"Only when enough adults practice and teach children love and respect at home, in schools, religious congregations, and in our political and civic life will racial, gender, and religious intolerance and hate crimes subside in America and the world."

-- Marian Wright Edelman, from Lanterns: A Memoir of Mentors

"I love to think of nature as an unlimited broadcasting station through which God speaks to us every hour, if we will only tune in."

-- George Washington Carver

“Those with whom Jesus identifies himself are regarded by society as misfits. And yet Jesus is that person who is hungry; Jesus is that woman who is confused and naked. Wouldn’t it be extraordinary if we all discovered that? The face of the world would be changed.”

-- Jean Vanier from, From Brokenness to Community

"Dependence on God may be what is lacking in a society where consumerism and accumulation have become the root diseases of a world in which everything is not enough and nothing satisfies."

-- Joan Chittister, from The Rule of Benedict: A Spirituality for the 21st Century (Spiritual Legacy Series)

"At some thoughts one stands perplexed, above all at the sight of human sin, and wonders whether to combat it by force or by humble love. Always decide ‘I will combat it by humble love.’ If you resolve on that once and for all, you can conquer the whole world. Loving humility is a terrible force: it is the strongest of all things, and there is nothing else like it.”

-- Fyodor Dostoyevsky, from The Brothers Karamazov

"One cannot be aware both of the history of Christian war and of the contents of the gospels without feeling that something is amiss."

- Wendell Berry, from his introduction to Blessed Are the Peacemakers: Christ's Teachings About Love, Compassion and Forgiveness

We fear the search for who we are. Perhaps because we're afraid that having located our true souls, we might not like ourselves that much. So, we shrink to step across the threshold to our inner selves and invite God in.... But no matter how we love the busy world of our relationships, the fast-action theater of our noisy and hurried lives at last empties out. Then we find ourselves in lonely cells of bulky silence that compels us to turn from the outer things and face our inner selves -- and our mighty God. (A Hunger for the Holy: Nuturing Intimacy with Christ )

-- Calvin Miller