Feinberg Quotes & Sayings

I call them sacred echoes because I noticed that throughout my relationships, daily life, and study, the same scripturally sound idea or phrase or word will keep reappearing until I can no longer avoid its presence. -The Sacred Echo — Margaret Feinberg

When we fight back with joy, we embrace a reality that is more real than what we're enduring and we awaken to the deepest reality of our identity as beloved, joyful children of God. — Margaret Feinberg

some mistakes in life are not punishable, others teach you a lesson you never forget! — Leslie Feinberg

As he huffed across the rocky edge. — Margaret Feinberg

When journeying with God some of the best parts of any pilgrimage are the detours. — Margaret Feinberg

One of my favorite prayers is God, how can I love on you today? As I sit in silence of those words, sometimes I'll feel compelled to sing or read a passage of Scripture, or I'll be reminded of someone with a need I can meet; but on some of the most meaningful days, God simply says, just be with me. I sit in the silence and enjoy stillness with God. No agenda. No words. No words. No challenge. No correction or instruction. Just being together. In those moments, I'm reminded that the heart of faith is simply being with God. I sense God's love. Some of my best friendships reach a level at which we can sit together without having to say anything and still enjoy each other's presence. The same is true for God, and I love to experience that depth of love in my relationship with Christ. -Hungry for God — Margaret Feinberg

If I'm not with a butch everyone just assumes I'm straight. It's like I'm passing too, against my will. I'm sick of the world thinking I'm straight. I've worked hard to be discriminated against as a lesbian — Leslie Feinberg

Create your own permission slip for joy. Write three words: Accept. Adapt. Depend. Carry this permission slip with you. Tell your friends you're working on becoming more content, more joyful. Take a nap. Live with a messy house for a time. Order takeout. File an extension on your taxes. Stare out the window. Linger in the company of a friend. Breathe in the fullness of life. Use those words to fight back with joy. — Margaret Feinberg

Like racism and all forms of prejudice, bigotry against transgendered people is a deadly carcinogen. We are pitted against each other in order to keep us from seeing each other as allies. Genuine bonds of solidarity can be forged between people who respect each other's differences and are willing to fight their enemy together. We are the class that does the work of the world, and can revolutionize it. We can win true liberation. — Leslie Feinberg

The loneliness became more and more unbearable. I ached to be touched. I feared I was disappearing and I'd cease to exist if someone didn't touch me. — Leslie Feinberg

Joy would not deny the hardship, but would choose to acknowledge and face it no matter what the outcome. — Margaret Feinberg

It's a beauty one isn't born with, but must fight to construct at great sacrifice. — Leslie Feinberg

I had been searching for joy in the relatively good times of life, now I had to find joy amidst darkness and agony. — Margaret Feinberg

Oh, Ruth. I wish we had our own words to describe ourselves, to connect us."
Ruth stood up and opened the broiler. "I don't need another label," she sighed. "I just am what I am. I call myself Ruth. My mother is Ruth Anne; my grandmother was Anne. That's who I am. That's where I come from."
I shrugged. "I don't want another label either. I just wish we had words so pretty we'd go out of our way to say them out loud. — Leslie Feinberg

Who was I now - woman or man? That question could never be answered as long as those were the only choices; it could never be answered if it had to be asked. — Leslie Feinberg

Sometimes you have to poke holes in the darkness until it bleeds light. — Margaret Feinberg

But if theory is not the crystallized resin of experience, it ceases to be a guide to action. — Leslie Feinberg

Prayer might not change things, but it will change my perspective of things. Prayer might not change the past, but inevitably, it changes the present. — Margaret Feinberg

While some dismiss the Bible as a dusty old book, I view its pages as portals to adventure. Not only is the book chock-full of clever plots and compelling stories, but it's laced with historical insights and literary beauty. When I open the Scripture, I imagine myself exploring an ancient kingdom ... With every encounter, I learn something new about their life journeys and am reminded that the Bible is more than a record of the human quest for God: it's the revelation of God's quest for us. - Scouting the Divine — Margaret Feinberg

I've been fighting to defend who I am all my life. I'm tired. I just don't know how to go on anymore. This is the only way I can think of I can still be me and survive. I just don't know any other way".
Theresa sat back in her chair. "I'm a woman, Jess. I love you because you're a woman, too. I made up my mind when I was growing up that I was not going to betray my desire by resigning to marrying a dirt farmer or the boy at the service station. Do you understand?"
I shook my head sadly. "Do you wish I wasn't a butch?"
She smiled. "No, I love your butchness. I just don't want to be some man's wife, even if that man's a woman. — Leslie Feinberg

