Quote of the Day

I don't know for sure, but I think maybe God was trying to tell me that gentleness begins with strength, quietness with security.  A great tree is both moved and unmoved, for it changes with the seasons, but its roots keep it anchored in the ground.  Mastering a gentle and quiet spirit didn't mean changing my personality, just regaining control of it, growing strong enough to hold back and secure enough to soften.

-- Rachel Held Evans, A Year of Biblical Womanhood, p. 16

Quote of the Day

A good leader can engage in a debate frankly and thoroughly, knowing that at the end he and the other side must be closer, and thus emerge stronger.  You don't have that idea when you are arrogant, superficial, and uninformed.

A good leader can engage in a debate frankly and thoroughly, knowing that at the end he and the other side must be closer, and thus emerge stronger. You don't have that idea when you are arrogant, superficial, and uninformed.
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-- Nelson Mandela

Quote of the Day

I mean "God" as shorthand for the Good, for the animating energy of love; for Life, for the light that radiates from within people and from above; in the energies of nature, even in our rough, messy selves.

-- Anne Lamott, Stitches, p. 8

Quote of the Day

People don't notice your mistakes as much as you think.

-- Gretchen Rubin, The Happiness Project, p. 75

Quote of the Day

Jesus commanded his followers to clothe the naked, shelter the homeless, and care for the sick.  Making health care available to all seems like a no-brainer, Jesus-wise, among the most Christian projects a president, or a nation, could possibly undertake.  Speaking as someone who was raised in a Christian home and who has actually read the Gospels (and recently, at that), I have to say that such fierce opposition to Obamacare by conservative Christian activists and politicians doesn't make sense.

-- Dan Savage, American Savage, p. 203-204

Quote of the Day

I spent 20 years and wrote thousands of pages learning the trivial craft of putting sentences together.  My parents blew tens of thousands of 1980s dollars on tuition at a prestigious institution to train me for this job.  They also put my sister the pulmonologist through medical school, and as far as I know nobody ever asks her to perform a quick lobectomy -- doesn't have to be anything fancy, maybe just in her spare time, whatever she can do would be great -- because it'll help get her name out there.

-- Tim Kreider, "Slaves of the Internet, Unite!"

Quote of the Day

In a culture that is increasingly fuzzy in its spirituality, beliefs and ethics, it can be nice to be a part of something that is clear about what it believes and how to live. It is not only satisfying, but vastly spellbinding to listen to black and white messages like it’s spellbinding to watch an accident scene. Here it is: your search for clarity is over!

-- David Hayward, "10 reasons why abusive churches succeed"

Quote of the Day

Girl-on-girl sabotage is the third worst kind of female behavior, right behind saying "like" all the time and leaving your baby in the dumpster.

-- Tina Fey

Quote of the Day

A good head and a good heart are always a formidable combination.

-- Nelson Mandela

Quote of the Day

And yet, I do believe there is ultimately meaning in the chaos, and also in the doldrums.  What I resist is not the truth but when people put a pretty bow on scary things instead of saying, "This is a nightmare.  I hate everything.  I'm going to go hide in the garage."

-- Anne Lamott, Stitches, p. 9

Quote of the Day

An uneasy conscience is a hair in the mouth.

-- Mark Twain

Quote of the Day

Votes for women, ending segregation, allowing gays to marry -- conservatives invoke doomsday scenarios whenever people organize to demand justice or freedom.

-- Dan Savage, American Savage, p. 183

Quote of the Day

I've been trying to understand the mentality that leads people who wouldn't ask a stranger to give them a keychain or a Twizzler to ask me to write them a thousand words for nothing.  I have to admit my empathetic imagination is failing me here.  I suppose people who aren't artists assume that being one must be fun since, after all, we do choose to do it despite the fact that no one pays us.  They figure we must be flattered to have someone ask us to do our little thing we already do.

-- Tim Kreider, "Slaves of the Internet, Unite!"

Quote of the Day

In a world of people craving any kind of attention, to get any at all is a deeply felt need satisfied in churches that hand it out abundantly but negatively. Like Leslie Morgan Steiner relates, one of the prominent characteristics of abuse survivors is that they didn’t realize they were being abused.

-- David Hayward, "10 reasons why abusive churches succeed"

Quote of the Day

Consider the lilies -- is the only commandment I ever obeyed.

-- Emily Dickinson

Quote of the Day

It always seems impossible until its done.

It always seems impossible until its done.
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It always seems impossible until its done.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/n/nelson_mandela.html#iDmM5SDb2GB4H09x.99

-- Nelson Mandela

Amy to release latest chapbook

Amy's brand new poetry chapbook, Bathroom Poems, will be released today at Nashville's East Side Story bookstore from 2 to 3 p.m.  Bathroom Poems, a poetic plunge(r) into the world of anal-retentive behavior, promises fun while you flush.

