And enough for me that when my hand touched your shoulder, you leaned on me; and when you felt me slip away, you called my name.
Orson Scott CardRead
One judge is coughing his life out into bloody handkerchiefs and the other is burying his wife, and you think this is how God answers your prayers?
Interpretation
This quote reflects the absurdity of expecting divine intervention in the midst of human suffering and tragedy.
Orson Scott Card's quote highlights the complexities and harsh realities of life, suggesting that in moments of deep personal suffering and loss, it can be unreasonable to expect prayers to be answered in a way that aligns with our desires. It challenges the belief that divine forces will resolve human problems easily, pointing instead to the weight of existence that includes pain, grief, and the unpredictability of life.
In practice
A speaker at a memorial service reflecting on the unpredictability of life.
And enough for me that when my hand touched your shoulder, you leaned on me; and when you felt me slip away, you called my name.
The world is always a democracy in times of flux, and the man with the best voice will win.
Never mind that the story had turned out to be lies and foolishness—there was always folks stupid enough to say, Where there's smoke there's fire, when the saying should have been, Where there's scandalous lies there's always malicious believers and spreaders-around, regardless of evidence.
The lives of all people flow through time, and, regardless of how brutal one moment may be, how filled with grief or pain or fear, time flows through all lives equally.
You take a step, then another. That's the journey. But to take a step with your eyes open is not a journey at all, it's a remaking of your own mind.
I've had your tears with mine, and you've had mine with yours. I think that's more intimate even than a kiss.
Being taught to despise your body is being taught to perhaps admire someone else's body more than yours - being taught that your body is good for certain things and not for others.
Every one rushes elsewhere and into the future, because no one wants to face one's own inner self.
The fact that the most powerful and significant connections in our lives are (at the time) invisible to us seems to me a compelling argument for religious reverence rather than skeptical empiricism as a response to life's meaning.
Oh, come! That boot is on the other leg. Why should you call me to account for eating decently? If I battened on the scorched corpses of animals, you might well ask me why I did that
I don't think of the past. The only thing that matters is the everlasting present.
Perhaps that is part of the animals' role among us, to awaken humility, to turn our minds back to the mystery of things, and open our hearts to that most impractical of hopes in which all creation speaks as one.
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