Sojourner Quotes

“Where there is so much racket, there must be something out of kilter”
― Sojourner Truth, The Narrative of Sojourner Truth

“Even the juncture in history and the zeitgeist we live in is something we choose, setting the scene for the spiritual fodder we need to grow and achieve deeper elevation of our souls.”
― Raquel Cepeda, Bird of Paradise: How I Became Latina

“What emerged for me as purpose was the search for and cultivation of possibilities for experiencing meaningful human transactions in different languages and across cultural differences through play, sports, travel, food, literature, and conversation. I sought to establish relations of mutual understanding and love with people no matter what their culture or place of origin in the world—relations based on philia, eros, and agape, according to context and persons. I perhaps sensed instinctively that such relations were the key to being equally at home everywhere, even in la Yunai. More than an immigrant, at that time I still felt myself to be a sojourner in this country, but I wanted my sojourn to be imbued with the meaning found in earnest, sincere connections with the people and places that life brought to my experience.”
― Daniel G. Campos, Loving Immigrants in America: An Experiential Philosophy of Personal Interaction

“Because we cannot repair the loss of years away, homecomings are almost always conflicted. We are not longer at "home" in our former familiar place. And we do not live between two or more cultures, but rather in both. We are neither fully away, nor fully home.

In the pain of this tension, there is a strange blessing, a nudge that helps us to realise the fundamental sojourner status of our human existence. Life moves towards death. And for the Christian, there is the sense that this world as it is now is not our final home. Having made the return, our pilgrim status in the journey of faith becomes even more evident. This reminds us that in some strange way we are too early for heaven and too late for this world.”
― Charles Ringma, Sabbath Time: a hermitage journey of retreat, return & communion