"There is nothing that is not spiritual for those who have learned how to see."
"Life has taught us that love does not consist of gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction."
"The logic of worldly success rests on a fallacy: the strange error that our perfection depends on the thoughts and opinions of other men!"
"I write for the unlearned about things in which I am unlearned myself… It often happens that two schoolboys can solve difficulties in their work for one another better than the master can… The fellow-pupil can help more than the master because he knows less. The difficulty we want him to explain is one he has recently met. The expert met it so long ago that he has forgotten… I write as one amateur to another, talking about difficulties I have met, or lights I have gained…"
“If you perceive the universe as being a universe of abundance, then it will be. If you think of the universe as one of scarcity, then it will be.”
“We find what we are looking for. If we are looking for life and love and openness and growth, we are likely to find them. If we are looking for witchcraft and evil, we’ll likely find them, and we may get taken over by them.”
"We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere. When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant. Wherever men or women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must—at that moment—become the center of the universe."
"You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read."
"The task is not to find the lovable object, but to find the object before you lovable—whether given or chosen—and to be able to continue finding this one lovable, no matter how that person changes. To love is to love the person one sees."
"When you begin to see that your enemy is suffering, that is the beginning of insight."
"Every man's life lies within the present; for the past is spent and done with, and the future is uncertain."
"Relationship is the fundamental truth of this world of appearance."
"When you're accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression."
"I am beginning to now see how radically the character of my spiritual journey will change when I no longer think of God as hiding out and making it as difficult as possible for me to find him, but, instead, as the One who is looking for me while I am doing the hiding."
"Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards."
"Time and space are modes by which we think and not conditions in which we live."
In the Bible, we read of encounters with God by ancient peoples, in their times and places, asking their questions, and expressed in language and ideas familiar to them. Those encounters with God were, I believe, genuine, authentic, and real. . . . All of us on a journey of faith encounter God from our point of view. . . we meet God as people defined by our moment in the human drama, products of who, where, and when we are. We ask our questions of God and encounter God in our time and place in language and ideas familiar to us, just like the ancient pilgrims of faith who gave us the Bible. . . . This Bible, which preserves ancient journeys of faith, models for us our own journeys. We recognize something of ourselves in the struggles, joys, triumphs, confusions, and despairs expressed by the biblical writers."
"We’ve got to let the awkwardness be there. Then we see God on the street corner and we see God in the people who look like they’re not having the best day. We see God over and over and over again until we realize that what we’re seeing is ourselves. We wouldn’t have the capacity to see God if that wasn’t who we are in every moment, every day."