You and I are created for transcendence, laughter, caring. God deliberately did not make the world perfect, for God is looking for you and me to be fellow workers with God.

People are killed because they're gay. I don't think, "What do I want to do today? I want to speak up on gay rights." No. It's God catching me by my neck. I wish I could keep quiet about the plight of the Palestinians. I can't!

There would be those of us who say that in many ways, you worry about what the Jews in Israel are doing to themselves. Yes, they may at the moment have incredible power and are supported almost unconditionally by especially America, but most of the West as well. Yet what they are doing is contrary to the best teaching and highest teachings of their faith.

Is Zionism racism? I would say yes. It's a policy that to me looks like it has very many parallels with racism. The effect is the same. Whether you call it that or not is in a sense irrelevant.

We can enjoy a self-assurance that doesn't depend on the state of things outside ourselves, be it downturns or booms or whatever.

The God who existed before any religion counts on you to make the oneness of the human family known and celebrated.

People want much the same things, but they have been formed by history to have a particular perception of the other.