Compassion is the ability to understand how difficult it is for people to be the best of what they want to be at all times.

In scripture God brings the animals to the human for naming. In that simple act the human is brought to recognize the particular personality and worth of each living creature. Too bad we forget so often.

Too many times we insist on loving people the way we want to love them instead of the way they need to be loved.

Fear is not the opposite of courage. Fear is the catalyst of courage.

When I get on the internet and hide behind a false identity, and then allow that hiding to free me from the standards of decency, to begin to use language I would never use in front of my mother, all of a sudden, there's nothing between me and you, but worse than that, there's nothing between me and my worst self.

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.

To be enlightened is to know that heaven is not "coming." Heaven is here.