Compassion also brings us into the territory of mystery - encouraging us not just to see beauty, but perhaps also to look for the face of God in the moment of suffering, in the face of a stranger, in the face of the vibrant religious other.

The things that go wrong for you have a lot of potential to become part of your gift to the world.

For every shrill and violent voice that throws itself in front of microphones and cameras in the name of God, there are countless lives of gentleness and good works who will not. We need to see and hear them, as well, to understand the whole story of religion in our world.

Depression can kill you. It can also be a spiritually enriching experience. It's really an important part of my theology now and my spirituality that life is not perfect, and I grew up wanting it to be and thinking that if it wasn't, I could make it that way, and I had to acknowledge that I had all kinds of flaws and sadnesses and problems.

In many ways, religion comes from the same place in us that art comes from. The language of the human heart if poetry

[Kindness] is a most edifying form of instant gratification.

Tolerance is not really a lived virtue; it’s more of a cerebral ascent.