Sometimes grace is a ribbon of mountain air that gets in through the cracks.

Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you.

I do not at all understand the mystery of grace - only that it meets us where we are but does not leave us where it found us.

Faith includes noticing the mess, the emptiness and discomfort, and letting it be there until some light returns.

Dogs are the closest we come to knowing the divine love of God on this side of eternity.

... the reason life works at all is that not everyone in your tribe is nuts on the same day. [pp. 65-66]

Sometimes I think that Jesus watches my neurotic struggles, and shakes his head and grips his forehead and starts tossing back mojitos.

Nothing heals us like letting people know our scariest parts: When people listen to you cry and lament, and look at you with love, it's like they are holding the baby of you.

Lighthouses don’t go running all over an island looking for boats to save; they just stand there shining.

I thought the secret of life was obvious: be here now, love as if your whole life depended on it, find your life's work, and try to get hold of a giant panda.

Human lives are hard, even those of health and privilege, and don't make much sense. This is the message of the Book of Job: Any snappy explanation of suffering you come up with will be horseshit.

I don’t want content. I want slight fear. Anxiety. I want a longing devotion for a twist of absence. The feeling of complete isn’t quite pleasing.

The five stages of bureaucratic grieving are: denial, anger, committee meetings, scapegoating, and cover-up.

It's Satan's delight to tell me that once he's got me, he will keep me. But at that moment I can go back to God. And I know that if I confess my sins, God is faithful and just to forgive me.

Democratic elections alone do not remedy the crisis of confidence in government. Moreover, there is no viable justification for a democratic system in which public participation is limited to voting.

The concept that you are not ingesting rotting flesh sort of sums it up for me.

I didn't have any friends at school, didn't want any. I felt better being alone. I sat on a bench and watched the others play and they looked foolish to me.

Take heede of still waters, the quick passe away.

I'm looking forward to the future, which is a good thing, because it's coming.

A man's enemies have no power to harm him, if he is true to himself and loyal to God.

I want to make a better record than I made the last time. I want to grow. I want to discover new things about myself creatively.