How I wish you could have known me in my strength.

There is more beauty than our eyes can bear, precious things have been put into our hands and to do nothing to honor them is to do great harm.

Theologians talk about a prevenient grace that precedes grace itself and allows us to accept it. I think there must also be a prevenient courage that allows us to be brave - that is, to acknowledge that there is more beauty than our eyes can bear, that precious things have been put into our hands and to do nothing to honor them is to do great harm. And therefore, this courage allows us, as the old men said, to make ourselves useful. It allows us to be generous, which is another way of saying exactly the same thing.

Love is holy because it is like grace--the worthiness of its object is never really what matters.

I am grateful for all those dark years, even though in retrospect they seem like a long, bitter prayer that was answered finally.

You never know when you might be seeing someone for the last time.