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.

The people who know God well - the mystics, the hermits, those who risk everything to find God - always meet a lover, not a dictator. God is never found to be an abusive father or a tyrannical mother, but always a lover who is more than we dared hope for. How different than the "account manager" that most people seem to worship. God is a lover who receives and forgives everything.

You cannot be naïve about evil. You cannot be naïve to the reality that there are human beings and human situations which have totally identified with the dark side of reality. They are malicious. Realism teaches you to put up appropriate boundaries so that people can't do any more evil than possible. But that doesn't mean you do evil back to them.

Heartbreaks, disappointments and even our own weaknesses can serve as stepping-stones to the second half of life transformation. Failings are the foundation for growth. Those who have fallen, failed or 'gone down' are the only ones who understand 'up.'

There is a part of you that is Love itself, and that is what we must fall into. It is already there. Once you move your identity to that level of deep inner contentment, you will realize you are drawing upon a Life that is much larger than your own and from a deeper abundance.

Sacramental listening reminds us that current suffering isn't the end of the story. God loves us deeply, and the vision for the future is vaster and more magnificent than we could ever imagine. In these moments of profound human presence, we are awakened to the divine presence and see that the kingdom of God is coming and yet is already here.

I think it's almost necessary for most people to have the freedom to pull back, and then re-enter at an adult level, where they are neither playing the victim nor creating victims, but just participating in calm, adult behavior. Because an awful lot of churches just aren't there at adult Christianity, this seems to be the norm anymore.