We feel much more comfortable with our slavery than with freedom. Freedom means that we have to assume radical responsibility for what we are. To be enslaved means that we always have somebody else to blame for our problems.

The true goal of all religions is to lead us back to the place where everything is one, to the experience of radical unity with all of humanity and hence to the experience of unity with God. Religion has no other purpose than to make possible this one journey.

The only ones who can accept the proclamation of the Reign are those who have nothing to protect, not their own self-image or their reputation, their possessions, their theology, their principles, or their certitudes.

The proclamation of the Reign of God means that only one thing is absolute –everything else is relative. Everything else is merely a means to the end. That includes the Church, the Bible, the sacraments, and all the exercises of spiritual life.

I don’t advise trying to master fears. You can’t fix the soul. You can only acknowledge your own rage and your fear of trusting and refuse to identify with it. Because we’ve lost the art of detachment, we’re now an addictive society.

He says in effect: “There is only one thing you have to do. You must have the freedom to recognize me where you didn’t expect me; otherwise you aren’t free. And you will be judged on a single question: ‘Could you recognize me in the least of your brothers and sisters?’

For Anne Wilson Schaef there is one addiction that over-arches all these quite private addictions and dependencies: our addiction to the system itself. Our chief dependency is the dependency on our hallowed explanations. Could there be a world not built on competition? We can’t imagine it. Could there be a world not built on power? On money and control? On militarism? We can’t imagine it –which shows how dependent we are on our systems.

Jesus is a person and at the same time a process. Jesus is the Son of God, but at the same time he is “the Way.” He’s the goal, but he’s also the means, and the means is always the way of the cross.

We don’t think our way into a new life; we live our way into a new kind of thinking. The Gospel is before all else a call to live differently, so that life can be shared with others. In other words, the Gospel is ultimately calling us to a stance of simplicity, vulnerability, dialogue, powerlessness, and humility. These are the only virtues that make communion and community and intimacy possible.