Quotes About Compassion

If Jesus meant for his followers to rule the world, then why did he teach them to wash feet? As difficult as it is to accept, I believe that his death on the cross reveals the God who suffers for love instead of punishing the unloving, the God who lays down his life for his friends.

To be a priest is to know that things are not as they should be and yet to care for them the way they are.

As a general rule, I would say that human beings never behave more badly toward one another than when they believe they are protecting God. In the words of Arun Gandhi, grandson of Mohandas, "People of the Book risk putting the book above people.

Once, at the end of a field trip to the Atlanta Masjid of Al-Islam, the imam ended his meeting with students by saying, 'Our deepest desire is not that you become Muslim, but that you become the best Christian, the best Jew, the best person you can be. In the name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. Thank you for coming.' Then he was gone, leaving me with a fresh case of holy envy.

I had refused the body and blood of Christ because it was painful to the person beside me. I had chosen to abstain with him rather than to participate without him. Though I knew full well that he did not expect that of me - that it was possible for a full-fledged Christian and a full-fledged Jew to stand together in their difference - at that moment I did not want to celebrate any Communion that did not include him.

I am not sure whether the virtue of holy envy requires holy humility or creates it, but the two are clearly related. After you have allowed the other to define herself, listening carefully to all the ways in which she is not you, it is hard to overlook the fact that you and she are made of the same basic material. You are dust, and to dust you shall return.

Knowing your own darkness is the best method for dealing with the darknesses of other people. —Carl Jung

Here is a law as reliable as gravity: The degree to which we believe our faith is makes us human is the same degree with which we will question the humanity of those who do not share our faith.

Here is a law as reliable as gravity: the degree to which we believe our faith is what makes us human is the same degree to which we will question the humanity of those who do not share our faith.

Handing out free food and clothes was a charitable act. Approaching the powers was a political act.

as she went. Her head bent so far underneath her that I feared her neck would break. Finally the Jeep stopped at the edge of the water. Ed and I helped the ranger unchain her and flip her back over. Then

The problem is that people we cannot stand are loved just as much as we are, by a God with an upsetting sense of community.

The only clear line I draw these days is this: when my religion tries to come between me and my neighbor, I will choose my neighbor. That self-canceling feature of my religion is one of the things I like best about it. Jesus never commanded me to love my religion.

However you define the problematic present-day stranger—the religious stranger, the cultural stranger, the transgendered stranger, the homeless stranger—scripture's wildly impractical solution is to love the stranger as the self.

The problem was that I could not teach other people's religions without loving them as I loved my own, or at least giving it my best shot.

You have to love your children unselfishly. That is hard. But it is the only way.

I didn't mean to make you—wonder." She shook her head. "Worry. I didn't mean to make you worry." "I try not to worry about someone," Phoebe said, signaling the horse to proceed home. "After all, it's arrogant to do so when God knows what He's doing.

Because some people dressed more expensively and lived in a higher stratum of society, it did not make them less human. They were born and they died. They sought for happiness in the same way as the humblest scullery-maid or the lowest paid stable-boy wanted to be happy in their lives.

charitable tolerance. You would find yourself an outcast whom people might pity, but whom, if they were

It's amazing what you have to buy after a fire has completely wiped you out - things you never think about, like toothbrushes and boots and a dictionary. Of course, people gave us things, but mostly they didn't fit, and Mother said this was no time for us to go around looking like orphans of the storm.

You must do something to make the world more beautiful.

If you aren't good at loving yourself, you will have a difficult time loving anyone, since you'll resent the time and energy you give another person that you aren't even giving to yourself.

Men are just as sensitive, and in some ways more sensitive, than women are.

Anyhow, one thing I've learned this past year is that we're all responsible for our own hearts. If someone does break ours—and I doubt you've actually broken this boy's—it's up to us to figure out a way forward.