Living the gospel, then, is less about “thinking outside the box” than about choosing to live in this ever-widening circle of inclusion.

Our sense of God always beckons us us to grow, to reimagine something wildly more breathtaking than where our imagination generally takes us.

The wrong idea has taken root in the world. And the idea is this: there just might be some lives out there that matter less than other lives.

Part of the spirit dies a little each time its asked to carry more than its weight in terror, violence, and betrayal.

Now is always vast and new. Like any practice, it’s not about technique or program. It’s a decision.

Our culture is hostile only to the inauthentic living of the gospel.

The discovery that awaits us is that paradise is contained in the here and now.

They say that an educated inmate will not reoffend. This is not because an education assures that this guy will get hired somewhere. It is because his view is larger and more educated, so that he can be rejected at ninety-three job interviews and still not give up. He’s acquired resilience.

Generosity in Buddhism is to be relieved of the “stain of stinginess.

It’s when we face for a moment the worst our kind can do, and shudder to know the taint in our own selves, that awe cracks the mind’s shell and enters the heart. – Denise Levertov.