Who would ever know the greater graces of comfort and perseverance, mercy and forgiveness, patience and courage, if no shadows fell over a life?

...the secret to joy is to keep seeking God where we doubt He is.

A life contemplating the blessings of Christ becomes a life acting the love of Christ.

Joy is the realest reality, the fullest life, and joy is always given, never grasped. God gives gifts and I give thanks and I unwrap the gift given: joy.

Gratitude for the seemingly insignificant—a seed—this plants the giant miracle.

Our fall was, has always been, and always will be, that we aren’t satisfied in God and what He gives. We hunger for something more, something other.

Simplicity is ultimately a matter of focus.

Eucharisteo—thanksgiving—always precedes the miracle.

Thanksgiving-giving thanks in everything-prepares the way that God might show us His fullest salvation in Christ.

Sometimes you don’t know when you’re taking the first step through a door until you’re already inside.

Satan prowls but he’s a lion on a leash

I learned to swallow words back, hold secrets on my tongue until they dissolved like soap bubbles.

There are many trails up the mountain, but in time they all reach the top.

And so I write the way I myself would like the book to be – if I were a child. I write for the child within me.

I think my mom and dad did a great job with that, because we [with brother] never had any competition in baseball. We always tried to help each other.

Many people are good at talking about what they are doing, but in fact do little. Others do a lot but don't talk about it; they are the ones who make a community live.

From purest wells of English undefiled None deeper drank than he, the New World's Child, Who in the language of their farm field spoke The wit and wisdom of New England folk.

Tomorrow is forever, and years pass in no time at all

It is only as a man puts off from himself all external support, and stands alone, that I see him to be strong and to prevail.

Baseball is a game, yes. It is also a business. But what is most truly is is disguised combat. For all its gentility, its almost leisurely pace, baseball is violence under wraps.

Don't wait until you feel like taking positive action. Take the action and then you will feel like doing it.