In a sinful world, no community can exist for long where nobody is ever held accountable: no teacher would grade a student's performance; no citizen would sit on a jury or call a failed leader to account.

Common sense suggests that if no one ever judged other people, there would be no real human community.

Seeing reality for what it is is what we call discernment. The work of discernment is very hard.

When we forgive evil we do not excuse it, we do not tolerate it, we do not smother it. We look the evil full in the face, call it what it is, let its horror shock and stun and enrage us, and only then do we forgive it.

We are anxious in the face of our unchangeable past; we long to recreate segments of our private histories, but we are stuck with them.

Nobody sees reality whole; we all need others to show us the parts of it that they see better than we do. Nobody sees reality with total accuracy; we all need others to correct our own vision.