"But let me now try to find a comparison for the rest of my contemporaries. They're like the children you see around the marketplace who call out to their playmates: 'We played a happy tune, and you didn't want to dance; we played a sad tune, and you didn't want to make long faces.' For when Jochanan came eating and drinking hardly anything, people said that he was possessed by a demon. But when I came along eating and drinking freely, and the same people accused me of being a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax-collectors and the unobservant. Nevertheless, God's wisdom will be revealed in the end by what actually happens. (Matthew 11: 16-19 )

"What does this new understanding of God's reign entail? Surely this calls us to let go of any desire to see our enemies (including those we see as God's enemies) 'get theirs.' We are all on the same path, growing in the same direction. The Buddha nature arises in the worst of criminals; the Christ consciousness grows in the worst of sinners. God's reign is a world without enemies or 'bad guys.' This does not eliminate the necessity of controlling and containing certain behaviors for the common good and for the protection of the rights of others. But controlling does not have to mean branding as evil. It is judgment that we need to relinquish, the judging of others as sinners, the separating of 'deserving' and 'undeserving' poor, the pretense of knowing who is and who is not on God's side. Our primary goal should be to hear and act on that call of wisdom, however it reaches our ears. For it is what actually happens that matters the most in the end."