We strain to hear. But instead of hearing an answer we catch sight of God himself scraped and torn. Through our tears we see the tears of God
Interpretation
This quote reflects the struggle to understand suffering and the divine presence in our pain.
In this quote, Nicholas Wolterstorff illustrates the profound connection between human suffering and the divine. He suggests that in our quest for answers during times of hardship, we may instead encounter the raw, shared pain of God, revealing a deeper understanding of suffering. It highlights the notion that God is not distant from our grief, but rather intimately present, experiencing our sorrow alongside us, which can bring a sense of solace and companionship in our struggles.
In practice
This quote can be shared during a memorial service to comfort those grieving.
History has its truth, and so has legend. Legendary truth is of another nature than historical truth. Legendary truth is invention whose result is reality. Furthermore, history and legend have the same goal; to depict eternal man beneath momentary man.
Man does not live by soap alone; and hygiene, or even health, is not much good unless you can take a healthy view of it or, better still, feel a healthy indifference to it.
Celebration... is self restraint, is attentiveness, is questioning, is meditating, is awaiting, is the step over into the more wakeful glimpse of the wonder - the wonder that a world is worlding around us at all, that there are beings rather than nothing, that things are and we ourselves are in their midst, that we ourselves are and yet barely know who we are, and barely know that we do not know all this.
Properly speaking, of course, there is no such thing as a return to nature, because there is no such thing as a departure from it. The phrase reminds one of the slightly intoxicated gentleman who gets up in his own dining room and declares firmly that he must be getting home.
Make sure that your religion is a matter between you and God only.
But actually time isn't a straight line. It doesn't ave a shape. In all senses of the term, it doesn't have any form. But since we can't picture something without form in our minds, for the sake of convenience we understand it as a straight line. At this point, humans are the only ones who can make that sort of conceptual substitution.
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