I lay there under the stars and thought of what a great responsibility it is to be human.
When a person has no other persons he invents them because he was not designed to be alone, because it isn’t good for a person to be alone.
Sometimes the real bonding happens in conversations about nothing, Don,” she said. “Sometimes being willing to talk about nothing shows how much we want to be with each other. And that’s a powerful thing.
Life no longer felt meaningless. It felt stressful and terrifying, but it definitely didn’t feel meaningless.
You are wired like you and I am wired like me. The more fully we live into ourselves, the more impact we will have. Acting may get us the applause we want, but taking a risk on being ourselves is the only path toward true intimacy. And true intimacy, the exchange of affection between two people who are not lying, is transforming.
People attack out of fear.
I began to wonder if what we were doing it evangelical circles had more to do with redeeming ourselves to culture than it did with showing Jesus to a hurting world, a world literally filled with outcasts.
It’s one thing to impress people, but it’s another to love them.
A character who wants something and overcomes conflict to get it is the basic structure of a good story.
Unless we’re honest with each other, we can’t connect. We can’t be intimate.
Those who can’t accept their imperfections can’t accept grace either.
I’m starting to wonder if the whole point of life is to be thankful and to live in such a way others are thankful for theirs as well.
I was talking to a homeless man at the laundry mat recently, and he said that when we reduce Christian spirituality to math we defile the Holy. I thought that was very beautiful and comforting because I have never been good at math.
We learn that we are lovable or unlovable from other people... That is why God tells us so many times to love each other.
Life will reveal answers at the pace life wishes to do so. You feel like running, but life is on a stroll. This is how God does things.
G. K. Chesterton says chess players go crazy, not poets. I think he is right.
I think it is easier to do bad things than to do good things. And there is something in that basic fact, some little clue to the meaning of the universe.
We have to be taught to be good. It doesn’t come natural.
I made a single decision early on. I decided I wouldn’t judge my kids. No matter what they told me, I wouldn’t judge them. I might have to discipline them, but I wouldn’t make them feel like lesser people for their mistakes. And because of that, they learned to trust me with their deepest thoughts... We taught them the basics early. But the older they got, the more I listened without judgment as they figured out how to apply wisdom in their own lives. And they’ve turned out well.
I don’t have to watch the evening news to see that the world is bad, I only have to look at myself.