When we refuse to have nuanced conversations about deeply complex issues and choose instead to impose our narrow categories of right and wrong upon others, we become incapable of ever moving forward to work together for a better world. We must do better.
For the past eighty years I have started each day in the same manner. It is not a mechanical routine but something essential to my daily life. I go to the piano, and I play two preludes and fugues of Bach. I cannot think of doing otherwise. It is a sort of benediction...
A mosaic consists of thousands of little stones. Each of us is like a little stone, but together we reveal the face of God to the world.
It is clear that the nations of the world now can only rise and fall together. It is not a question of one nation winning at the expense of another. We must all help one another or all perish together.
The world needs strong women. Women who will lift and build others, who will love and be loved. Women who live bravely, both tender and fierce. Women of indomitable will.
When our theology and politics as Christians is completely preoccupied with how other people might be sinning rather than how our own sin contributes to the problems of our world, that is when we know our religion is about control rather than redemption.
A man stands before God, his heart breaking from the pain and injustice in the world. "Dear God," he cries, "look at all the suffering, the anguish, and distress in your world. Why don't you send help?" God responds, "I did send help. I sent you."
You will achieve more in this world through acts of mercy than you will through acts of retribution.
Half the world is composed of people who have something to say and can't, and the other half who have nothing to say and keep on saying it.
I understand now that I'm not a mess, but a deeply feeling person in a messy world. I explain that now, when someone asks me why I cry so often. I say, "for the same reason I laugh so often--because I'm paying attention."