When we generate utopian visions and hope to make them happen soon – when we elect Barack Obama and expect all our problems to be solved, and solved quickly, by his presidency – the outcome is both predictable and tragic. That is not the way to engage social change in a democracy. And it is not the way to help democracy itself survive and thrive. Democracy is a non-stop experiment. Each generation must help sustain it, which means being in it day-by-day for the long haul.

As I teach, I project the condition of my soul onto my students, my subject, and our way of being together.

It's more important to be in right relationship than it is to be right.

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

Good teaching cannot be reduced to technique; good teaching comes from the identity and integrity of the teacher.

Violence is what happens when we don't know what else to do with our suffering.

Let’s not forget that American democracy started with ‘We the People’ agreeing to work hard to create ‘a more perfect union.’ We’ve lost the idea that politics begins at home with what happens in families, in neighborhoods, in classrooms, in congregations. We called this democracy into being – and if we want to call this democracy back to its highest values, it’s got to be the us doing that calling. That’s not going to happen if ‘We the People’ don’t know how to talk to one another with civility and hold our differences in a creative, life-giving way.