Quotes by David C. Taylor

“Because of that, just days after taking office as prime minister, Churchill was preparing for the ultimate emergency – the potential loss of most of the British army. The War Minister Anthony Eden had already announced the formation of the Home Guard, and asked able-bodied men to come forward. A huge number did so. Later that same evening (14 May), the BBC had broadcast this announcement: “The Admiralty have made an order directing the owners of self-propelled pleasure craft between thirty and one hundred feet in length to send all particulars to the Admiralty within fourteen days from today, if they have not already been offered or requisitioned. By this day, five days later, retired Rear Admiral Alfred Taylor had been given powers to collect and pay crews of small craft which might be used by navy, and was gathering them at Sheerness in the Thames estuary. The man in charge of finding the ships, H. C. Riggs, was now sleeping at the offices of the Ministry of Shipping in Berkeley Square, one of the administrative heroes of Dunkirk, and was collecting information on small ships that might be available and holding them in port. The clerks at the Admiralty were printing copies of form T124, which signed people up for 90 days short service in the navy.””

“Anna,’ her face softens, ‘you had a hell of a day yesterday with … with what happened to David. We want you to take it easy today. I know you’re in charge and we’re the guests but we’re all human. You need time to grieve. And sleep.””

“And while poets are "always telling us that grass is green, or thunder loud, or lips red," as C. S. Lewis once quipped, they are also always telling us that green is than merely green, thunder than simply loud, and lips red. This is another way of saying that the world is more than just empirically classifiable stuff. It is -full stuff. It is stuff that deserves our precious time and our loving attention. Poetry slows us down enough to give God's world the attention it deserves.””

“The psalmists see structural injustice within society, where Christians, perhaps especially evangelicals in the West, may see only personal guilt. The psalmists see wickedness that pervades institutions and cultures, while Christians may see only the need for the forgiveness of individual sins.The psalmists see powerless people who are oppressed by the powerful, and so they pray for justice (Pss. 37; 82; 11); Christians see only Psalm 51 with its plea for mercy. Writes C. S. Lewis, "Christians cry to God for mercy instead of justice; [the psalmists] cried to God for justice instead of injustice."It isn't that mercy and justice are opposed in the Psalter; they belong together intimately, integrally. But while many Christians give justice half the attention they give to mercy, the Psalter devotes twice as much space to justice as it does to mercy. This is not because mercy matters less than justice but because a world that violates justice violates God's fundamental purposes for that world.””