Doubt is a difficult animal to master because it requires that we learn the difference between doubt in God and doubting what we believe about God. The former has the potential to destroy faith; the latter has the power to enrich and refine it. The former is a vice;...
I tell my students, "When you get these jobs that you have been so brilliantly trained for, just remember that your real job is that if you are free, you need to free somebody else. If you have some power, then your job is to empower somebody else. This is not just a...
Music has the power of producing a certain effect on the moral character of the soul, and if it has the power to do this, it is clear that the young must be directed to music and must be educated in it.
There is sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are the messengers of overwhelming grief, of deep contrition, and of unspeakable love.
If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. We are not wise, and not very often kind. And much can never be redeemed. Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this...
I am convinced that a community-called-beloved is possible. This is an admittedly fragile possibility, but it is not a utopian dream. I believe that people of good will harbor a persistent hope that our planet can be a place of belonging for all its inhabitants. To...
C. S. Lewis observed that almost all crimes of Christian history have come about when religion is confused with politics. Politics…allures us to trade away grace for power, a temptation the church has often been unable to resist.
Friendship is the reasonable passion for truly human fellowship; it is a mutual affection cemented by loyalty. The more people begin to live with one another as friends, the more privileges and claims to domination become superfluous. The more people trust one...
There are many religions, many beliefs, but only one faith. We can (and must) learn to take our faith more seriously than the beliefs in which that faith has found expression up till now. The present calls for a different expression, if faith is to have a future....
It helps me to remember that Jesus prayed for a miracle on the night before He died. “For you all things are possible,” he prayed to his Abba. “Remove this cup from me.” Only when he opened his eyes the cup was still there. Did he lack faith? I do not think so. The...