The word baptism means derailment. Christ baptizes Peter on the rock when he tells him: "Because you confessed your love for me, your life is no longer your own. Before you said this, you fastened your belt and you walked wherever you liked. Now, others will put a belt around you and take you where you would rather not go." To submit to love is to be baptized, that is, to let one's life be forever interrupted. To not let one's life be interrupted is to say no to love

We prepare to die by pushing ourselves to love less narrowly. In that sense, readying ourselves for death is really an ever-widening entry into life.

A healthy soul must do two things for us. First, it must put some fire in our veins, keep us energized, vibrant, living with zest and full of hope as we sense that life is, ultimately beautiful and worth living ... Second, a healthy soul has to keep us fixed together. It has to continually give us a sense of who we are, where we came from, where we are going, and what sense there is in all of this.

Grace, not willpower, is what ultimately empowers us to live loving lives. Creativity, both in what spawns within the artist and the artifact, can be a vital source of that grace.

You feel your own life - your heart, your mind, your body, your sexuality, the people and things you are connected to - and you spontaneously fill with the exclamation: "God, it feels great to be alive!" That's delight.

Every choice is a thousand renunciations. To choose one thing is to turn one's back on many others.

Becoming like Jesus is as much as about having a relaxed and joyful heart as it is about believing and doing the right thing, as much about proper energy as about proper truth.