of effect they have on the world.
Jesus did not use hell to try and compel “heathens” and “pagans” to believe in God, so they wouldn’t burn when they die. He talked about hell to very religious people to warn them about the consequences of straying from their God-given calling and identity to show the world God’s love.
This is not to say that hell is not a pointed, urgent warning or that it isn’t intimately connected with what we actually do believe, but simply to point out that Jesus talked about hell to the people who considered themselves “in,” warning them that their hard hearts were putting their “in-ness” at risk, reminding them that whatever “chosen-ness” or “election” meant, whatever special standing they believed they had with God was always, only, ever about their being the kind of transformed, generous, loving people through whom God could show the world what God’s love looks like in flesh and blood.
— Rob Bell, Love Wins, p. 82-83
Why do we read novels? What draws us to browse bookstores, to bring home a book, to open its cover and start in on a several-hundred-page trip? Humans read literature in order to live more, to live differently, to have a precious vicarious experience that is available in no other way. In the stories to come you may encounter a form of drastic dislocation, an opening of self like none other. Reading literature puts you there. No other travel plan comes even close.
— Arnold Weinstein, Morning, Noon, and Night, p. 9
These are anxious and fearful times, both of which breed scarcity. We’re afraid to lose what we love the most, and we hate that there are no guarantees. We think not being grateful and not feeling joy will make it hurt less. We think if we can beat vulnerability to the punch by imaging loss, we’ll suffer less. We’re wrong. There is one guarantee: If we’re not practicing gratitude and allowing ourselves to know joy, we are missing out on the two things that will actually sustain us during the inevitable hard times.
— Brene Brown, The Gifts of Imperfection, p. 82
The Lord cared for no speculation in morals or religion. It was good people he cared about, not notions of good things, or even good actions except as the outcome of life, except as the bodies in which the primary live actions of love and will in the soul took shape and came forth.
Could he by one word have set to rest all the questionings of all the world’s philosophies as to the supreme good and the absolute truth, I venture to say that he would not have uttered that word. He would make no attempt to convince men mentally concerning the truth.
But he would die to make men good and true.
— George MacDonald, Knowing the Heart of God, p. 225
If you are not praying, then you are quietly confident that time, money, and talent are all you need in life. You’ll always be a little too tired, a little too busy. But if, like Jesus, you realize you can’t do life on your own, then no matter how busy, no matter how tired you are, you will find the time to pray.
Time in prayer makes you even more dependent on God because you don’t have as much time to get things done. Every menute spent in prayer is one less minute where you can be doing something “productive.” So the act of praying means that you have to rely more on God.
— Paul E. Miller, A Praying Life, p. 49
I seldom remember, without some prodding that I initially resist, that God is a factor in every person’s experience. My ego’s first inclination is to think that I am a necessary factor — not just an ordinary necessary factor but the deciding one — in the lives of my friends and family. Giving up control and letting God be the key influence in the lives of my loved ones is not easy. It takes trust. Not only trust in God but also trust in others and in my own willingness to approach my experiences with all of them differently.
The benefit of coming to believe that God is the key factor in everyone’s life is that it releases us from a heavy burden. Too many of us have tried to manage the lives of too many others for far too long. No one gains in that scenario. On the contrary, everyone loses the peace that comes with turning our lives over to the care and guidance of a loving God.
— Karen Casey, Let Go Now, p. 10
I’ve seen and experienced over and over that grief and loss are ALWAYS
Doorways to Transformation.
My experiences with both have showed me that we can more actively work with time as we process grief and loss, instead of just waiting for time to pass. We really can consciously practice integrating loss and grief and living with them more fully and beautifully.
I know now that this healing happens in spirals and layers and NOT in steps like a ladder.
We cycle back around and start over, get stuck in the middle, and sometimes get to what feels like the end quickly.
We can weave all these experiences together into an eventual elegant tapestry. I’ve been speaking with lots of people about the subjects of loss and grief, and it’s clear that in every case, whatever has been lost — job, savings, home, health, money, life — has tremendous gifts and opportunities to offer
IF
We do our transformational work.
— SARK, Glad No Matter What: Transforming Loss and Change Into Gift and Opportunity, p. 19-20
We can choose to ascribe meaning to what happened to us, even after the fact. We do that by taking pride in the people we have become. You have gained new skills out of your hardship. You know things about yourself now that you would never have known if you had not been put to the test. And it is not unusual, in my experience, for the skills and confidence forged in the fire of trauma to become the things about ourselves that give us the most pride.
You would not have chosen to get better and smarter and stronger in this way. But this thing happened to you — and you are better and smarter and stronger for it.
— Alicia Salzer, Back to Life, p. 30
We struggle over a theology of imagination. We find it hard to believe that imagination is God’s idea and that it is among the chief glories of human beings. Of all creation, human beings are the only creatures who have the ability to transcend the smallness of self and imagine something different than what they know. God is imaginative; we are made in his image.
Children are wonderfully imaginative; they are born that way. Bread crusts on highchair trays become trucks; dolls cry and need to be rocked. Imagination is to be encouraged, trained, developed, enjoyed. That is why we surround children with picture books that tell stories, and why we read to them about adventures in far places. Dr. Seuss lets them put their tongues and their imaginations around words that make up stories. Yet even before the advent of the book, people were drawing images in the sand and making up legends. Imagination is not only a human capacity; it is an awesome gift.
— Gladys Hunt, Honey for a Woman’s Heart, p. 33