The kind of "blind obedience" once theologized as the ultimate step to holiness, is itself blind. It blinds a person to the insights and foresight and moral perspective of anyone other than an authority figure.

We need a much broader conversation on what the morality of pro-life is

Hope is not a matter of waiting for things outside of us to get better. It is about getting better inside about what is going on outside.

Getting to know ourselves and learning to control ourselves are the two great tasks of life. Don't make up strange and exotic 'penances.' Simply say no to yourself once a day, and you will be on the road to sanctity for the rest of your life.

I celebrate myself," the poet Walt Whitman wrote. The thought is so delicious it is almost obscene. Imagine the joy that would come with celebrating the self — our achievements, our experiences, our existence. Imagine what it would be like to look into the mirror and say, as God taught us, "That's good.

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

Everything we do seeds the future. No action is an empty one.