When we say, "Save the rainforest," we don’t mean that we cease to honor the mighty cedars or the reaching pines. We mean that one particular piece of a deeply sacred whole is more at risk than others, and that this risk, this threat, is worthy of our very bravest actions. So it is with black...

"Rarely, if ever, are any of us healed in isolation. Healing is an act of communion."

“We are all broken by something. We have all hurt someone and have been hurt. We all share the condition of brokenness even if our brokenness is not equivalent. The ways in which I have been hurt—and have hurt others—are different from the ways [others have] suffered and caused suffering. But...

"When it comes to our children, we do not have the luxury of despair. If we rise, they will rise with us every time, no matter how many times we've fallen before. I hope you will remember that the next time you fail. I hope I will too. Remembering that is the most important work as parents we can...

“Those of us who have in our history the commonality of suffering from hate, we know that those who won the day are those who chose love in the midst of hate.”...

"Suffering doesn't always mean something's gone wrong; it just means you're living a life." —from the Dear Sugars podcast, Sept. 2, 2017.

“You cannot convince people to love you. This is an absolute rule. No one will ever give you love because you want him or her to give it. Real love moves freely in both directions. Don’t waste your time on anything else.”...

"I went back to church thinking that it would be like an epidural, like it would take the pain away… that church would make the pain go away. Faith and church was not an epidural for me at all; it was like a midwife who just stood next to me saying, 'Push. It’s supposed to hurt a little bit.'"...

"Hopelessness is the enemy of justice." —Bryan Stevenson, in his 2017 Ware Lecture...

"We live in an occupied country, misunderstood; justice will take us millions of intricate moves." from Stafford's poem "Thinking for Berky," in Traveling through the Dark...

We’re the faith of reason and science and dignity. There's nothing wrong with that. It’s just that too many of us have been taught by culture that what "smart" looks like is white, male, and middle class. We’ve been taught that credibility and authority are white. We’ve been taught that what...

"My dear friends, please try to understand that whiteness is limitless possibility. It is universal and invisible. That’s why many of you are offended by any reference to race. You believe you are acting and thinking neutrally, objectively, without preference for one group or the next, including...

We don't live into our redemption very much, or get to win the fight over death. Jesus’ resurrection is a symbol and a promise that we are redeemed and that death’s dominion is not the final word. On Easter the Deep Magic breaks through. We proclaim and sing that love’s redeeming work is done...

Hope is not just a good idea Love is not naïve Faith is not just the brave face we put on a hopeless situation...

There are two questions that [a person] must ask [themselves]. The first is "Where am I going?" and the second is "Who will go with me?" If you ever get these questions in the wrong order, you are in trouble. source: Fire in the Belly by Sam Keen, p. 12.

What we would like to do is change the world—make it a little simpler for people to feed, clothe, and shelter themselves... by fighting for better conditions, by crying out unceasingly for the rights of the workers, the poor, of the destitute... [W]e can, to a certain extent, change the world; we...

"Our universal calling as humans is to be the most loving people we can be."...

“Any religion that puts hate speech in the mouth of God is no religion at all.”...

"Diversity is being invited to the party; inclusion is being asked to dance."...

"Marriage isn’t meant to make you happy; marriage is there so that it gives you a life in which you find happiness."...