Compassion makes no distinction between friends and enemies, neighbors and outsiders, compatriots and foreigners. Compassion is the gate to human community.

The human race sees with one eye, the male eye; hears with one ear, the male ear; and thinks with one half the human mind, the male mind. And the decisions we are making show we are not bringing to the agendas, and the questions and the problems of the world, all the resources of the world to solve them.

Sometimes we exclude things in ourselves in order to be like everybody else around us-our ethnicity, our social backgrounds, our ideas. What kind of world is it that will not allow me to be myself, and is it really good for me to be there? What part of me will die a slow death if I stay?

Peace comes from living a measured life. Peace comes from attending to every part of my world in a sacramental way. My relationships are not what I do when I have time left over from my work. . . . Reading is not something I do when life calms down. Prayer is not something I do when I feel like it. They are all channels of hope and growth for me. They must all be given their due.

A hard heart makes for hard judgments; a compassionate heart understands the humanity of the one we presume to judge.

No one finds time for prayer. You either take time for it or you don't get it.

We are each called to go through life reclaiming the planet an inch at a time until the Garden of Eden grows green again.