“The spirituality of wonder knows the world is charged with grace, that while sin and war, disease and death are terribly real, God's loving presence and power in our midst are even more real.”

“God is an immensity, while this disease, this death, which is in me, this small, tightly defined pedestrian event, is merely and perfectly real, without miracle—or instruction.”

“One thing we can know for sure is that when we are confessing our sin to God but not to the people around us in ordinary, nitty-gritty life, there is not much real spiritual transformation going on”

“I made it clear to the world that what Jade and I had found in each other was more real than any other world, more real than time, more real than death, more real, even, than she and I.”

“My biggest Buff Orpinton rooster is on the small corral fence letting the world know he is in charge, all puffed up and sassy. There is nothing more silly than a rooster taking over the world, but every day he things he can. I wonder if we are just a little part of the world, like that rooster, and that the real things go on around us while we strut in our own yards trying to take charge of things.”

“Never pity missionaries; envy them. They are where the real action is -- where life and death, sin and grace, Heaven and Hell converge.”