Christianity is not some ideal toward which we ought always to strive even though the ideal is out of reach. Christianity is not a series of slogans that sum up our beliefs.
Stanley HauerwasRead
To be poor does not mean you lack the means to extend charity to another. You may lack money or food, but you have the gift of friendship to overwhelm the loneliness that grips the lives of so many.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Being poor doesn't prevent one from offering kindness and support through friendship.
Stanley Hauerwas emphasizes that generosity and charity are not solely defined by material wealth. Even in circumstances of poverty, individuals possess the ability to provide emotional support and companionship, which can be profoundly impactful to those who feel isolated in their struggles. Friendship can serve as a vital source of comfort and connection, highlighting the richness of human relationships beyond financial means.
Themes
CharityFriendshipKindnessPovertyEmotional Support
In practice
Example use cases
During a charity event to promote friendship and community support.
More from Stanley Hauerwas
All quotes →My way of putting it is that Christians are called to live nonviolently not because we believe nonviolence is a strategy to rid the world of war, but in a world of war as faithful followers of Christ, we cannot imagine being anything other than nonviolent.
Stanley HauerwasRead
Advent is patience it's how God has made us a people of promise, in a world of impatience.
Stanley HauerwasRead
War is America's central liturgical act necessary to renew our sense that we are a nation unlike other nations.
Stanley HauerwasRead
To kill, in war or in any circumstance, creates a silence. It is right that silence should surround the taking of life. After all, the life taken is not ours to take.
Stanley HauerwasRead
The most creative social strategy we have to offer is the church. Here we show the world a manner of life the world can never achieve through social coercion or governmental action. We serve the world by showing it something that it is not, namely, a place where God is forming a family out of strangers.
Stanley HauerwasRead
Similar quotes
Each time the losses and deceptions of life teach us about impermanence, they bring us closer to the truth. When you fall from a great height, there is only one possible place to land: on the ground-the ground of truth. And if you have the understanding that comes from spiritual practice, then falling is in no way a disaster, but the discovery of an inner refuge.
Sogyal RinpocheRead
Selfishness beats altruism within groups. Altruistic groups beat selfish groups. Everything else is commentary.
David Sloan WilsonRead
The price of our vitality is the sum of all our fears
David WhyteRead
The evidence for our New Testament writings is ever so much greater than the evidence for many writings of classical authors, the authenticity of which no one dreams of questioning. And if the New Testament were a collection of secular writings, their authenticity would generally be regarded as beyond all doubt.
F. F. BruceRead
To me the front is a mysterious whirlpool. Though I am in still water far away from its centre, I feel the whirl of the vortex sucking me slowly, irresistibly, inescapably into itself.
Erich Maria RemarqueRead
A belligerent state permits itself every such misdeed, every such act of violence, as would disgrace the individual.
Sigmund FreudRead