Usually if you pray from the heart, you get an answer—the phone rings or the mail comes, and light gets in through the cracks, so you can see the next right thing to do. That’s all you need.

... the reason life works at all is that not everyone in your tribe is nuts on the same day. [pp. 65-66]

It's good to do uncomfortable things. It's weight training for life.

Teenagers who do not go to church are adored by God, but they don't get to meet some of the people who love God back.

Certainty is missing the point entirely.

When we did art with the kids, the demons would lie down.

A good marriage is supposed to be one where each spouse secretly thinks he or she got the better deal.

Only God can put Scripture inside. But reading sacred text can put it on your hearts, and then when your hearts break, the holy words will fall inside.

Prayer usually means praise, or surrender, acknowledging that you have run out of bullets.

First find a path, and a little light to see by. Then push up your sleeves and start helping.

It gets darker and darker, and then Jesus is born.” That line came back to me, from out of nowhere, and I decided to practice radical hope, hope in the face of not having a clue.

The water doesn't know how old you are.

People don't resist change. They resist being changed.

All of us, the great and the little have need of each other.

Like all born politicians, their eye was for the main chance rather than for the argument, and they found it easier to forswear a conviction than to forego a comfort.

I give them the head, choke them, hit them in the balls.You'rehting, not playing the piano, you know

Good-looking people are always looking for other good-looking people.

It's to be expected that you make mistakes when you're breaking new ground.

I still love red velvet cake.

Lakes, rivers, streams...all are water and all travel to the same destination. So it is with religion.

The resurrection confronts our world with wonder, mystery, and miracles.