I remember as a kid being really scared of the Smurfs.

Not only does God not reject or punish us for being honest and transparent about our whole selves, but he actually accepts and loves us where we are. We are anchored in God's love as he gives us permission to express ourselves—the bad along with the good—and take care of ourselves in an appropriate way.

Power, no matter how well-intentioned, tends to cause suffering. Love, being vulnerable, absorbs it. In a point of convergence on a hill called Calvary, God renounced the one for the sake of the other.

Power can do everything but the most important thing: it cannot control love.

Love as content is in the habit of limiting formal patterns. The same goes for faith. After all, there are only so many adequate manifestations for truly strong sentiments; which, in the end, is what explains rituals.

The hero whose attachment to ego is already annihilate passes back and forth across the horizons of the world, in and out of the dragon, as readily as a king through all the rooms of his house. And therein lies his power to save; for his passing and returning demonstrate that through all the contraries of phenomenality the Un-create- Imperishable remains, and there is nothing to fear (93).

Love has a particular trait: it has a task or purpose to fulfill - to abide. By its nature, love is enduring. The Holy Spirit offers our world love that dispels uncertainty; love that overcomes the fear of betrayal; love that carries eternity within; the true love that draws us into a unity that abides!

People are so fearful about opening themselves up. All you want to do is to be able to connect with other people. When you connect with other people, you connect with something in yourself. It makes you feel happy. And yet it's so scary - it makes people feel vulnerable and unsafe.

I'm a real romantic, big time.

I'm the person I am because of all the support we have but inside there is still a scared, gay kid, worried he's going to get bullied and people aren't going to like what I do.

Each is liable to panic, which is, exactly, the terror of ignorance surrendered to the imagination.

The love that you withhold is the pain you carry.