Amidst the swirl of life's challenges, fears, and even moments of crisis, I make time to gaze at the night sky to see the vastness there, And to remember that this moment in time is but a flicker— Not an inconsequential flicker— For what I do and think now does matter. My work, though, is to let...

The wellspring of decency is loving this life in which people die, people suffer, there are limits, and we make mistakes. The wellspring, then, of moral action is not utopia, not a counterfactual vision, not a declaration that the world could and should be otherwise....

Inexplicable. How we rise each morning, instead of burying our heads under bedcovers, sewing them shut. Why we keep on welcoming babies with bone-deep joy to this sordid world. How we fill burlap sacks with grit and gratitude, our hands shredded as we drag one over the other....

Waiting is a window opening on many landscapes. For some, waiting means the cessation of all activity when energy is gone and exhaustion is all that the heart can manage. It is the long, slow panting of the spirit. For some, waiting is a time of intense preparation for the next leg of the journey.

We all have two religions: the religion we talk about and the religion we live. It is our task to make the difference between the two as small as possible.

O Source of life and love, Torn by desires to sit back and to enjoy the beauty of the world— to savor the blue skies and gentle days— and by desires to recast the world and to fight its evils— to save the world... Torn by all those things that hurt and confuse and make no sense amid beauty—...