Hauerwas Again

Writing is hard and difficult work because to write is to think. I do not have an idea and then find a way to express it. The expression is the idea. So I write because writing is the only way I know how to think. I write, moreover, because I have something to say. That I have something to say. That I have something to say is not a personal achievement. I have something to say because I am a Christian. I also have readers who obligated to care about what I write. They are called Christians. What an extraordinary gift. Audience makes all the difference. I am an academic, but I do not have to write only for other academics. I write for a people who, no matter how ambiguous the identification "Christian" may be, think that what theologians say should matter. I believe that God has given me something to say. I have been given the work of trying to imagine what it means to be Christian in a world that Christians do not control.

Stanley Hauerwas, Hannah's Child, p.235.

And also his prayer (wrote after few weeks following Sep 11, 2001:

To go on "as though nothing has happened" surely requires us to acknowledge that you are God and we are not. It is hard to remember that Jesus did not come to make us safe, but rather he came to make us disciples, citizens of your new age, a kingdom of surprise. 

ibid. p.267.