Quote of the Day

I didn't want to keep taking these days for granted.  The words of the writer Colette had haunted me for years: "What a wonderful life I've had!  I only wish I'd realized it sooner."  I didn't want to look back, at the end of my life or after some great catastrophe, and think, "How happy I used to be then, if only I'd realized it."

-- Gretchen Rubin, The Happiness Project, p. 2

Quote of the Day

In the battle between reality and fundamentalism of all varieties, reality always wins -- if it is given the freedom to breathe and we show the courage necessary to accept it.  Even then it takes time.  But when a truth has been suppressed by a massive lie for centuries, its eventual emergence is almost a miracle.

-- Andrew Sullivan

Quote of the Day

I now contribute to some of the most prestigious online publications in the English-speaking world, for which I am paid the same amount as, if not less than, I was paid by my local alternative weekly when I sold my first piece of writing for print in 1989.  More recently, I had the essay equivalent of a hit single -- endlessly linked to, forwarded and reposted.  A friend of mine joked, wistfully, "If you had a dime for every time someone posted that..."  Calculating the theoretical sum of those dimes, it didn't seem all that funny.

-- Tim Kreider, "Slaves of the Internet, Unite!"

Quote of the Day

There are too many examples of churches that are clearly abusive but guise it all under the discipline of the Lord. Having been a pastor for many years as well as a member of many churches and ministries, I know from experience and observation that people will suffer unbelievable abuse because they think it is from the Lord… justly deserved and fruitful.

-- David Hayward, "10 reasons why abusive churches succeed"

Quote of the Day

If you don't live it, it won't come out of your horn.

-- Charlie Parker

Quote of the Day

For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.

Nelson Mandela
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Nelson Mandela
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/n/nelson_mandela.html#jA9BE7rfJMReRCKY.99

For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.
Nelson Mandela
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/n/nelson_mandela.html#jA9BE7rfJMReRCKY.99

-- Nelson Mandela

Quote of the Day

After all, technically speaking, it is biblical for a woman to be sold by her father (Exodus 21:7), biblical for her to be forced to marry her rapist (Deuteronomy 22:28-29), biblical for her to remain silent in church (1 Corinthians 14:34-35), biblical for her to cover her head (1 Corinthians 11:6), and biblical for her to be one of multiple wives (Exodus 21:10).  This is why the notion of "biblical womanhood" so intrigued me.  Could an ancient collection of sacred texts, spanning multiple genres and assembled over thousands of years in cultures very different from our own, really offer a single cohesive formula for how to be a woman?  And do all the women of Scripture fit into this same mold?  Must I?

-- Rachel Held Evans, A Year of Biblical Womanhood, p. xx

Quote of the Day

One April day, on a morning just like every other morning, I had a sudden realization: I was in danger of wasting my life.  As I stared out the rain-spattered window of a city bus, I saw that the years were slipping by.  "What do I want from life, anyway?" I asked myself.  "Well...I want to be happy."  But I had never thought about what made me happy or how I might be happier.

-- Gretchen Rubin, The Happiness Project, p. 1

Quotes of the Day

I suppose marriage equality is socially liberal inasmuch as it tries to defend and integrate a previously despised minority.  But it is socially conservative in its attempt to envelop that minority in the traditions and responsibilities of family life.

-- Andrew Sullivan

Quote of the Day

Just as the atom bomb was the weapon that was supposed to render war obsolete, the Internet seems like capitalism's ultimate feat of self-destructive genius, an economic doomsday device rendering it impossible for anyone to ever make a profit off anything again.  It's especially hopeless for those whose work is easily digitized and accessed free of charge.

-- Tim Kreider, "Slaves of the Internet, Unite!"

Quote of the Day

Most people aren’t even aware that they are limiting the dreams of girls. Most aren’t conscious of the fact that they are shaping the dreams of their daughters and female students into a sexist ideal or a misogynist fantasy. Not only do men do this, but women too. This can be corrected.  I was raised in a sexist culture. I need constant instruction to overcome my innate assumptions that are drilled into me by our misogynist society. I’m glad to be married to a strong woman. I’m glad to have a strong daughter. I’m glad to have strong women for friends.

-- David Hayward, "how to shape the dreams of our girls"

Quote of the Day

This is why I get so frustrated with the “it’s just a show” dismissal of good cultural criticism. All we are are sacks of flesh stuffed with guts and puss and boogers and blood. And yet, we tell stories. That’s what we do to stave off the horror of being a self-propelling bag of warm offal that will someday die. Talking about those stories and what they mean and what they tell us about who we are and how we live in the world isn’t a waste. It’s a way to know ourselves better.

-- Betsy Phillips, "Why Television's Most Popular Show Rehabilitated a Nazi"

Quote of the Day

Habit simplifies our movements, makes them accurate, and diminishes fatigue.

-- William James