To affirm a person is to see the good in them that they cannot see in themselves and to repeat it in spite of appearances to the contrary. Please, this is not some Pollyanna optimism that is blind to the reality of evil, but rather like a fine radar system that is tuned in to the true, the good, and the beautiful.

Though it is true that the church must always dissociate itself from sin, it can never have any excuse for keeping any sinner at a distance.

In every encounter we either give life or we drain it; there is no neutral exchange.

The temptation of the age is to look good without being good.

None of us has ever seen a motive. Therefore, we don't know we can't do anything more than suspect what inspires the action of another. For this good and valid reason, we're told not to judge. Tragedy is that our attention centers on what people are not, rather than on what they are and who they might become.

To lend each other a hand when we're falling, perhaps that's the only work that matters in the end.

One of my realizations in such an earthy atmosphere was that many of the burning theological issues in the church were neither burning nor theological.