One of the hardest things we must do sometimes is to be present to another person's pain without trying to "fix" it, to simply stand respectfully at the edge of that person's mystery and misery.

Mentoring is a mutuality that requires more than meeting the right teacher: the teacher must meet the right student.

The highest form of love is the love that allows for intimacy without the annihilation of difference.

We continually make decisions in private which affect the commonweal, as the ecologists (to take but one example) have shown us. When I keep my house warmer than it needs to be, I consume fuel which might help someone else keep warm, or keep a job. When the food I eat is high on the protein chain I contribute to a maldistribution of protein around the world. When I teach my children to be primarily concerned with private gain, I diminish the ranks of public leadership in the rising generation.

Good teachers join self and subject and students in the fabric of life.

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.

You don't become a good teacher by applying techniques; you don't become a good teacher by using the latest hot methodologies that are being promoted in this or that handbook.