In solitude we find psychic distance, the perspective from which we can see, in the light of eternity, the created things that trap, worry, and oppress us.
To depart from righteousness is to choose a life of crushing burdens, failures, and disappointments, a life caught in the toils of endless problems that are never resolved.
We cannot handle injustice by finding more ways to impose what is in fact “right” on people. It has to come from the inside. And that’s where the church should be working.
Human beings are at their core defined by what they worship rather than primarily by what they think, know, or believe. That is bound up with the central Augustinian claim that we are what we love.
Grace is not opposed to effort, it is opposed to earning. Earning is an attitude. Effort is an action. Grace, you know, does not just have to do with forgiveness of sins alone.
The aim of spiritual formation is not behavior modification but the transformation of all those aspects of you and me where behavior comes from…Circumcision of the heart.
