People are always asking, "Is this person in front of me the same on the inside as he or she appears to be on the outside? Is there congruence between what's within that person and the words and actions I'm viewing and hearing externally?" Children ask that about their parents; students ask it about their teachers; parishioners ask it about their pastors and priests; employees ask it about their bosses; and in a democracy, citizens ask it about their political leaders.

The kind of teaching that transforms people does not happen if the student’s inward teacher is ignored… we can speak to the teacher within our students only when we are on speaking terms with the teacher within ourselves.

The winters will drive you crazy until you learn to get out into them.

What passes for political realism may make for lively academic debates. But it often functions, ironically, as a tool of social control, rendering us passive with an analysis that overwhelms and paralyzes us.

We listen for guidance everywhere except from within.

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

Everybody is on a lifelong journey toward trying to live more deeply. There is nobody who can say, "Well, I've got that one checked off my to-do list." We have to be honest with ourselves about where we are on this journey and about the difficulty of living in our own identities and integrity.