Buechner uses words with such transformative power that any comment on them is like the moon palely reflecting the sun.

Sabbath is the celebration of life beyond and outside productivity.

The gospel is fiction when judged by the empire, but the empire is fiction when judged by the gospel.

The Eucharist has been preempted and redefined in dualistic thinking that leaves the status quo of the world untouched, so congregations can take the meal without raising questions of violence; the outcome is a "colonized imagination" that is drained of dangerous hope.

People notice peacemakers because they dress funny. We know how the people who make war dress - in uniforms and medals, or in computers and clipboards, or in absoluteness, severity, greed, and cynicism. But the peacemaker is dressed in righteousness, justice, and faithfulness - dressed for the work that is to be done.

Hope does not need to silence the rumblings of crisis to be hope.

The task of prophetic ministry is to nurture, nourish, and evoke a consciousness and perception alternative to the consciousness and perception of the dominant culture around us.