His theology is mostly focused on helping people with their physical needs. All that's important, of course, but he'll hit a dry spell someday and need something more than social causes to keep him going. ... if you're serious about writing on the deeper life, you simply cannot ignore the centrality of Jesus and the Holy Spirit.

Quietly, Miss Alice was demonstrating this God of love and beauty too—in small ways and in large. For a few, the concept that life did not have to be all starkness and misery was slowly taking root. Tentatively, timidly—constantly encouraged by Miss Alice—some of the women were at last reaching out for light and beauty and joy.

There's fire in you, Julie. I can see you out there in the street, carrying a banner for all the underprivileged people of the world.

Together with the Works of Mercy, feeding, clothing and sheltering our brothers, we must indoctrinate.

When there is enough food to feed everyone, why are 870 million people going hungry? We must learn to share what we have; no one race or nation has a greater right to life than another.

We do not need answers or formulas to minister in crisis.

The majority does not rule in America, but the minority shouldn't hijack it. And it's because we're afraid. They have isolated us and made us feel as though we're alone. We're not.

Part of acknowledging suffering is acknowledging we need help. It is much easier to practice compassion if you have the energy and support of a community.

You see clearly that he has a lot of pain inside and doesn't know how to handle it. That is why he suffers so much and makes the people around him suffer. What he needs is help, not punishment. If you stay with this practice, the suffering of anger or jealousy in you will dissipate and the flower of compassion will be born.

If the human species has been able to make any progress, it is because of our heart of love and compassion. We need to learn from compassionate beings how to develop the practice of deep observation for the sake of others. Then others will be able to learn from us the way to live in the present and see the impermanent and selfless nature of all that is. This insight will lighten suffering.

When another person makes you suffer, it is because he suffers deeply within himself, and his suffering is spilling over. He does not need punishment; he needs help. That is the message he is sending. If you are able to see that, offer him what he needs — relief. Happiness and safety are not an individual matter. His happiness and safety are crucial for your happiness and safety. Wholeheartedly wish him happiness and safety, and you will be happy and safe also.

Caring for yourself, reestablishing peace in yourself, is the basic condition for helping someone else. So that the other can stop being a bomb, a source of pain for ourselves and others, you really have to help him to defuse the bomb. To be able to provide help, we have to have a little calm, a little joy, a little compassion in ourselves.