Quotes from Shane Claiborne

As I left Calcutta, it occurred to me that I was returning to a land of lepers, a land of people who had forgotten how to feel, to laugh, to cry, a land haunted by numbness. Could we learn to feel again?

such a brutal way of killing someone that it gave birth to the word "excruciating.

The worlds of poverty and wealth collided, and I guess I felt a little dose of what the experts call culture shock. According to Mother Teresa, it is among the wealthy that we can find the most terrible poverty of all— loneliness. So perhaps I was still among the poorest of the poor, but these poor folks had some cash!

Desmond Tutu, a South African bishop and leader in the movement to end apartheid, said, "I don't preach a social gospel; I preach the gospel, period. The gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ is concerned for the whole person. When people were hungry, Jesus didn't say, 'Now is that political or social?' He said, 'I feed you.' Because the good news to a hungry person is bread.

You guys are all into that born again thing, which is great. We do need to be born again, since Jesus said that to a guy named Nicodemus. But if you tell me I have to be born again to enter the kingdom of God, I can tell you that you have to sell everything you have and give it to the poor, because Jesus said that to one guy too…[And he paused in the awkward silence.] But I guess that's why God invented highlighters, so we can highlight the parts we like and ignore the rest.

Sometimes I was incredibly frustrated and angry, wondering how these extremes could exist in the same world, let alone in the same church. Sometimes I just got cynical. That was the easiest thing to feel, as cynicism takes very little energy.

Ammon Hennacy, a Catholic Worker, said, "Love without courage and wisdom is sentimentality, as with the ordinary church member. Courage without love and wisdom is foolhardiness, as with the ordinary soldier. Wisdom without love and courage is cowardice, as with the ordinary intellectual.

us stand up both to the demons that hide behind ungodly laws, and the false religion that props up injustice. Make us into a people who shine out your love so that the world might know another way is possible. Amen.

True generosity is measured not by how much we give away but by how much we have left, especially when we look at the needs of our neighbors. We have no right not to be charitable. The early Christians taught that charity is merely returning what we have stolen. In the seventeenth century, St. Vincent de Paul said that when he gives bread to the beggars, he gets on his knees and asks forgiveness from them.

the crucifixion of Jesus—became the conduit of God's grace and salvation. One

Jesus never says to the poor, 'Come find the church,' but he says to those of us in the church, 'Go into the world and find the poor, hungry, homeless, imprisoned,' Jesus in his disguises.

protect you through the storm; may he bring you home rejoicing : at the wonders he has shown you; may he bring you home rejoicing : once again into our doors. December 20 O Lord, let my soul rise up to meet you as the day rises to meet the sun.