Quote

Life isn't like a book. Life isn't logical or sensible or orderly. Life is a mess most of the time. And theology must be lived in the midst of that mess.

Religious life is an encounter with the living God. Sometimes that encounter is preceded by a kind of soul-searching agony that tries desperately not to hear, runs in the opposite direction, and frantically tries to reason itself out of answering the invitation.

But nowadays hymns are the norm, because people don't have much else to sing.

The battle of life is, in most cases, fought uphill; and to win it without a struggle were perhaps to win it without honor. If there were no difficulties there would be no success; if there were nothing to struggle for, there would be nothing to be achieved.

Life has meaning only in the struggle. Triumph or defeat is in the hands of the Gods. So let us celebrate the struggle!

Theology is not only about understanding the world; it is about mending the world.

I think that's a struggle of every Christian, to be able to get to that point where they're in constant prayer with God - so that everything they do, in thought, in speech, in work, is praising God and worshipping God.

At the center of the religious life is a peculiar kind of joy, the prospect of a happy ending that blossoms from necessarily painful ordeals, the promise of human difficulties embraced and overcome.

The secular world looks to the church and to its chagrin, finds no love, no life, no laughter, no hope and no happiness.

Life is a battle between faith and reason in which each feeds upon the other, drawing sustenance from it and destroying it.