Quotes from Nicholas Wolterstorff

We strain to hear. But instead of hearing an answer we catch sight of God himself scraped and torn. Through our tears we see the tears of God

The tears of God are the meaning of history

The very freedom and expressiveness we find missing in life we find present in art.

And what of regrets? I shall live with them. I shall accept my regrets as part of my life, to be numbered among my self-inflicted wounds. But I will not endlessly gaze at them. I shall allow the memories to prod me into doing better with those still living. And I shall allow them to sharpen the vision and intensify the hope for that Great Day coming when we can all throw ourselves into each other's arms and say, I'm sorry.

But we all suffer. For we all prize and love; and in this present existence of ours, prizing and loving yield suffering. Love in our world is suffering love. Some do not suffer much, though, for they do not love much. Suffering is for the loving. This, said Jesus, is the command of the Holy One: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. In commanding us to love, God invites us to suffer.

God is not only the God of the sufferers but the God who suffers. ... It is said of God that no one can behold his face and live. I always thought this meant that no one could see his splendor and live. A friend said perhaps it meant that no one could see his sorrow and live. Or perhaps his sorrow is splendor. ... Instead of explaining our suffering God shares it.

Faith is a footbridge that you don't know will hold you up over the chasm until you're forced to walk out onto it.

Rather often I am asked whether the grief remains as intense as when I wrote. The answer is, No. The wound is no longer raw. But it has not disappeared. That is as it should be. If he was worth loving, he is worth grieving over. Grief is existential testimony to the worth of the one loved. That worth abides. So I own my grief. I do not try to put it behind me, to get over it, to forget it… Every lament is a love-song.

Why are the photographs of him as a little boy so incredibly hard to look at? Something is over. Now instead of those shiny moments being things we can share together in delighted memories, I, the survivor, have to bear them alone. So it is with all the memories of him. They all lead into blackness. All I can do is remember him, I cannot experience him. Nothing new can happen between us.

Don't say it's not really so bad. Because it is. Death is awful, demonic. If you think your task as comforter is to tell me that really, all things considered, it's not so bad, you do not sit with me in my grief but place yourself off in the distance away from me. Over there, you are of no help.

I shall look at the world through tears. Perhaps I shall see things that dry-eyed I could not see.

A friend said, "Remember, he's in good hands." I was deeply moved. But that reality does not put Eric back in my hands now. That's my grief. For that grief, what consolation can there be other than having him back?

THE TEARS ... streamed down, and I let them flow as freely as they would, making of them a pillow for my heart. On them it rested. -AUGUSTINE, Confessions IX, i z

Choice is always performed against a background of habit.

But the pain of the no more outweighs the gratitude of the once was. Will it always be so? I didn't know how much I loved him until he was gone. Is love like that?

IT'S so WRONG, so profoundly wrong, for a child to die before its parents. It's hard enough to bury our parents. But that we expect. Our parents belong to our past, our children belong to our future. We do not visualize our future without them. How can I bury my son, my future, one of the next in line? He was meant to bury me!

Technology does make possible advance toward shalom; progress in mastery of the world can bring shalom nearer. But the limits of technology must also be acknowledged; technology is entirely incapable of bringing about shalom between ourselves and God, and it is only scarcely capable of bringing about the love of self and neighbour.

Each death is as unique as each life.

I am at an impasse, and you, O God, have brought me here...From my earliest days, I have believed in you. I shared in the life of your people: in their prayers, in their work, in their songs...For me your yoke was easy. On me your presence smiled. Noon has darkened...And where are you in this darkness?...Or is it not your absence in which I dwell but your elusive troubling presence?

The tears of God are the meaning of history.

Sometimes the reason offered for seeking aesthetic excellence in the music of the church is that thereby one pleases God. I think that is true. But not because we know what music God enjoys-- though I suspect it must be music which is unified, rich, and intense! Rather, because it is in the joy of his people that God finds delight.

Killing off the other party is one way of achieving universal intersubjective agreement.