A Quote by Shane Claiborne

Philadelphia caught my attention in 1995 when a group of homeless families were living in an abandoned cathedral. Even from the beginning they connected theology with what they were doing. They put a banner on the front of the cathedral that said, "How can we worship a homeless man on Sunday and ignore one on Monday."

Shane Claiborne

Quote Topics

Abandoned Attention Banner Beginning Cathedral Caught Connected Doing Even Families Front Group Homeless How Ignore Living Man Monday Philadelphia Put Said Sunday Theology Were Worship

Quote Author

Shane Claiborne
American - Activist
Born: July 11, 1975

How can we worship a homeless man on Sunday and ignore one on Monday?

Shane Claiborne

A parable: A man was examining the construction of a cathedral. He asked a stone mason what he was doing chipping the stones, and the mason replied, "I am making stones." He asked a stone carver what he was doing. "I am carving a gargoyle." And so it went, each person said in detail what they were doing. Finally he came to an old woman who was sweeping the ground. She said. "I am helping build a cathedral." ...Most of the time each person is immersed in the details of one special part of the whole and does not think of how what they are doing relates to the larger picture.

Richard Hamming

It seemed she was in a cathedral—if, that is, the earth itself were to dream a cathedral into being over thousands of years of water weeping through stone.

Laini Taylor

The arts speak across epochs. If you think that people started to build a cathedral in 1315 and the people worked on that cathedral, it wasn't going to be finished until 1585. So they were thinking 200 years from now. Maybe by the time I die, this wall might be put up.

Wynton Marsalis

For me, I grew up in a house doing charity work for homeless people, and my parents had a lot of homeless friends. We were always taught to not discriminate and not judge.

Shenae Grimes

When I was in Afghanistan in 2007, I went from village to village where refugees had returned, and they were living out in the open under tents, sometimes completely exposed to the environment. And they were homeless, which meant they would lose children in the winter to the cold and in the summers in the extreme heat. It's extremely humiliating for them to be homeless, culturally it's very shameful.

Khaled Hosseini

The information that was contained in a cathedral was based upon a common culture - a common Christian culture - and the elements were chosen for a common symbolic meaning. Someone who knew everything that was represented in a cathedral had a sort of encyclopedia - you can indeed call it that - but it was a selective encyclopedia, like encyclopedias back when they were books and the people writing them were supposed to be specialists in their field. I think today the problem is that people don't know how to choose between different kinds of information.

Eugene Green

At the time me and X met, we weren't homeless, but we were basically homeless.

Ski Mask the Slump God

Put three grains of sand inside a vast cathedral, and the cathedral will be more closely packed with sand than space is with stars.

James Jeans

I went and looked at one of these great cathedrals one day, and I was blown away by it. From there I became interested in how cathedrals were built, and from there I became interested in the society that built the medieval cathedral. It occurred to me at some point that the story of the building of a cathedral could be a great popular novel.

Ken Follett

When you're spending eight to 10 hours out there, the homeless guy is no longer homeless; it's Dave. They become people to you. I think we're really good in this country about saying that they're homeless and, therefore, they don't exist.

Andy Grammer

It's hard being homeless at any age, but at 16 years old? I can't even imagine. When you're a homeless teen, how do you build a future or have any sort of life?

Stacey Dooley

Then a homeless man with a dog approached us and put his hand out. This happens to be something that I have a real problem with: homeless people with pets who approach you for food when they have a perfectly delicious dog standing right there?