What an embarrassment that was, being somewhere because there was nowhere else for you to be.
Marilynne RobinsonIt's a difficult thing to describe theology, what it means and how it disciplines thinking. Certainly, theology is the level at which the highest inquiry into meaning and ethics and beauty coincides with the largest-scale imagination of the nature of reality itself.
Marilynne RobinsonThat's the strangest thing about this life, about being in the ministry. People change the subject when they see you coming. And then sometimes those very same people come into your study and tell you the most remarkable things. There's a lot under the surface of life, everyone knows that. A lot of malice and dread and guilt, and so much loneliness, where you wouldn't really expect to find it, either.
Marilynne RobinsonHe will wipe the tears from all faces.' It takes nothing from the loveliness of the verse to say that is exactly what will be required
Marilynne RobinsonRejoice with those who rejoice." I have found that difficult too often. I was much better at weeping with those who weep.
Marilynne RobinsonThe force behind the movement of time is a mourning that will not be comforted. That is why the first event is known to have been an expulsion, and the last is hoped to be a reconciliation and return. So memory pulls us forward, so prophecy is only brilliant memory - there will be a garden where all of us as one child will sleep in our mother Eve, hooped in her ribs and staved by her spine.
Marilynne Robinson