Elizabeth A. Johnson Quotes & Sayings

Woven into our lives is the very fire from the stars and genes from the sea creatures, and everyone, utterly everyone, is kin in the radiant tapestry of being. — Elizabeth A. Johnson

God is not a being among other beings, but the infinite Whither that makes possible the very functioning of our human spirit. — Elizabeth A. Johnson

The way in which a faith community shapes language about God implicity represents what it takes to be the highest good, the profoundest truth, the most appealing beauty ... While officially it is rightly and consistently said that God is spirit and so beyond identification with either male or female sex, yet the daily language of preaching, worship, catechesis, and instruction conveys a different message: God is male, or at least more like a man than a woman, or at least more fittingly addressed as male than as female. — Elizabeth A. Johnson

I quickly realized that more than any other vegetable, the potato evokes strong reactions in people. As the head of communications for the International Potato Centre in Peru put it, 'No one gets worked up over lettuce like they do the potato.' — Elizabeth A. Johnson

That all species are related in the flow of life and death is a keystone of evolutionary theory. The grandeur displayed in this view of life is ecological in character. — Elizabeth A. Johnson

Spiritually, trees play a unique role in the Jewish and Christian scriptures, from the Garden of Eden to the Cross of Christ. Biologically, in great forest communities, they help sustain life on our planet, giving off oxygen, anchoring soil, keeping stream and rivers clear, and providing habitation for thousands of species. How can religious persons not care about the widespread destruction of these creatures of God? We need to love them as our very selves, as neighbors in earth's community of life. — Elizabeth A. Johnson

Whether consciously or not, sexist God language undermines the human equality of women made in the divine image and likeness. — Elizabeth A. Johnson

Those who die relearn or remember The secrets of life that they forgot at birth. — Elizabeth A. Johnson

As history shows, dead metaphors make good idols. — Elizabeth A. Johnson

Mystery is not merely a way of saying that reason has not yet completed its victory. It is the goal where reason arrives when it attains its perfection by becoming love. — Elizabeth A. Johnson