Lent is a time to renew wherever we are in that process that I call the divine therapy. It's a time to look what our instinctual needs are, look at what the dynamics of our unconscious are.

We're obviously at the edge of something quite new in humanity's experience. That is this globalization process which isn't just economic or social, but involves the interpenetration of cultures, people moving to different places several times in their lifetime, traveling for business or pleasure, and marrying people of very different cultural backgrounds, all of which was almost impossible a hundred years ago.

All religions proclaim the advantages of peace, loving one another, and "doing to others what we would like them to do to us."

The best way to understand another person's religion is to listen to the story of what particular practices helped them to deepen and to embody their religion, especially its spirituality.

Science and technology has tried to offer an alternative to religion by making a god out of human reason, but that didn't work out too well.

Over time we are able to undermine habitual modes of thinking formed by our self-made self in early childhood, which tries to squeeze happiness from the gratification of our desires for the symbols in our culture of survival and security, power and control, and affection and esteem.

Centering prayer is a training in letting go.