He will wipe the tears from all faces.' It takes nothing from the loveliness of the verse to say that is exactly what will be required
Marilynne RobinsonRead
When we accept dismissive judgments of our community we stop having generous hope for it. We cease to be capable of serving its best interests.
Interpretation
Accepting negative views of our community undermines our hope and ability to contribute positively.
This quote emphasizes the importance of maintaining a hopeful and positive perspective on our communities. When we allow dismissive or negative judgments to influence our thinking, we lose the motivation and capacity to engage constructively, which can hinder the overall well-being and growth of the community we are part of.
In practice
In a speech about community involvement.
He will wipe the tears from all faces.' It takes nothing from the loveliness of the verse to say that is exactly what will be required
It seems to me there is less meanness in atheism, by a good measure. It seems that the spirit of religious self-righteousness this article deplores is precisely the spirit in which it is written. Of course he's right about many things, one of them being the destructive potency of religious self-righteousness. (p. 146)
A narrow pond would form in the orchard, water clear as air covering grass and black leaves and fallen branches, all around it black leaves and drenched grass and fallen branches, and on it, slight as an image in an eye, sky, clouds, trees, our hovering faces and our cold hands.
The moon looks wonderful in this warm evening light, just as a candle flame looks beautiful in the light of morning. Light within light...It seems to me to be a metaphor for the human soul, the singular light within that great general light of existence.
There are worries that seem to me sustained by the love of worry. For example, that people are reading from screens, or listening to recorded books. Why scold the impulse to enjoy language and narrative in whatever form it takes?
Teaching is a distraction and a burden, but it's also an incredible stimulus. And a reprieve, in a way. When you're trying to work on something and it's not going anywhere, you can go to school and there's a two-and-a-half-hour block of time in which you can accomplish something.
People don't believe or understand that a community can lose hope. You can have a whole community where hopelessness is the norm, where folks don't have faith that things will get better because history and circumstances have proven over 30, 40, or 50 years that things don't get better.
A community to be truly community, must have a quality of unselfconsciousness about it.
Each of us must rededicate ourselves to serving the common good. We are a community. Our individual Fates are linked; our futures intertwined; and if we act in that knowledge and in that spirit together, as the Bible says: "We can move mountains."
It's easy for me to care about Toronto, because Toronto is a community that cares about itself. It represents the world. It talks to itself, and because it does, it figures out that there must be a music garden as part of its existence.
Our rural communities are the heart of our state and too often lack equitable access to housing, transit, and economic opportunity, so I'm deeply committed to working in Washington to reverse that trend in Georgia.
As a community, we create a lot of space for fighting and pushing back, but not enough for connecting and healing.
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