“In big ways and small, I knew exactly how selfish a war could make me, and I saw all around me how fear and need drove other people to terrible betrayals. Yet over and over, I also saw how war crea...”

“To figure out what was really happening behind the clichs, I'd learned, meant a practice of looking not at the center but at the edges of thingsat the unlikeliest and weakest people, not the most a...”

“I'd gone to Central America because I didn't think politics was simply a matter of opinion. It wasn't about having the right "line," having an ideologically pure analysis. It had to be incarnate. A...”

“The entire contradictory package of Christianity was present in the Eucharist. A sign of unconditional acceptance and forgiveness, it was doled out and rationed to insiders; a sign of unity, it div...”

“What happened once I started distributing communion was the truly disturbing, dreadful realization about Christianity: You can't be a Christian by yourself.”

“I read the story about the loaves and fishes and thought about Jesus gazing at the hungry crowd, saying to his anxious, doubting, screwed-up followers: "You give them something to eat." So we did.”

“They keep track of time. Sometimes things happen and you feel that you need to mark them down.”

“Does religious conviction provide a powerful reason for killing? Undeniably it often does. It also often provides the sole compelling reason for refusing to kill, or for being merciful, or for seek...”

“the past only had whatever power you gave it; life was what you made it and if you wanted something different from what you had, it was up to you to make it happen.”