Pain and suffering that are not transformed are usually projected onto others.

Men as a class appear to be “at risk,” maybe even at high risk.

…organized religion is no longer good news for most people, but bad news indeed. It set us up for the massive atheism, agnosticism, hedonism, and secularism we now see in almost all formerly Christian countries.

One great idea of the biblical revelation is that God is manifest in the ordinary, in the actual, in the daily, in the now, in the concrete incarnations of life, and not through purity codes...

Whatever good, true, or perfect things we can say about humanity or creation, we can say of God exponentially. God is the beauty of creation and humanity multiplied to the infinite power.

When we fail we are merely joining the great parade of humanity that has walked ahead of us and will follow after us.

If change and growth are not programmed into your spirituality, if there are not serious warnings about the blinding nature of fear and fanaticism, your religion will always end up worshiping the status quo and...

You cannot contain evil by shaming it, or making people feel guilty, but only by revealing it toward it is, and then seeing the good as better.

True baptism allows us to reframe, and contain, the reality of evil, without needing to blame anyone else, without any need for shame or vengeance. We are all in this together, and our common wound...

With improved historical records, and easier access to them, we actually have better reasons for hating one another, for anger and violence toward one another.

A skilled listener can help people tap into their own wisdom.

Jesus was trying to present value of a life of vulnerability in which one would have practical and needed experience of the same. It would be a life without baggage, so one would learn to...

If you do not acquire good training in detachment, you may attach to all the wrong things.

We have been shown how to fight hate without becoming hate ourselves. We have been given a Companion and a Friend and not just a good idea. We have been given joy in the midst...

I do not think you should get rid of your sin until you have learned what it has to teach you.

Every missed rite of passage leads to a new rigidification of the personality.

God seems to be about turning our loves around and using them toward the great love that is their true object.

I would wonder if you could be a hero or heroine if you did not live in deep time, that is, Past, present, and future all at once.

every time God forgives us, God is saying that God’s own rules do not matter as much as the relationship that God wants to create with us.

True masters deconstruct as well as reconstruct.

If this inner and critical voice has kept you safe for many years as your inner voice of authority, you may end up not being able to hear the real voice of God.

People who know how to creatively break the rules also know why the rules were there in the first place.

The shape of evil is much more superficiality and blindness than the usual list of hot sins. God hides, and is found, precisely in the depths of everything.

His Kingship, precisely because it is so broad, so total, is doomed to be rejected by anybody who is still into tribalism, or small belonging systems. We don’t really like the big Kingdom if it...

Once you see that your skin and your gift are two sides of the same coin, you can never forget it. It preserves religion from any arrogance and denial.

This seems to have been St. Augustine’s very notion of “memory,” not just nostalgia for some past moment, but connecting past, present, and future in one complete contemplative knowing.

Life is all about practicing for heaven.” p 101.

When you get your,’Who am I?’, question right, all of your,’What should I do?’ questions tend to take care of themselves

I know.” A true mystic will ironically speak with that self-confidence but at the same time with a kind of humility. So when you see that combination of calm self-confidence, certitude, and humility all at...

right” or often enough to convince an unready or unwilling God. Wrong, wrong, wrong!19 minutes ago

Often it takes outer authority to send us on the path to our own inner authority.

Seventy times seven” is a medicine for a healing community, not for a community with all the answers beforehand and all the appropriate punishments afterwards.

Sacramental listening reminds us that current suffering isn’t the end of the story. God loves us deeply, and the vision for the future is vaster and more magnificent than we could ever imagine. In these...

True spirituality is not taught, it’s caught. Once our sails have been unfurled to the Spirit, henceforth our motivation for the journey toward holiness and wholeness is immense gratitude.

Much of what is called Christianity has more to do with disguising the ego behind the screen of religion and culture than any real movement toward a God beyond the small self, and a new...

Our first experience of life is primarily felt in the *body.* … We know ourselves in the security of those who hold us and gaze upon us. It’s not heard or seen or thought it’s...

Much of the work of midlife is to tell the difference between those who are dealing with their issues through you and those who are really dealing with you.

The people who know God well—mystics, hermits, prayerful people, those who risk everything to find God—always meet a lover, not a dictator.

In the second half of life, people have less power to infatuate you. But they also have much less power to control you or hurt you.

If the mystery of the Trinity is the template of all reality, what we have in the Trinitarian God is the perfect balance between union and differentiation, autonomy and mutuality, identity and community.

People who have been initiated “broke through in what felt like breaking down”.

Self-help courses will only help you if they teach you to pay attention to life itself.

Perhaps the True Self–and the full Christ Mystery (not the same as organized Christianity)–will always live in the backwaters of any empire and the deep mines of any religion.

If we seek spiritual heroism ourselves, the old ego is just back in control under a new name. There would not really be any change at all, but only disguise, just bogus self-improvement on our...

You know after any truly initiating experience that you are part of a much bigger whole. Life is not about you henceforward, but you are about life.

Faith for Jesus is the opposite of anxiety. If you are anxious, if you are trying to control everything, if you are worried about many things, you don’t have faith, according to Jesus. You do...

Sin happens whenever we refuse to keep growing.

The ego hates losing – even to God.

Final authority in the spiritual world does not tend to come from any kind of agenda success but from some kind of suffering. Insecurity and impermanence are the best spiritual teachers.

You ironically have to have a very strong ego structure to let go of your ego. You need to struggle with the rules more than a bit before you throw them out. You only internalize...