#dl

for God's sake, let's be done with the hypocrisy of claiming "I am a biblical literalist" when everyone is a selective literalist, especially those who swear by the antihomosexual laws in the Book of Leviticus and then feast on barbecued ribs and delight in Monday-night football, for it is toevali, an abomination, not only to eat pork but merely to touch the skin of a dead pig. ↗

— Walter Wink

#faith

So many people, if the truth were known, live their lives on two levels. The principles they fight about are often at odds with the complicated and often frustrated lives they live. This is why there is so much intensity. ↗

— Walter Wink

#faith

Blue believes the harmony to be motivated by self-interest. There is a resurgence of faith these days, a growing belief in organized religion, grace, damnation, heaven and hell. People treat each other kindly now, thinks Blue, because they hope to escape God's wrath. Blue does not believe in damnation and has trouble empathizing with those who do. In her fifty-two years, she has found no hard evidence, no scientific proof to convince her of God's existence. She considers herself an atheist. ↗

— Nick Sagan

#faith

Nemo impune me lacessit!! ↗

— Edgar Allan Poe

#kindlehighlight

My dad is shagging your aunt, probably right now. That makes us almost family. ↗

— Jennifer Ashley

#family

Her delight in the smallest things was like that of a child. There were days when she ran in the garden, like a child of ten, after a butterfly or a dragon-fly. This courtesan who had cost more money in bouquets than would have kept a whole family in comfort, would sometimes sit on the grass for an hour, examining the simple flower whose name she bore. ↗

— Alexandre Dumas-fils

#charm #childlikeness #love #family

Thank you to Giulia Fani, Joan Spence and my sister for the rooms and desks they loaned me. ↗

— Moez Surani

#familial-perspectives #favoritism #floaters #graciousness #politicized-spaces

The early summer sky was the color of cat vomit. Of course, Tally thought, you’d have to feed your cat only salmon-flavored cat food for a while, to get the pinks right. ↗

— Scott Westerfeld

#food

FORGIVE FAILURE. The corollary to accountability is forgiveness. Things go wrong all the time in relationships, and the healthiest ones move on from them, leaving behind grudges and blame. This is not to say that failure is accepted; rather, that it is acknowledged and understood. ↗

— Charlene Li

#forgiveness

The heaven-and-hell framework has four central elements: the afterlife, sin and forgiveness, Jesus’s dying for our sins, and believing. ↗

— Marcus J. Borg

#forgiveness