Lent is rather seeing how to take steps into God's future so that we are no longer defined by what is past and no longer distracted by what we have treasured or feared about the present. Lent is for embracing the baby given to old people; resurrection to new life in Easter; and the offer of a new world made by God from nothing.

In a society that knows about initiative and self-actualization and countless other things, the capacity to lament the death of the old world is nearly lost. In a society strong on self-congratulation, the capacity to receive in doxology the new world being given is nearly lost.

While the prophets are in a way future-tellers, they are concerned with the future as it impinges upon the present. Conversely, liberals who abdicated and turned all futuring over to conservatives have settled for a focus on the present.

One thing I do know is that when I hold on tightly to the old things, God cannot fill my hands with the new.

Don't let the hurts, disappointments, and regrets of the past cripple your present or define your future. Forgive.

One does not cross over from Manichaeism to Christianity, or from Lamarckianism to Darwinism, by a mere adjustment of views. True conversions consist in the choice of a new audience, that is, of a new world. All that was once familiar is now seen in startlingly new ways.

Cultural deviation does not return us to the past, but continues what was begun and not finished in the past.

Sometimes going back to the beginning is the only way.

If you didn't miss where you've been, it didn't mean that much to you.

There are always two parties, the party of the Past and the party of the Future; the Establishment and the Movement.

With most men, scarce a link of memory holds yesterday and to-day together.

Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day. You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.