Taking heaven seriously, then, means taking suffering seriously, now. Not because we've bought into the myth that we can create a utopia given enough time, technology, and good voting choices, but because we have great confidence that God has not abandoned human history and is actively at work within it, taking it somewhere

How we respond to what happens to us—especially the painful, excruciating things that we never wanted and we have no control over—is a creative

Suffering and loss have this extraordinary capacity to alert and awaken us to the gift that life is.

Failure, we see again and again, isn't final, judgment has a point, and consequences are for correction.

Find me one person who's doing something interesting in the world who hasn't felt the hot sting of a NO. Or a door slammed in the face. Or boos. Or a rejection letter. Or a tepid reception. Or bankruptcy. Or gotten fired.

Spirit is often lurking in whatever it is you most dislike.

When you do crash and burn, ask yourself lots of questions about whatever it is that happened: What can you learn here? How will you see things differently moving forward? Why did I do that? leads to, What have I learned? leads to, How will I do it differently in the future?

Always fall in with what you're asked to accept. Take what is given, and make it over your way. My aim in life has always been to hold my own with whatever's going. Not against: with.

A voice said, Look me in the stars And tell me truly, men of earth, If all the soul-and-body scars Were not too much to pay for birth.

Lodged The rain to the wind said, 'You push and I'll pelt.' They so smote the garden bed. That the flowers actually knelt, And lay lodged -- though not dead. I know how the flowers felt.

I have walked out in rain - and back in rain. I have outwalked the furthest city light.

The best way out is always through