February 2021 Touchstones Ministry Theme: Mercy
February 1: “Every one of us is, in the cosmic perspective, precious. If a human disagrees with you, let him live. In a hundred billion galaxies, you will not find another.” ~ Carl Sagan
February 2: “And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” ~ Micah 6:8
February 3: “Religion carries two sorts of people in two entirely opposite directions: the mild and gentle people it carries towards mercy and justice; the persecuting people it carries into fiendish, sadistic cruelty.” ~ Alfred North Whitehead
February 4: “The world will give you that once in a while, a brief timeout; the boxing bell rings and you go to your corner, where somebody dabs mercy on your beat-up life.” ~ Sue Monk Kidd
February 5: “Rats and roaches live by competition under the laws of supply and demand; it is the privilege of human beings to live under the laws of justice and mercy.” ~ Wendell Berry
February 6: “Mercy, I think, doesn’t the human race know anything about mercy?” ~ Charles Bukowski
February 7: “10 percent of any population is cruel, no matter what, and 10 percent is merciful, no matter what, and the remaining 80 percent can be moved in either direction.” ~ Susan Sontag
February 8: “The longer I live, the more I read, the more patiently I think, and the more anxiously I inquire, the less I seem to know…. Do justly. Love mercy. Walk humbly. This is enough.” ~ John Adams
February 9: “Only the man who has had to face despair is really convinced that he needs mercy. Those who do not want mercy never seek it. …A life that is without problems may literally be more hopeless than one that always verges on despair.” ~ Thomas Merton
February 10: “For Mercy has a human heart / Pity, a human face: / And Love, the human form divine, / And Peace, the human dress.” ~ William Blake
February 11: “I don’t ever want to live in a world where something like mercy…or maybe it’s compassion…is the wrong choice.” ~ Jonathan Maberry
February 12: “…and Heaven have mercy on us all—Presbyterians and Pagans alike—for we are all somehow dreadfully cracked about the head, and sadly need mending.” ~ Herman Melville
February 13: “Blessed are the merciful: for every act of love and caring is returned to us one hundred-fold. A universal law of every human philosophy teaches us to love our neighbor as we would ourselves be loved.” ~ Jeff Liebmann
February 14: “To protect what is wild is to protect what is gentle. Perhaps the wilderness we fear is the pause between our own heartbeats, the silent space that says we live only by grace. Wilderness lives by this same grace. Wild mercy is in our hands.” ~ Terry Tempest Williams
February 15: “Mercy is the stuff you give to people that don’t deserve it.” ~ Joyce Meyer
February 16: “We have not yet encountered any god who is as merciful as a man who flicks a beetle over on its feet.” ~ Annie Dillar
February 17: “Your heart has to be prepared ahead of time through faith and prayer and grace and mercy and love and forgiveness so you can keep your heart open in hell, when hell happens.” ~ Richard Rohr
February 18: “Grace accepts a person as someone worthy of kindness despite whatever grime or hard-shell casing keeps him or her separated from the rest of the world. Grace is a gift of tender mercy when it makes the least sense.” ~ Charles R. Swindoll
February 19: “Computers are like Old Testament gods; lots of rules and no mercy.” ~ Joseph Campbell
February 20: “Two things in life are infinite; the stupidity of man and the mercy of God.” ~ G.I. Gurdjief
February 21: “Do not just seek happiness for yourself. Seek happiness for all. Through kindness. Through mercy.” ~ David Levithan
February 22: “To show mercy is not naïve. To hold out against the end of hope is not stupidity or madness. It is fundamentally human. …You may think I’m stupid, you may call me a madman and a fool, but at least I stand upright in a fallen world.” ~ Rick Yancey
February 23: “Be grateful for small mercies.” ~ Alexandra Adornetto
February 24: “Those who feel no need for mercy usually never seek it and almost never bestow it.” ~ Jeffery R. Holland
February 25: “I have always found that mercy bears richer fruits than strict justice.” ~ Abraham Lincoln
February 26: “To be able to laugh and to be merciful are the only things that make man better than the beast.” ~ Ruskin Bond
February 27: “That’s what mercy is… it’s choosing to help, or forgive, or love even when it goes against all logic.” ~ Laura Anderson Kurk
February 28: “My father always told me that in this world we are going to make a truckload of mistakes, but the best mistake we can ever make is to err on the side of mercy.” ~ Joan Bauer
Bonus Day: “You are merciful… when you forgive in others the faults you condemn in yourself.” ~ Nikhil Saluja
Bonus Day: “I believe in peace. I believe in mercy.” ~ Malala Yousafzai
Bonus Day: “Love, Mercy, and Grace, sisters all, attend your wounds of silence and hope.” ~ Aberjhani