Cities remind us that the desire to escape from the problems of other people by fleeing to a suburb, small town, or a monastery, for that matter, is an unholy thing, and ultimately self-defeating. We can no more escape from other people than we can escape from ourselves.

From him I have learned that prayer is not asking for what you think you want but asking to be changed in ways you can’t imagine. To be more grateful, more able to see the good in what you have been given instead of always grieving for what might have been.

The tragedy of sin is that it diverts gifts. The person who has a genuine capacity for loving becomes promiscuous, maybe sexually, or maybe by becoming frivolous and fickle, afraid to make a commitment to anyone or anything. The person with a gift for passionate intensity squanders it in angry tirades and, given power, becomes a demagogue.

Laundry, liturgy and women’s work all serve to ground us in the world, and they need not grind us down. Our daily tasks, whether we perceive them as drudgery or essential, life-supporting work, do not define who we are as women or as human beings.

The fact that one people’s frontier is usually another’s homeland has been mostly overlooked.

I was taught that I had to ‘master’ subjects. But who can ‘master’ beauty, or peace, or joy?

If grace is so wonderful, why do we have such difficulty recognizing and accepting it? Maybe it’s because grace is not gentle or made-to-order. It often comes disguised as loss, or failure, or unwelcome change.

I’ve come to see conspiracy theories as the refuge of those who have lost their natural curiosity and ability to cope with change.

I wonder if children don’t begin to reject both poetry and religion for similar reasons, because the way both are taught takes the life out of them.

In middle age we are apt to reach the horrifying conclusion that all sorrow, all pain, all passionate regret and loss and bitter disillusionment are self-made.