Quotes from Ron Hall

I know it ain't none of my buisness, but does you own somethin that each one of them keys fits?I glanced at the keys; there were about ten of them. I suppose, I replied, not really ever having thought about it. Are you sure you own them, or does they own you

Listen, if the devil ain't messin with you, he's already got you. If you is waitin to clean up your own life before you get out and help somebody else, you may as well take off your shoes and crawl back in the bed 'cause it ain't never gon' happen. Jesus don't need no help from no perfect saints. If He did, He wouldn't a' gone up yonder and left us down here in charge.

The tortures occur," he wrote. "If they are unnecessary, then there is no God, or a bad one. If there is a good God, then these tortures are necessary for no even moderately good Being could possibly inflict or permit them if they weren't.

it. That's the good thing 'bout God. Since He can see right through your heart anyway, you can go on and tell Him what you really think.

But I found out everybody's different— the same kind of different as me. We're all just regular folks walkin down the road God done set in front of us.

So you done worked all year and the Man ain't done nothin, but you still owe the Man. And wadn't nothin you could do but work his land for another year to pay off that debt What it come down to was: The Man didn't just own the land. He owned *you.* Got so there was a sayin that went like this: "An ought's an ought, a figger's a figger, all for the white man, none for the nigger.

I cannot see into a person's heart to know his spiritual condition. All I can do is tell the jagged tale of my own spiritual journey and declare that my life has been the better for having followed Christ.

In the 1950s, the Southern social order was as plain to the eye as charcoal in a snowbank. From the perspective of a small fair-skinned boy, it was about as much a topic for considered thought as breathing in and out.

Problem was, Brother Brown kinda lost his grip and I sunk right to he bottom. I didn't know I was supposed to come right back up, so I just floated on down the river a ways, blowin bubbles and lookin up through the milky water at the clouds goin by. Aunt Etha told me afterward that the congregation panicked and charged into the river. They was still splashin around and callin my name when I popped up downriver like a bobber on a fishin line, a few shades paler and fulla the Holy Ghost!

We pay $2,000 to get in, and half of that goes to pay for the decorator," she said. "And the *dress* I wore cost $2,000. Why don't we just send in a check for $4,000 and stay home? The charity would make more money that way.

I had been sleepin there for a long time hwen the Fort Worth police put up no-loiterin signs all over the place and made me have to move my sleepin spot. I found out later some rich white folks was "revitalizin" downtown. Raggedy black fellas sleepin ont he sidwalks wadn't part of the plan.

The more I learned, the more I hated the Man and wanted to right the wrongs of Louisiana's modern-day slave masters. I sang Denvery's story like a songbird to anyone who would listen. Then one day, a thought hit me like a right cross to the head: My own granddaddy had not been so much different from the Man. Fairer, yes. An honest and decent man in the Texas of his day. But the wages he paid were still no excuse for the pitiful way we treated the folks who worked his land.

Maybe my mission wasn't to analyze them, like some sort of exotic specimens, but just to get to know them.

It's just a simple fact that in America drugs and booze cost money, but food is free to anyone willing to snooze through a gospel message.

Our limitation is God's opportunity. When you get all the way to the end of your rope and there ain't nothin you can do, that's when God takes over.

Stoicism is a logical philosophy.

Then just get out the way and let God do His thing!

The truth about it is, whether we is rich or poor or somethin in between, this earth ain't no final restin place. So in a way, we is all homeless—just workin our way toward home.

wandered by like death in blue jeans, offering sex

I guess I knowed I was taking my life in my hands when I got in that car, 'cause it was a cold day in January, but I was sweatin like a hog in August.

Someone that you obviously can trust and someone that you would trust your life with - that's a really good friend.

Most people never really sat down and got to know a homeless person, but every homeless person is just a real person that was created by God and it is the same kind of different as us; they just have a different story.

Art teaches something we all need to learn, especially about people who are different from ourselves: "To see things the way they truly are, sometimes you have to look more deeply.

Together we can change the world, just one random act of kindness at a time.