The real moral goals of the Gospel—loving enemies, caring for the powerless, overlooking personal offenses, living simply, eschewing riches—can only be achieved through surrender and participation.

We know God by participation in God, not by trying to please God from afar.

God’s freely given grace is a humiliation to the ego because free gifts say nothing about me. Only the soul can understand grace. The ego does not know how to receive things freely or without logic.

If you draw close to someone who is in a violent or fearful state, you will likely discover that his or her operative image of God (usually largely unconscious) is inadequate, distorted, or even toxic. That’s why good theology is still important.

We cannot attain the presence of God because we’re already in the presence of God. What’s absent is awareness.

We must all overcome the illusion of separateness. It is the primary task of religion to communicate not worthiness but union, to reconnect people to their original identity “hidden with Christ in God” (Colossians 3: 3).

Richard sees love as the metaphysical foundation of everything because Trinity is the model for all reality. God is all-vulnerable relationship—ever outpouring and ever infilling love. God can only be experienced through friendship, not ideas.