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

Disconnecting from change does not recapture the past. It loses the future.

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

I sense that striving for wholeness is, increasingly, a countercultural goal, as fragmented people make for better consumers.

But hope has an astonishing resilience and strength. Its very persistence in our hearts indicates that it is not a tonic for wishful thinkers but the ground on which realists stand.

When I was a child, it was a matter of pride that I could plow through a Nancy Drew story in one afternoon, and begin another in the evening. . . . I was probably trying to impress the librarians who kept me supplied with books.

Pay close attention to objects, events and natural phenomenon that would otherwise get chewed up in the daily grind.