I remembered what it was like to walk a gauntlet of strangers who stare - their eyes angry, confused, intrigued. Woman or man: they are outraged that I confuse them. The punishment will follow. The only recognition I can find in their eyes is that I am "other." I am different. I will always be different. I will never be able to nestle my skin against the comfort of sameness. — Leslie Feinberg

I do work half time as a historian of medicine at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine, and I started my career with work in the 19th century. — Alice Dreger

Everybody's scared, but if you don't let your fears stop you, that's bravery! — Leslie Feinberg

From that moment on I was her butch and she was my femme. — Leslie Feinberg

Scripture breathes wisdom like we breathe oxygen. It can't not. Through Scripture, God reveals himself. This wisdom cannot be captured, let alone contained, on a neon bumper sticker or rubber bracelet. Wisdom itself invites us to go deeper- right into a relationship with God himself.
Through wisdom, we learn to love God and love what he loves. We find rich counsel on the life we were meant for- in our families, communities, and world. We discover our personal responsibilities to others. And we unearth how to put love into action. -Organic God — Margaret Feinberg

God's wisdom, true wisdom, is essential to living the life we were designed to live. Apart from God and his wisdom, we can spend a lot of time and energy getting lost, or worse, asking for directions from people who only pretend to know the way. — Margaret Feinberg

I've been going to the library, looking up our history. There's a ton of it in anthropology books, a ton of it, Ruth. We haven't always been hated. Why didn't we grow up knowing that? — Leslie Feinberg

Never underestimate the power of fiction to tell the truth. — Leslie Feinberg

i know the difference between what i can't do and what i refuse to do! — Leslie Feinberg

You're more than just neither, honey. There's other ways to be than either-or. It's not so simple. Otherwise there wouldn't be so many people who don't fit. — Leslie Feinberg

God is not merely at your fingertips but within your grasp. Live each day like a child digging through a treasure chest, rifling for the next discovery. Open your arms and your eyes to the God who stands in plain sight and works miracles in your midst. Look for him in your workdays and weekends, in your meeting-filled Mondays and your lazy Saturdays. Search for him in the snowy sunsets and Sabbaths, seasons of Lent and sitting at your table. Pray for - and expect - wonder. For when you search for God, you will discover him. — Margaret Feinberg

I put on lipstick and high heels and walk down the street arm in arm with you, Jess. This is my life, and I'm damn brave to love who I love. Don't try to take who I am away from me."
My chin trembled, "Well, what do you think's being taken away from me? What the fuck am I going to do, Theresa? Tell me, what can I do?
...I don't want to die and I don't know how to live. I'm really afraid. — Leslie Feinberg

Many of us say we want to experience God, but we don't look for his majesty. [Tweet this] We travel life's paths with our heads down, focused on the next step with our careers or families or retirement plans. But we don't really expect God to show up with divine wonder. — Margaret Feinberg

Slowly, God is opening my eyes to needs all around me. In Scripture, God revisits this issue of caring for the poor- an echo that repeats itself from Genesis to Revelation. The Bible acknowledges that the poor will always be part of society, but God takes on their cause. The Mosaic law of the Old Testament is filled with regulations to prevent and eliminate poverty. The poor were given the right to glean- to take produce from the unharvested edges of the fields, a portion of the tithes, and a daily wage. The law prevented permanent slavery by releasing Jewish bondsmen and women on the sabbatical and Jubilee year and forbade charging interest on loans. In one of his most tender acts, God made sure that the poor- the aliens, widows, and orphans- were all invited to the feasts. — Margaret Feinberg

I began to feel the pleasure of the weightless state between here and there — Leslie Feinberg

Most of us discover early on that it's safer to hide behind prayers that can't be measured, petitions so nebulous they don't require intervention from God. — Margaret Feinberg

Joy emanates out of the abiding sense of God's fierce love for us. — Margaret Feinberg

Unforgiveness feels like a prison built by the hands of a criminal where we end up incarcerated. Whether robbed, violated, or betrayed, we find ourselves trapped by the bondage of bitterness, the chains of cynicism, and the shackles of sin. With enough time, we can convince ourselves the prisons of our past were built by someone else, but unforgiveness is a cage we construct ourselves. If we choose to stop focusing on our inward pain and instead scan the perimeter, we discover the door to freedom hangs wide open thanks to Christ. The choice is ours. — Margaret Feinberg

