St. Francis of Assisi taught me that there is a wound in the Creation and that the greatest use we could make of our lives was to ask to be made a healer of it.

I am a weak and sinful man, but God put His hands on me, that is all.

I have always found that actively loving saves one from a morbid preoccupation with the shortcomings of society.

Although nothing has come yet, something is here already.

Now God be thanked that the name of a hill is such music, that the name of a river can heal.

Pain and suffering, they are a secret. Kindness and love, they are a secret. But I have learned that kindness and love can pay for pain and suffering.

But perhaps when you were too obedient, and did not do openly what others did, and were quiet in church and hard-working at school, then some unknown rebellion brewed in you, doing harm to you, though how I do not understand.