God did His most magnificent work while Adam was asleep. This episode contains and important insight: When man rests, God works.

The "hole in the moral ozone" is really what's behind the hole in the ozone.

Old Lights include the resurgent fundamentalists in every religion who put a freeze on history and fortify their adherents against the "new dark age" in which they are forced to live. "Back to the Bible," Old Lights shout; "back to the Koran," Old Lights thunder. But not everything Old Lights say is wrong. Much is right. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day, the old adage reminds us.

It would not do for the consumer to know that the hamburger she is eating came from a steer who spent much of his life standing deep in his own excrement in a feedlot, helping to pollute the local streams. Or that the calf that yielded the veal cutlet on her plate spent its life in a box in which it did not have room to turn around. Wendell Berry, "The Pleasures of Eating," What Are People For?, 1989 Jesus pioneered a relationship ethic based on compassion. Being a disciple means building relationships - with the Creator and with all creation and creatures.

The church must provide postmoderns with an alternity of rituals by which they can turn and tune to one another and feel connected to the cosmos.

The teachings of Jesus begin in story and end in symbol - they begin in parable and end in us. These are not Bible stories that we learn; these are our stories.

I only want to write one thing over the doorpost to my heart and life: “Jesus Christ lives here.