“The only real difference between Anxiety and Excitement was my willingness to let go of Fear.”

I didn’t want to be a priest. I wanted to do the work that priests do, and that required becoming a priest.

I read more widely. I made friends more widely. I wore more red. I stayed home on Sundays. I did things that were never in the realm of possible things to do before. That was a real desert experience for me.

I began to get notes from people saying they were sorry to hear I’d left ministry. And for a while, I halfway believed they were right, that I’d left.

I’m leaving out some of the hugely successful megachurches, of which I have very little experience.

The great wisdom traditions of the world all recognize that the main impediment to living a life of meaning is being self-absorbed.

I found myself in a maze where I’d taken the wrong turn. In my wish to do well for that congregation I wasn’t doing particularly well for myself or my friends or my family, and I even found that the work for God was taking me away from God.

Most of us will have more than one job in our working lives, which means we will have more than one opportunity to seek meaningful work at different stages of our own deepening humanity.

Wisdom is not gained by knowing what is right. Wisdom is gained by practicing what is right, and noticing what happens when that practice succeeds and when it fails.

I am always surprised by people who speak of faith as if it happens in the air somewhere. Our bodies are God’s best way of getting to us. Revelation begins in the flesh.

To be in the mainline is to have a history and not simply to be an amalgam, a community church of who knows what that came from who knows where.

We are born seekers, calling strange names into the darkness from our earliest days because we know we are not meant to be alone, and because we know that we await someone whom we cannot always see.

You only need to lose track of who you are, or who you thought you were supposed to be, so that you end up lying flat on the dirt floor basement of your heart. Do this, Jesus says, and you will live.

With so much effort being poured into church growth, so much press being given to the benefits of faith, and so much flexing of religious muscle in the public square, the poor in spirit have no one but Jesus to call them blessed anymore.

Earth is so thick with divine possibility that it is a wonder we can walk anywhere without cracking our shins on altars.

I don’t have time for a job that doesn’t leave me time to be quiet or still or to pray.

To be fully human is perhaps why I’m Christian, because I see in the life of Jesus a way of being fully human.

Attitude is the difference between ordeal and adventure

There is no age barrier when it comes to Christlike service. … As we look beyond our differences in age, culture, and circumstance to nurture and serve one another, we will be filled with the pure love of Christ and the inspiration which leads us to know when and whom to serve.

A lot of us don’t get a sense of our personal power. I know the vast difference that one person can make in changing things.

The difference between a friend and an acquaintance is that a friend helps; an acquaintance merely advises.

As we form our individual opinions of our fellow man, let us base them on our similarities and not our differences.

The difference between a sand trap and water hazard is the difference between a car crash and an airplane crash. You have a chance of recovering from a car crash.

In the long run, the world is going to have the best, and any difference in race, religion, or previous history will not keep the world from what it wants.

While there continues to be differences, the important point is that all citizens and elected officials use democratic and legal avenues for solving those differences.