We shortchange ourselves by regarding religious faith as a matter of intellectual assent. This is a modern aberration; the traditional Christian view is far more holistic, regarding faith as a whole-body experience. Sometimes it is, as W.H. Auden described it, 'a matter of choosing what is difficult all one's days as if it were easy.

Wariness about change is a kind of prairie wisdom.

Prayer is not asking for what you think you want, but asking to be changed in ways you can't imagine.

We can't give our children the future, strive though we may to make it secure. But we can give them the present.

To be an American is to move on, as if we could outrun change. To attach oneself to place is to surrender to it, and suffer with it.

Spring seems far off, impossible, but it is coming. Already there is dusk instead of darkness at five in the afternoon; already hope is stirring at the edges of the day.

In spite of the cost of living, it's still popular.