"We've been behaving for decades as if civilization is won, and therefore needs nothing more of us. We've been flirting for the length of my lifetime with cynicism, nihilism, as if we can take a tire-iron to the body politic just for the hell of it and not actually catch hell." 

As to the question of how to live together, "...it's a lot harder to figure when it involves isolated, atomized individuals crashing into one another, trying to elbow their way into and out of belonging, all without any framework or storyline to give the struggle shape or purpose..."

"Human beings have grown and evolved to respond sociably to the human voice--to hear in it a subtlety of meaning and nuance of intent, to express in it a desire to connect and to be understood rather than just to dominate, humiliate, and win."

This following a week when Kanye visited the Oval Office and mutual kissing-up ensued.

When taxes get better shelter than many people of the world and billionaires would have us be sensible.

"...every person a tourist, every dwelling a stopover, the whole world now a place for casual consuming rather than investing and taking care..."

Wherein we test a theory at the Temple treasury.

Pilate asked, "What is truth?" and in so doing he revealed that in him there is nothing to be revealed.

With Luke, we begin at the end, a glance at the apocalypse. But what would it have us do? 

Regret, repentance, second thoughts: why does John insist these things are crucial?