When I know and accept myself-all my strengths and all my limitations- I am immediately respectful of everyone else because I know they have something beautiful within them that I do not have.

The vision of a culture lies in what becomes its major institutions, in what it remembers as its most impacting events, in who it sees as its heroes.

Imagination begins when it' s raining too hard to go out and play and you become really absorbed in something you would never have thought of doing had the sun come out as usual. In which case, thank God for the rain.

Find the thing that stirs your heart and make room for it

Blind obedience is itself an abuse of human morality. It is a misuse of the human soul in the name of religious commitment. It is a sin against individual conscience. It makes moral children of the adults from whom moral agency is required. It makes a vow, which is meant to require religious figures to listen always to the law of God, beholden first to the laws of very human organizations in the person of very human authorities. It is a law that isn't even working in the military and can never substitute for personal morality.

Compassion for the other comes out of our ability to accept ourselves. Until we realize both our own weaknesses and our own privileges, we can never tolerate lack of status and depth of weakness in the other.

Benedictine spirituality is a consistent one: live life normally, live life thouhtfully, live life profouncly, live life well. Never neglect and never exaggerate. It is a lesson that a world full of cults and fads and workaholics and short courses in difficult subjects needs dearly to learn.