Religion was made to order to "save the world," to use a phrase Christians use so much, but we really haven't been doing a good job of it for centuries. It's heartbreaking really.

every time God forgives us, God is saying that God's own rules do not matter as much as the relationship that God wants to create with us.

Maturity is the ability to joyfully live in an imperfect world.

One time, a Protestant minister said, "We made Jesus blonde haired and blue eyed and very cute. We made Jesus somehow a much more feminine figure." And there's probably truth to that.

I cannot illustrate huge differences between male and female spiritualities except in their starting points, style and fascinations along the way. This is significant, however, and has huge pastoral implications: men must be challenged in the world of doing; women must be challenged in the world of relating.

Everything has to be understood in opposition to something else. For some dang reason, the ego prefers to make one side better than the other, so we choose. And we decide males are better than females, America is better than Canada, Democrats are better than Republicans. And for most people, once this decision is made, it is amazing the amount of blindness they become capable of. They really don't see what's right in front of them. Once you see this, it's an amazing breakthrough, and that is the starting place for moving away from dualistic thinking.

When I choose the title [for my book], which was my favorite title, I felt sure there was going to be a dozen books maybe with that name already because it's so obvious to me that that's the message. I was surprised it hasn't been the title of a single book. Well, there is a Shel Silverstein children's book called Falling Upwards. But no one has chosen Falling Upward as a title and I'm very happy it's right on the cover.