“In his prayer for the church in John 17 Jesus seems to say that the church’s whole project of communicating the love of God to the world hangs on believers being one, not just in our invisible unity while visibly we all fight, but as the Father and Son are one.

What’s strange about this failure is that the oneness is not something that we create, but something that exists for us already. We don’t have to make it; we just have to keep it. The unity of the church is not predicated on our getting all our theological ducks in a row. The church is one because God is one. And since God has been so God determined to be with us, we have been united to Christ, so we are one. We are all filled with the same Spirit. We are only asked to live it out. “Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another” (John 13:34) (Jenn Holmes Curran).

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“We must not, in trying to think about how we can make a small difference, ignore the small daily differences we can make, which, over time, add up to big differences that we cannot often foresee” (Marian Wright Edelman).

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“Hope is radical openness for surprise—for the unimaginable. If that is the attitude with which we look, listen, and open all our senses, we enter into a meaningful relationship with whatever Life offers us at a given moment” (Dr. David Steindl-Rast).

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‘The more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and realities of the universe about us, the less taste we shall have for destruction” (Rachel Carson).

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“The time of business does not with me differ from the time of prayer, and in the noise and clatter of my kitchen, while several persons are at the same time calling for different things, I possess God in as great tranquility as if I were upon my knees at the blessed sacrament” (Brother  Lawrence).

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“We have to make friends with sadness. We have to hold our losses close, and carry them like beloved children. Only when we accept these terrible pains do we realize that the path across is the one that takes us through” (Susan Cain).

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“Ultimately, we have just one moral duty: to reclaim large large areas of peace in ourselves, more and more peace, and to reflect it toward others. And the more peace there is in us, the more peace there will also be in our troubled world” (Etty Hillesum).

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“While much of the world laments the condition of our planet and has joined together in search of viable solutions together for its renewal, the majority of the Christian sphere has remained silent, relatively unmoved, and at times even resistant to addressing the plight of God’s handiwork” (Karen Milioto).