Joan Chittister

From Where I Stand: Since honesty as a prerequisite of character has apparently ceased to be an issue for the electorate at large, have we, as a moral nation, already collapsed? Do we have only lies to live by?

From Where I Stand: Accountability, example, equality, adaptation, care and a personal sense of responsibility direct the leader's leadership style. They're not the values taught in business schools maybe. But they make human beings of us all.

From Where I Stand: Two pandemics have struck at once: one physical, one political, but we have managed to braid the two.

From Where I Stand: The conquest and enslavement of whole peoples is a seedbed of white shame that has lasted for decades, for centuries, and must finally be weeded out now. 

From Where I Stand: We had nothing to do with this racism thing, we say, and we're not going to apologize for something that happened centuries ago. But it's in our DNA. It's what we do. Generation after generation.

From Where I Stand: When you break down anything into its smallest parts, like political news, you break off a piece of the civic culture with it. Until eventually, you don't have a culture.

From Where I Stand: We have lost a taste for solid gold leadership and accepted the gold-plated lookalike. We have bought into the emptiness of soul that takes a nation into the clutches of political subservience.

From Where I Stand: The question is what kind of basic truths — principles — must drive us if we are to endure and survive the kind of despair that threatens a national moment like this one?

From Where I Stand: Honesty, verity, authenticity and factuality are the underpinnings of good, effective government. But facts alone are not its gold standard.

From Where I Stand: Moderation won't do it. What we need now is Christian extremism, the idea that there are some things that cannot be tolerated in life, that there is something we can do to resolve these logjams if we really want to do it.

Whatever deters us from being true to our deepest truths must one day be disavowed. So what must be disavowed to save the character of the nation in a time when it needs character more than ever? 

From Where I Stand: There's not much to be learned from those who agree with us. We just go on our merry way, trashing people at large, attacking both friends and competitors, berating our own best thinkers.

From Where I Stand: All candidates need to do, it seems, is to feed our wildest dreams. But without skepticism, democracy is dead. Then there's nothing but monarchy, tyranny and autocracy left.

From Where I Stand: It's time for a new set of virtues, starting with anger. To resolve a conversation, we need to advance it. Anger can do that; anger is energy. Anger is a connector. Most of all, anger is a signal from me to the world about the importance of what I'm concerned about. 

From Where I Stand: By this time, we are meant to be able to blend into the world around us -- serene, contented, open -- too grounded interiorly to crave public approval.

From Where I Stand: Once, I thought that this step of humility was so obvious it was embarrassing. Then I listened to modern political speech, and realized that this step may well be the most fundamental spiritual lesson of them all.

From Where I Stand: Benedict does not forbid humor; he forbids the bawdry and the brutal. He makes the quality of our laughter a measure of our spiritual adulthood.

From Where I Stand: The ninth step of humility has no caveats as in "keep silent unless you're angry at someone" or "unless you can get the microphone and keep it from everyone else."

From Where I Stand: The tradition moves on from generation to generation, flowing here, being pruned there, always adapting to the soil in which it's planted. And so do we as people.

From Where I Stand: No doubt about it: The seventh degree of humility in the Rule of Benedict was meant for us. It's impossible, of course, to lead the world in everything. But tell any lie long enough and people are prone to believe it. And claim it. And assume it. And we do.