More exists among human beings than can be answered by the simplistic question I'm hit with every day of my life: Are you a man or a woman? — Leslie Feinberg

Hunger for God compels us to seek the Lord. At times our desire for God overcomes our physical desires, and the ache for God is palpable. Throughout the Scriptures, God is faithful to reward those who search for him. Written during one of King David's low points, while living on the run in the wilderness, he cries, "Oh God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you, in a dry and weary land where there is no water." Though David hides in the wilderness, he doesn't stay there physically or spiritually. When we seek God with our whole hearts and souls, he promises to reveal himself to us." -Hungry for God — Margaret Feinberg

I have heard an argument that transgender people oppress transsexual people because we are trying to tear down the categories of male and female. But isn't this the same reactionary argument used against transmen and transwomen by those who argue that any challenges to assigned birth sex threaten the categories of man and woman? Transgender people are not dismantling the categories of man and woman. We are opening up a world of possibilities in addition. Each of us has a right to our identities. To claim one group of downtrodden people is oppressing another by their self-identification is to swing your guns away from those who really do oppress us, and to aim them at those who are already under siege. — Leslie Feinberg

And God did not just ask for the perfect sheep; He also wanted its wool. Deuteronomy 18:4 instructs shepherds to give the first shearing of the sheep as on offering to God. Above the crackling warmth radiating from the stove, I read the verse aloud to Lynne. "Is a first shearing a once-in-a-lifetime offering?" I asked. "Yes, everybody wants the first shearing, especially if it's from one of your best lambs. The first shearing is the finest fleese that's used to the best clothes ... to ask for that is a real sacrifice." ... For the first time in a long while, maybe ever, I had felt with my own hands what God desired from sacrifice. It was nothing like what I expected ... In asking for the first fleece, God isn't asking for the biggest. He wants to smallest and the softest. He doesn't want more-He wants the best." -Scouting the Divine — Margaret Feinberg

Worry is a subtle way of telling God that He's fallen asleep at the wheel and that things aren't under His authority, but ours. — Margaret Feinberg

Leif's hands pressed on my shoulders, muscles turned — Margaret Feinberg

Wide awake to the presence of God, I realized I had been so focused on asking why a good God allowed bad things to happen that I was missing out on the nearness of God all along. In becoming preoccupied with the why, I was missing the who. — Margaret Feinberg

Always remain suspicious that God is up to something good. — Margaret Feinberg

Why describe God as organic? More and more I realize that my own understanding of God is largely polluted. I have preconceived notions, thoughts and biases when it comes to God. I have a tendency to favor certain portions of Scripture over others. I have a bad habit of reading some stories with a been-there-done-that attitude, knowing the end of the story before it begins, and in the process denying God's ability to speak to me through it once again.
... The result is that my understanding and perception of God is clouded, much like the dingy haze of pollution that hands over most major cities. The person in the middle of a city looking up at the sky doesn't aways realize just how much their view and perceptions are altered by the smog. Without symptoms such as burning eyes or an official warning of scientists or media, no one may even notice just how bad the pollution has become.
That's why I describe God as organic. — Margaret Feinberg

People today know a lot more about how to become a Christian than about how to be one. — Margaret Feinberg

Joy asks "What if God?" and declares "But if not! — Margaret Feinberg

I didn't want to be different. I longed to be everything grownups wanted, so they would love me. I followed all their rules, tried my best to please. But there was something about me that made them knit their eyebrows and frown. No one ever offered a name for what was wrong with me. That's what made me afraid it was really bad. I only came to recognize its melody through this constant refrain: 'Is that a boy or a girl?' — Leslie Feinberg

Every day the men around me came to exercise their bodies; I came to exorcise my demons — Leslie Feinberg

God is constantly on the move. I cannot stay where I am and follow God at the same time; responding requires movement. — Margaret Feinberg

I'm sorry it's had to be this hard. But if I hadn't walked this path, who would I be? At the moment I felt at the center of my life, the dream still braided like sweetgrass in my memory. I remembered Duffy's challenge. Imagine a world worth living in, a world worth fighting for. I closed my eyes and allowed my hopes to soar. I heard the beatings of wings nearby. I opened my eyes. A young man on a nearby rooftop released his pigeons, like dreams, into the dawn. — Leslie Feinberg

When we fight back with joy, we awaken to the deepest reality of our identity as beloved, delightful children of God. — Margaret Feinberg

One of the greatest promises to a child of God is that this life is not the end of the story. — Margaret Feinberg

