The sad things that happened long ago will always remain part of who we are, just as the glad and gracious things will, too, but instead of being a burden of guilt, recrimination, and regret that make us constantly stumble as we go, even the saddest things can become,...
We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.
When you are young, I think, your hearing is in some ways better than it is ever going to be again. You hear better than most people the voices that call to you out of your own life to give yourself to this work or that work. When you are young, before you accumulate...
Sometimes I just want it to stop. Talk of COVID, looting, brutality. I lose my way. I become convinced that this “new normal” is real life. Then I meet an 87-year-old who talks of living through polio, diphtheria, Vietnam protests and yet is still enchanted with life....
The only clear line I draw these days is this: When my religion tries to come between me and my neighbor, I will choose my neighbor. …Jesus never commanded me to love my religion.
If you’re going to care about the fall of the sparrow you can’t pick and choose who’s going to be the sparrow. It’s everybody, and you’re stuck with it. from The Arm of the Starfish
Prayer is sitting in the silence until it silences us, choosing gratitude until we are grateful, and praising God until we ourselves are an act of praise.
Who God is and how big God is does not change with our acknowledgment or ignorance of God. What changes is the size of our life and our environment and our hope. Take God for granted and your world shrinks. Get a glimpse of who God is and your universe expands....
God is not ashamed of the lowliness of human beings. God marches right in. He chooses people as his instruments and performs his wonders where one would least expect them. God is near to lowliness; he loves the lost, the neglected, the unseemly the excluded, the weak...