I suspect the next 10 years will be years of turmoil and hardship the globe over, and with that will come a surge in a certain kind of American patriotism. Therefore, American Christians will be challenged to remember where our true fealty lies. I’m not saying there’s no place for patriotism. But Christians are people whose first allegiance cannot be to a nation-state, not to any nation-state. Increased geopolitical tension may tempt us to forget that.

— Lauren F. Winner

It is a great gift when God gives me a stirring, a feeling, a something-at-all in prayer. But work is being done whether I feel it or not.

— Lauren F. Winner

It means the God who worries about our sins is not only God the judge, but also God the caretaker. He worries about sin because He craves righteousness, but also, simply, because He loves us.

— Lauren F. Winner

It's not all about mountaintops. Mostly it's about training so that you'll know the mountaintop for what it is when you get there.

— Lauren F. Winner

It turns out there is something worse than attending a wedding where you don't know anyone: attending a wedding where you know six people, and they are all your ex-husband's best friends.

— Lauren F. Winner

Jews are obligated to fulfill the particularities of Mosaic law. They don't light Sabbath candles simply because candles make them feel close to God, but because God commanded the lighting of candles: Closeness might be a nice by-product, but it is not the point. Christians will understand candle-lighting a little differently. Spiritual practices don't justify us. They don't save us. Rather, they refine our Christianity; they make the inheritance Christ gives us on the Cross more fully our own... Practicing the spiritual disciplines does not make us Christians. Instead, the practicing teaches us what it means to live as Christians.

— Lauren F. Winner

(Meanwhile, other people seem to be getting along with God just fine, very well indeed. Why not me?)

— Lauren F. Winner

On any given morning, I might not be able to list for you the facts I know about God. But I can tell you what I wish to commit myself to, what I want for the foundation of my life, how I want to see. When I stand with the faithful at Holy Comforter and declare that we believe in one God. . . I am saying, Let this be my scaffolding. Let this be the place I work, struggle, play, rest. I commit myself to this.

— Lauren F. Winner

Phyllis and I pray these chaplets together; at three o'clock, every first Saturday. We are never in the same town. For months, we do not speak on the phone or email. We pray these chaplets for just a few minutes, maybe as many as sixty minutes, once a month on a Saturday afternoon. Intimacy with the elusive God is that kind of intimacy. It is the closeness of praying together, apart.

— Lauren F. Winner

Some days I am not sure if my faith is riddled with doubt, or whether, graciously, my doubt is riddled with faith. And yet I continue to live in a world the way a religious person lives in the world; I keep living in a world that I know to be enchanted, and not left alone. I doubt; I am uncertain; I am restless, prone to wander. And yet glimmers of holy keep interrupting my gaze.

— Lauren F. Winner