The committee has again been reminded that every human effort is flawed

God does not seek the people most outwardly capable, nor the most naturally "good." He works with the most unlikely material so that everyone can see the glory is his and his alone.

grace happens at unexpected moments. It stops us short, catches the breath, disarms. If we manipulate it, try to control it, somehow earn it, that would not be grace.

It is difficult, if not impossible, to communicate the message of grace from the corridors of power.

Dr. Eric Cassell, an internist at Cornell University, concluded about his patients, "If I had to pick the aspect of illness that is most destructive to the sick, I would choose the loss of control.

God has entrusted flawed human beings with a message so powerful that it sometimes does its work in spite of us.

What would it take for church to become known as a place where grace is "on tap

Our society arbitrarily defines health as the capacity for work and the capacity for enjoyment, but "true health is something quite different. True health is the strength to live, the strength to suffer, and the strength to die. Health is not a condition of my body; it is the power of my soul to cope with the varying condition of that body.

Grace has its own power, even in international politics.

Grace comes free of charge to people who do not deserve it

Grace is unfair, which is one of the hardest things about it.

The church of my own childhood, as well as that of my present and my future, comprises deeply flawed human beings struggling toward an unattainable ideal.