Prayer is not about changing God, but being willing to let God change us.

Christianity is a lifestyle - a way of being in the world that is simple, non-violent, shared, and loving. However, we made it into an established "religion" (and all that goes with that) and avoided the lifestyle change itself. One could be warlike, greedy, racist, selfish, and vain in most of Christian history, and still believe that Jesus is one's "personal Lord and Savior" . . . The world has no time for such silliness anymore. The suffering on Earth is too great.

To keep the middle coming back, you can't say some radically conservative or radically progressive things. That's been the bane of organized religion. It makes me wonder if Jesus' first definition of the church as "two or three gathered in my name" is not still the best way.

When 'happiness' eludes us - as, eventually, it always will - we have the invitation to examine our programmed responses and to exercise our power to choose again.

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.

If God continues to give me health and a sane mind and verbal ability, I want to teach.

Many people I know who are doing truly helpful and healing ministry find their primary support from a couple of enlightened friends, and only secondarily, if at all, from the larger organizations.