Ryan J. Pelton | Hints of Hope

Topic

Quotes

A collection of 8 issues

Our Little Window

From writer Brian Doyle: “We’re only here for a minute,” Brian once reminded us. “We’re here for a little window. And to use that time to catch and share shards of light and laughter and grace seems to me the great story.” How supreme he was at telling

Leo Tolstoy on the Mission of the Artist

“The artist's mission must not be to produce an irrefutable solution to a problem, but to compel us to love life in all its countless and inexhaustible manifestations.”We are most comfortable searching for solutions to problems. We want answers and we want them now. When a war breaks out

C.S. Lewis on Love

A reading from a wedding I'm doing this weekend. Seemed appropriate on Valentine's Day: "If the old fairy-tale ending 'They lived happily ever after' is taken to mean 'They felt for the next fifty years exactly as they felt the day before they were married,' then it says what

Books

Frederick Buechner said: BOOKS ARE TO READ, but that is by no means the end of it.The way they are bound, the paper they are printed on, the smell of them (especially if they are either very new or very old), the way the words are fitted to the

Virginia Woolf on Reading and Peace

“I long for a large room to myself, with books and nothing else, where I can shut myself up, and see no one, and read myself into peace.” -(Virginia Woolf Letter to Violet Dickinson 30th October 1904) "... read myself into peace." Yes, please. Maybe at the National Archives of

Good and Necessary Trouble on MLK Day

Two key figures of the Civil Rights Movement in the 50s and 60s were Martin Luther King Jr. and John Lewis. Both were men of faith, and chose the path of nonviolence shaped by this same faith, to tackle some of the greatest injustices of our modern times. Here are

I Dream of a Church Like A.A.

In my work as a pastor, I often wonder what the church at her best would/could/should look like? Years ago I visited an A.A. Meeting hosted at our church, and caught a glimpse. Frederick Buechner says it better than I could below: ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS or A.A.

Listening as Love

Listening is a rare happening among human beings. You cannot listen to the word another is speaking if you are preoccupied with your appearance or impressing the other, or if you are trying to decide what you are going to say when the other stops talking, or if you are