We have not always been forced to pass, to go underground, in order to work and live. We have a right to live openly and proudly ... when our lives are suppressed, everyone is denied an understanding of the rich diversity of sex and gender expression and experience that exist in human society. — Leslie Feinberg

The wonder of prayer is rediscovered in who we're speaking to. Prayer is a mystical event by which we get to talk to the Creator of all-the One who fashioned our world with a few words-knowing that God not only listens but answers. — Margaret Feinberg

Zeev Feinberg parted from his own obligation and left Yaffa on the sofa, blushing about something he had just wispered to her. Now Zeev wanted to see what the goddess of luck had given his friend, and once again noted that the bitch invariably gives nuts to people who have no teeth. — Ayelet Gundar-Goshen

What is the bedrock on which all of our diverse trans populations can build solidarity? The commitment to be the best fighters against each other's oppression. As our activist network grows into marches and rallies of hundreds of thousands, we will hammer out language that demonstrates the sum total of our movement as well as its component communities.

Unity depends on respect for diversity, no matter what tools of language are ultimately used. This is a very early stage for trans peoples with such diverse histories and blends of cultures to form community. Perhaps we don't have to strive to be one community. In reality, there isn't one women's, or lesbian, gay, bi community. What is realistic is the goal to build a coalition between our many strong communities in order to form a movement capable of defending all our lives. — Leslie Feinberg

I searched my memory and recalled I had written Fred a coming-out letter in the early seventies. Periodically I got annoyed, testy, mad at the world, and would write bombastic letters to people I wasn't particularly close to, detailing quite explicitly my homosexual identity, not caring whether they would accept or reject me. I couldn't recall what set me off to write Fred. I might have failed a physics exam. Maybe someone called me a faggot on the street. It could have been Watergate. — David B. Feinberg

I think girls and boys should be able to be any way they want to be without getting picked on. — Leslie Feinberg

But very quickly I discovered that passing didn't just mean slipping below the surface, it meant being buried alive. I was still me on the inside, trapped in there with all my wounds and fears. But I was no longer me on the outside. — Leslie Feinberg

I cannot live the rest of my life without my husband. But I can live without him for one day. — Linda Feinberg

I felt as though I was rushing into a burning building to discover the ideas I needed for my own life.(239) — Leslie Feinberg

This is what courage is. It's not just living through the nightmare, it's doing something with it afterward. It's being brave enough to talk about it to other people. It's trying to organize to change things. — Leslie Feinberg

I once heard [Gerald] Feinberg suggest that many of Manhattan's 1970s social problems could be solved by forbidding anyone who earned less than, say, $10,000 per year to live there. It had not occurred to him, apparently, that this excluded many of the people who worked at the university. — Emanuel Derman

You must learn to hush the demons that whisper, 'No one wants to read this. This has already been said. Your voice doesn't matter.' In the rare moments when the voices finally hush, you might hear the angels singing. — Margaret Feinberg

I live proudly in a body of my own design. I defend my right to be complex — Leslie Feinberg

...wishing I could do everything in my life once as practice, and then go back and do it again. — Leslie Feinberg

More than whimsy, joy is a weapon we use to fight life's battles. — Margaret Feinberg

As we come to the end of ourselves, we open the door to discovering the One who created us anew. The One who can whisper to us who we really are as we pilgrim toward our truest and deepest selves. — Margaret Feinberg

I want to understand about change--I don't just want to be at the mercy of it. I feel like I'm waking up inside. I want to know about history. I have all this new information about people like me down through the ages, but I don't know anything about the ages. — Leslie Feinberg

Whenever God thinks of you, he has your best interests in mind; he has plans to take you further, deeper, and higher than you ever dreamed. This process begins when you seek God and spend time with him. Look for every opportunity to know God. Consider your daily schedule. What does it include? A workout at the gym? A trip to the post office? A lunch hour? A commute? Look for ways to include God in your activities. Invite God to accompany you by talking together. Look for moments- even if it's only ten or twenty seconds- to steal away with him. God will reward your efforts as you reshape your inner life to be focused around him. As you seek God, you will find yourself abiding in him. -Hungry for God — Margaret Feinberg

People of all sexes have the right to explore femininity, masculinity-and the infinite variations between-without criticism or ridicule. — Leslie Feinberg

I reserve my right to be complex. — Leslie Feinberg

My right to be me is tied with a thousand threads to your right to be you. — Leslie Feinberg

