When the gospel is understood primarily in terms of entrance rather than joyous participation, it can actually serve to cut people off from the explo… - Rob Bell

Great marriages have an ease about them, a back-and-forth nonreactive, nondefensive, open, and ongoing flow in which you never stop talking and figuring it out together.

It's all — let's use a very specific word here — miraculous. You, me, love, quarks, sex, chocolate, the speed of light — it's all miraculous, and it always has been.

Bitterness is not your friend. It's easy to become cynical, focusing your energies on them and endlessly wondering why they aren't more evolved and why they are still stuck back there, repeating the same slogans and going through the same motions. If you are filled with pride over how free and intelligent and enlightened you are in comparison to their backward, antiquated ways, your new knowledge has simply made you arrogant. Watch your heart carefully, because if you aren't more compassionate and more kind and more understanding, then you haven't grown at all.