Becoming Wise: An Inquiry into the Mystery and the Art of Living

we basically come from a post-alcoholic culture. People whose origins are in Northern Europe had only one way of treating distress: with a bottle of alcohol.

Aristotle makes a distinction between being admired and being loved. When you admire people, you put them on pedestals. When you love people, you want to be together.

The task is reframing so that we can reexperience the social realities that are right in front of us, from a different angle.

discussion about a large, meaty, theological subject began by framing it as a question, and then asking everyone around the table to begin to answer that question through the story of their lives: Who is God? What is prayer? How to approach the problem of evil? What is the content of Christian hope?

The social venture entrepreneur Jacqueline Novogratz, who works in some of the poorest places in the world, asks a question wherever she goes that she experiences to call forth inner abundance: what are you doing when you feel most beautiful?

the deepest desire for us all is to be appreciated, to be loved, to be seen as somebody of value.

I have an interest in trying to find a way that I can honor some of their values without giving up mine. That’s, for me, what has happened.

You do like this language of being a “maker” … as much or maybe more than being called an “artist.” And it’s just occurring to me that this language lends itself to the rest of us too. Being an artist is specialized, but making is something we all do, each in our own ways, including in our family lives.

Well, the facts are the bones of the story, if you want to think of it that way.

As much as anything I’ve done as an adult, yoga has saved my life. The salvation is subtle in the moment and profound over time.