Overconsumption is a "cancer eating away at our spiritual vitals." It cuts the heart right out of our compassion. It distances us from the great masses of broken bleeding humanity. It converts us into materialists. We become less able to ask moral questions. For example, just because we have the economic muscle to buy up vast amounts of the world's oil, does that give us the right to do so? When the poor farmer of India is unable to buy a gallon of gasoline to run his simple water pump because the world's demand has priced him out of the market, who is to blame?

Owning things is an obsession in our culture. If we own it, we feel we can control it; and if we control it, we feel it will give us more pleasure. The idea is an illusion.

The fruit of solitude is increased sensitivity and compassion for others. There comes a new freedom to be with people. There is new attentiveness to their needs, new responsiveness to their hurts. Thomas Merton observes, 'It is in deep solitude that I find the gentleness with which I can truly love my brothers. The more solitary I am the more affection I have for them.... Solitude and silence teach me to love my brothers for what they are, not for what they say.

In spiritual direction there is absolutely no domination or control.

If worship does not change us it has not been worship.

Goals are discovered, not made.

..the true test of spirituality [is] in the freedom to live among people compassionately....Prayer frees us to be controlled by God.