I'm not a sex symbol, at least in the conventional sense.

Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope. Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore we must be saved by faith. Nothing we do, no matter how virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore we must be saved by love.

Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope. Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore we must be saved by faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore we must be saved by love.

Every man therefore is bound to do all the good he can to others, especially for the church and commonwealth.

For with God, there's always another role to undertake, a fresh assignment, and another task that will call upon everything we've experienced and learned thus far. God is never finished with us. He may, however, be finished with our current role. If so, we must be prepared to take on the next assignment that inevitably comes.

Life is not a matter of creating a special name for ourselves, but of uncovering the name we have always had.

Because I am a part of the Big Picture, I do matter and substantially so. Because I am only a part, however, I am rightly situated off to stage right—and happily so. What freedom there is in such truth! We are inherently important and included, yet not burdened with manufacturing or sustaining that private importance. Our dignity is given by God, and we are freed from ourselves!

We have spent centuries of philosophy trying to solve the problem of evil, yet I believe the much more confounding and astounding issue is the problem of good. How do we account for so much gratuitous and sheer goodness in this world? Tackling this problem would achieve much better results.

Love is not something you do; love is someone you are. It is your True Self.8 Love is where you came from and love is where you're going. It's not something you can buy. It's not something you can attain. It is the presence of God within you, called the Holy Spirit—or what some theologians name uncreated grace.

Our starting place was always original goodness,10 not original sin. This makes our ending place—and everything in between—possessing an inherent capacity for goodness, truth, and beauty.

Your True Self is who you are, and always have been in God . . . The great surprise and irony is that you, or who you think you are, have nothing to do with its original creation or its demise. It's sort of disempowering and utterly empowering at the same time, isn't it? All you can do is nurture it.

The task of the second half of life is, quite simply, to find the actual contents that this container was meant to hold and deliver.