Perhaps even more important in the Bonhoeffer family was acting upon what one said one believed. One must not only think clearly but must prove one's thoughts in action. If one was unprepared to live out what one claimed to believe, perhaps one didn't believe what one claimed after all!

Bonhoeffer was no mere academic. For him, ideas and beliefs were nothing if they did not relate to the world of reality outside one's mind.

Time is precious, but truth is more precious than time.

Never apologize for showing feeling. When you do so, you apologize for the truth.

Embrace every opportunity of exercising kind feelings and doing good to others, especially to the household of faith.

I don't believe anyone who says love, love, love. It means self, self, self.

Knowing that something is true does not in and of itself ensure that this truth will make a significant difference in our lives.

I began to wonder if anyone still believed Jesus meant thos things He said. I thought if we just stopped and asked 'what if He really meant it?' it could turn the world upside down. It is a shame christians have become so normal.

Mother Teresa offers us that brilliant glimpse of hope that lies in little things: "We can do not great things, only small things with great love. It is not how much you do but how much love you put into doing it." Above our front door, we have hung a sign that says, "Today . . . small things with great love (or don't open the door).

I had become a "believer," but I had no idea what it means to be a follower. People had taught me what Christians believe, but no one had told me how Christians live.

Being in proximity makes a difference. Relationships make issues real and complicated and personal. Relationships move us from ideology to compassion. We can't love our neighbor if we don't know them. And once we are proximate, love requires us to take action, to stand up for life in tangible ways.

Imagine what would happen if the prayer movement and social justice movement converged, and we had Christians who prayed like they depend on God and lived like God depended on them? Hallelujah.