It was over Ed's shoulder that I really saw Milli for the first time. She was standing there just looking at me. Ed glanced at Milli and then, like a good friend, Ed walked away.
I have a few mental photographs I can see in my mind's eye. One of them is Milli, hands on her hips, looking me up and down as if the bike and I were one lean machine. Her body language, the gleam in her eyes, the tease in her smile, all combined into an erotic femme challenge. Milli set the action into irresistible motion by lifting on eyebrow. — Leslie Feinberg

The sky was black and strewn with stars. I felt alone on the planet. I was so scared I could hardly breathe. I didn't know where I was headed. I didn't know what to do with my life. I strained to look into my future, trying to picture the road ahead of me, searching for a glimpse of who I would become.
All I could see was the night sky and the stars above me. — Leslie Feinberg

I wanted to thank you. If it wasn't for you, I'd never have known I had a right to be me. — Leslie Feinberg

The seventh day of creation is the most eloquent and insightful as to the nature of God. From a literary perspective, the Sabbath forms the pinnacle of the story. Like the dramatic kiss of a soldier returning from war, this is the moment we're not meant to miss. In choosing rest as the grand finale, God reveals himself as one driven by neither anxiety nor fear but one who finds gladness in both the work of creation and the creation of work. — Margaret Feinberg

I remembered Duffy's challenge. Imagine a world worth living in, a world worth fighting for. I closed my eyes and allowed my hopes to soar — Leslie Feinberg

Surrenderin is unimaginably more dangerous than struggling for survival! — Leslie Feinberg

I kept yelling at them that you were a human being, that you mattered, and it was like they weren't even listening to me. I couldn't do anything to help you and I couldn't make them take care of you the way I wanted, you know?"
I nodded. I did know. And now I knew that Duffy did too. — Leslie Feinberg

I actually chafe at describing myself as masculine. For one thing, masculinity itself is such an expansive territory, encompassing boundaries of nationality, race, and class. Most importantly, individuals blaze their own trails across this landscape. And it's hard for me to label the intricate matrix of my gender as simply masculine.

To me, branding individual self-expression as simply feminine or masculine is like asking poets: Do you write in English or Spanish? The question leaves out the possibilities that the poetry is woven in Cantonese or Ladino, Swahili or Arabic. The question deals only with the system of language that the poet has been taught. It ignores the words each writer hauls up, hand over hand, from a common well. The music words make when finding themselves next to each other for the first time. The silences echoing in the space between ideas. The powerful winds of passion and belief that move the poet to write. — Leslie Feinberg

I'm not saying we'll live to see some sort of paradise. But just fighting for change makes you stronger. Not hoping for anything will kill you for sure. Take a chance, Jess. You're already wondering if the world could change. Try imagining a world worth living in, and then ask yourself if that isn't worth fighting for. You've come too far to give up on hope, Jess. — Leslie Feinberg

God sits enthroned, ready to listen, to help. — Margaret Feinberg

Try to want what you have, instead of spending your strength trying to get what you want." - ABRAHAM L. FEINBERG — Laura Doyle

Are you with women who only bleed monthly on their cycles? — Leslie Feinberg

Gender is the poetry each of us makes out of the language we are taught. — Leslie Feinberg

Joy means holding on to hope in God regardless of the outcome. Declaring we will give up everything and entrust ourselves more fully and wholly to the One who holds all things together. — Margaret Feinberg

Strength, like height, is measured by who you're standin next to! — Leslie Feinberg

And like an echo, God often uses the repetitive events and themes in daily life to get my attention and draw me closer to himself. - The Sacred Echo — Margaret Feinberg

Every day I saw others like me in this city - enough of us to populate our own town. But we only acknowledged each other with a furtive glance, fearful of calling attention to ourselves. Being alone in public was painful enough; two could find themselves smack in the center of an unbearable sideshow. We didn't seem to have any of our own places to gather in community, to immerse ourselves in our own ways and our own languages. — Leslie Feinberg

We need people who will reach out and hold our hands whenever we find ourselves walking in the dark. People who are quick to put our hearts at ease and swift to remind us how much we are loved. These are the friends who refresh us deep down when we need it most. These relationships are gifts worth seeking. Developing flourishing friendships takes time and intentionality, but these become the people who ground us and keep us going. They become peepholes through which we glimpse the kingdom of God, inspiration to become the best possible versions of ourselves even in the most difficult circumstances. — Margaret Feinberg

To understand the seriousness of abortion, one must know the physiology of human development. Ignorance of these facts is in part why mothers are willing to have an abortion and the general public allows abortions on demand. — John S. Feinberg

The journey to joy begins with acceptance. — Margaret Feinberg