Nadia Bolz-Weber Quote

There are times when the truth won’t let us go. Sure, I can avoid other people’s scrutiny by telling my bullshit side of the story over and over to anyone who will listen. But I know the truth. And sometimes it all catches up with me at night as I lie in bed — in that not-quite-awake and not-quite-asleep place. In those moments, my ego is turned off, perhaps for the only time all day. In that consciousness-minus-ego state, the truth fights past the layers of food and entertainment and all the other distractions I shovel on top of it and, unbidden, crawls its way back up into my thoughts. Does everyone have these moments? I wondered aloud to Caitlin. Perhaps some feel their errors in life aren’t bad enough to fret over, or perhaps they’ve built enough protective layers around their ego that they have successfully avoided feeling shamed by their secrets altogether. But like Matt Damon’s character in the film Good Will Hunting, if they were confronted with limitless and repetitive grace, like that offered by the counselor Robin Williams played, they’d eventually crack. Not because they should, but because we all do. Right? Because we are all burdened by the ugly things we’ve done and continue to do.

Nadia Bolz-Weber

There are times when the truth won’t let us go. Sure, I can avoid other people’s scrutiny by telling my bullshit side of the story over and over to anyone who will listen. But I know the truth. And sometimes it all catches up with me at night as I lie in bed — in that not-quite-awake and not-quite-asleep place. In those moments, my ego is turned off, perhaps for the only time all day. In that consciousness-minus-ego state, the truth fights past the layers of food and entertainment and all the other distractions I shovel on top of it and, unbidden, crawls its way back up into my thoughts. Does everyone have these moments? I wondered aloud to Caitlin. Perhaps some feel their errors in life aren’t bad enough to fret over, or perhaps they’ve built enough protective layers around their ego that they have successfully avoided feeling shamed by their secrets altogether. But like Matt Damon’s character in the film Good Will Hunting, if they were confronted with limitless and repetitive grace, like that offered by the counselor Robin Williams played, they’d eventually crack. Not because they should, but because we all do. Right? Because we are all burdened by the ugly things we’ve done and continue to do.

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About Nadia Bolz-Weber

Nadia Bolz-Weber (born April 22, 1969) is an American author, Lutheran minister and public theologian. She served as the founding pastor of House for All Sinners and Saints, a congregation of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America in Denver, Colorado, until July 8, 2018.
Bolz-Weber is known for her unusual approach to reaching others through her church. She has produced work in the church that scholar and writer Diana Butler Bass considers part of "a new Reformation".