The inner life of any great thing will be incomprehensible to me until I develop and deepen an inner life of my own.

... the stranger is not a threat but an opportunity to grow in my view of reality, to grow in my own sense of possibility

I think the church needs to be much more countercultural than that and invite people into slowing down, into a "Be-still-and-know-that-I-am-God" mindset.

Whoever our students may be, whatever the subject we teach, ultimately we teach who we are.

I understand that there are forms of entertainment that can make people weep or jazz them up so they feel like they have had an experience. But I also know that an hour later that's faded and you are back to the difficult realities of your own life. And we need to help people know how to go beyond those difficulties to a place where God dwells.

Teaching like any truly human activity emerges from one's inwardness.

We can teach a good, formal lesson on forgiveness as a Christian virtue and all the doctrines that are attached to it. But to be in a real-life situation, a work camp or a trip or some other activity with young people where real forgiveness needs to happen, that's a different situation altogether. And that is where the deepest learning will occur.