“Piper at ECUAD” Collage by DS
McEntyre, Marilyn Chandler. Caring for Words in a Culture of Lies. Grand Rapids, MI:
William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2009.
385 words
“Foster the kind of community that comes from shared stories . . . “ (Mc Entyre, xi)
“There is, in all of us, a hunger for words that satisfy, not just words that do the job of conveying requests or instructions or information, but words that give a pleasure akin to the pleasures of music. “ (27)
“Mere lists of nouns can be poetry.” (38)
“Tell all the truth but tell it slant. . .” (Dickenson, Emily, in McEntyre, 41)
“Opinions are the stock-in-trade of thoughtful people to be earned and held strongly until further evidence requires their modification.” (41)
“The practice of precision not only requires attentiveness and effort; it may also require the courage to afflict the comfortable and, consequently, tolerate their resentment.” (44)
“Healing involves naming the insults and offenses.” (59)
“We inhabit narratives . . . every story provides a space in which author and reader meet . . . some readers . . . become the guides or docents in those spaces.” (78)
“Once we have dwelt in a particular house of fiction, we hold within us the memory of the landscapes and intimate spaces it affords. And that memory furnishes and redesigns our interior spaces where thought is born and nurtured.” (79)
“Our lives are lived in relationship to words, written and spoke, sacred and mundane. They are manna for the journey.” (86)
“Conversation is a form of activism . . .” (89)
“Curiosity is a form of compassion . . . ‘What is it like for you?’” (98)
“When silences are allowed, conversation can rise to the level of sacred encounter.” (107)
“Understand how richness of experience, even the most searing, blesses us in the struggle.” (115)
“Stories are pathways.” (121)
“High intelligence involved in word play offers not only entertainment but encouragement.” (188)
“The story is told of Mother Teresa that when an interviewer asked her, ‘What do you say when you pray?’ She answered, ‘I listen.’ The reporter paused a moment then asked, “The what does God say?’ She replied, ‘He listens.’ It is hard to imagine a more succinct way to get at the intimacy of contemplative prayer.” (211)
“When the mystics speak of prayer, they are talking about that which will create in us a new structure of consciousness.” (O’Connor, Elizabeth, in McEntyre, 220)
ShellseekerReflections 