First Reformed (2018) · 24 quotes
I have decided to keep a journal. Not in a word program or digital file, but in longhand, writing every word out so that every inflection of penmanship, every word chosen, scratched out, revised, is recorded. To set down all my thoughts and the simple events of my day factually and without hiding anything. When writing about oneself, one should show no mercy. I will keep this diary for one year; 12 months. And at the end of that time, it will be destroyed. Shredded, then burnt. The experiment will be over.
Reverend Ernst Toller
Courage is the solution to despair, reason provides no answers. I can't know what the future will bring; we have to choose despite uncertainty. Wisdom is holding two contradictory truths in our mind, simultaneously, Hope and despair. A life without despair is a life without hope. Holding these two ideas in our head is life itself.
Reverend Ernst Toller
The man who says nothing always seems more intelligent. Why couldn't I just keep silent?
Reverend Ernst Toller
Now Michael, I can promise you that whatever despair you feel about bringing a child into this world cannot equal the despair of taking a child from it.
Reverend Ernst Toller
Will God forgive us for what we're doing to his creation?
Reverend Ernst Toller
Be strong in the Lord and in His mighty power. Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world.
Reverend Ernst Toller
How easily they talk about prayer, those who have never really prayed.
Reverend Ernst Toller
I know what you want, and I can't bear your concern, your constant hovering, your neediness. You are a constant reminder of my own personal inadequacies and failings. You want something that never was and never will be.
Reverend Ernst Toller
These thoughts and recollections are not so different from those I confide to God every morning. When it is possible. When He is listening. This journal is a form of speaking, of communication from one to the other. A communication which can be achieved simply and in repose without prostration or abnegation. It is a form of prayer.
Reverend Ernst Toller
Maybe I shouldn't care about whether people like me. Did Jesus worry about being liked?
Reverend Ernst Toller
Despair is a development of pride so great that it chooses one's certitude rather than admit God is more creative than we are.
Reverend Ernst Toller
Discernment intersects with Christian life at every moment. Discernment. Listening and waiting for God's wish what action must be taken.
Reverend Ernst Toller
The desire to pray itself is a type of prayer. How often we ask for genuine experience when all we really want is emotion.
Reverend Ernst Toller
Every act of preservation is an act of creation. Everything preserved renews creation. It's how we participate in creation.
Michael Mensana
You believe in martyrdom, Reverend?
Reverend Ernst Toller
I'm not sure I know what you mean.
Michael Mensana
The Saints of God, the early Christians who wouldn't renounce their faith? The missionaries who were attacked in the fields of the Lord. Do you believe that they died for a purpose?
Reverend Ernst Toller
I do.
Michael Mensana
Well, every week, activists are killed trying to protect the environment.
Reverend Joel Jeffers
The creation waits in eager expectation of liberation from bondage. That's Romans 8:23. You understand?
Reverend Ernst Toller
So, we should pollute so God can restore? We should sin so God can forgive?
Michael Mensana
Are you a drinking man, Reverend?
Reverend Ernst Toller
It doesn't help.
Reverend Ernst Toller
Well, somebody has to do something! It's the Earth that hangs in the balance.
Reverend Joel Jeffers
Well what if this is His plan? What if we just can't see it?
Reverend Ernst Toller
You think God wants to destroy his creation?
Reverend Joel Jeffers
He did once. For 40 days and 40 nights.
