The Gospel is not a fire insurance policy for the next world, but a life assurance policy for this world.

The gift of darkness draws you to know God’s presence beyond what thought, imagination, or sensory feeling can comprehend.

When you do the first half of life well, you have a good sense of yourself. Most of our mainline Christian denominations, in my opinion, don't do the first or second halves very well. We don't really give people a good container, we give them a bunch of legalisms.

Nature religions, for example, speak of summer, fall, winter, and spring. They see the downward path as the necessary prelude to any kind of upward path again. Our vocabulary is different. We Christians speak of the death and resurrection of Jesus. But unfortunately, we've projected it all onto Jesus and it didn't become a life agenda for the rest of us.

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

The same powerful Scripture text that brings a loving person to even greater love will be mangled and misused by a fearful or egocentric person. This is surely what Jesus means when he talks about the one who has being given more and those who have not losing what little they have.

Metaphor is the only possible language available to religion because it alone is honest about Mystery.