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.

Over and over again mediocrity is promoted because real worth isn't to be found.

This is a God who is not identified with the help of a dictionary but through a relationship.

They are fruit and transport: ripening melons, prairie schooners journeying under full sail.

If grace is so wonderful, why do we have such difficulty recognizing and accepting it? Maybe it's because grace is not gentle or made-to-order. It often comes disguised as loss, or failure, or unwelcome change.

The very nature of marriage means saying yes before you know what it will cost. Though you may say the “I do” of the wedding ritual in all sincerity, it is the testing of that vow over time that makes you married.

To eat in a monastery refectory is an exercise in humility; daily, one is reminded to put communal necessity before individual preference. While consumer culture speaks only to preferences, treating even whims as needs to be granted (and the sooner the better), monastics sense that this pandering to delusions of self-importance weakens the true self, and diminishes our ability to distinguish desires from needs. It's a price they're not willing to pay.