At the end of the Middle Ages, nobody would ever have expected the monasteries to vanish from the scene within a generation - yet they did. Change does happen. Rowan Williams More Quotes by Rowan Williams More Quotes From Rowan Williams The past is what the present is doing now. Rowan Williams past Truth makes love possible; love makes truth bearable. Rowan Williams possible-love truth-is making-love Our present ecological crisis, the biggest single practical threat to our human existence in the middle to long term, has, religious people would say, a great deal to do with our failure to think of the world as existing in relation to the mystery of God, not just as a huge warehouse of stuff to be used for our convenience. Rowan Williams religious long thinking I have, by God’s grace, learned as a member of the Christian community what is the nature of God’s mercy, which does not leave me to overcome my sin by my own effort, so I have something to say to the fellow-sufferer who does not know where to look for hope. And what I have to say depends utterly on my willingness not to let go of that awareness of myself that reminds me where I start each day—not as a finished saint but as a needy person still struggling to grow. Rowan Williams struggle christian letting-go Loneliness has little to do with what we do or where we do it, whether we're married or unmarried, optimists or pessimists, heterosexual or homosexual. Loneliness has to do with the sudden clefts we experience in every human relation, the gaps that open up with such stomach-turning unexpectedness. In a brief moment, I and my brother or sister have moved away into different worlds, and there is no language we can share.... It is in the middle of intimacy that the reality of loneliness most dramatically appears. Rowan Williams loneliness brother reality How do we live in a way that shows an understanding that we genuinely live in a shared world, not one that simply belongs to us? Rowan Williams understanding way world Silence is letting what there is be what it is. In that sense it has to do profoundly with God: the silence of simply being. We experience that at times when there is nothing we can say or do that would not intrude on the integrity and the beauty of that being. Rowan Williams silence-is silence integrity A flourishing, morally credible media is a vital component in the maintenance of genuinely public talk, argument about common good. Rowan Williams maintenance media common The Church exists to connect people at the level of their hunger for a new world. Rowan Williams church people world We discover too late that we have turned a blind eye to the extinction of a species that is essential to the balance of life in a particular context. Or we discover too late that the importation of a foreign life-form, animal or vegetable, has upset local ecosystems, damaging soil or neighbouring life-forms. We discover that we have come near the end of supplies-of fossil-fuels for example -on which we have built immense structures of routine expectation. Rowan Williams ecosystems eye animal Keeping our eyes on journey's end is what we need - the place where we see at last the world that is greater than the world, the new creation that cannot be contained in present thought or social order or piety. Rowan Williams eye journey order We shall not find life by refusing to let go of our precious, protected selves. Rowan Williams protected self letting-go Bad human communication leaves us less room to grow. Rowan Williams communication grows rooms I value unity because I believe we learn truth from each other in this process. Rowan Williams unity truth believe The whole story of creation, incarnation, and our incorporation into the fellowship of Christ's body tells us that God desires us, as if we were God, as if we were that unconditional response to God's giving that God's self makes in the life of the Trinity. We are created so that we may be caught up in this, so that we may grow into the wholehearted love of God by learning that God loves us as God loves God. Rowan Williams self desire giving Whether something is old-fashioned or not doesn't resolve the question of whether it's true or not. I can see the temptation of simply thinking, 'Well, there's a cultural mainstream which flows neatly in one direction. You just align with it'. And that really won't do. Rowan Williams one-direction temptation thinking If there is one thing I long for above all else, it's that the years to come may see Christianity in this country able again to capture the imagination of our culture. Rowan Williams country years art Institutions develop because people put a lot of trust in them, they meet real needs, they represent important aspirations, whether it's monasteries, media, or banks, people begin by trusting these institutions, and gradually the suspicion develops that actually they're working for themselves, not for the community. Rowan Williams media real people The planet should not be used as a warehouse of resources to serve humanity's selfishness Rowan Williams selfishness used humanity We can at least see that the question is asked, and asked on the basis of a clear recognition that there is no way of manipulating our environment that is without cost or consequence - and thus also of a recognition that we are inextricably bound up with the destiny of our world. There is no guarantee that the world we live in will "tolerate" us indefinitely if we prove ourselves unable to live within its constraints. Rowan Williams guarantees-that our-world destiny
