From the Salmon

True evangelism, based on the example of Jesus, does not suggest the “missionary zeal” of self-righteous proselytizers. It implies, on the contrary, the kind of all-embracing universality evident in Mother Teresa’s prayer: “May God break my heart so completely that the whole world falls in.” Not just fellow nuns, Catholics, Calcuttans, Indians. The whole world. It gives me pause to realize that, were such a prayer said by me and answered by God, I would afterward possess a heart so open that even hate-driven zealots would fall inside. There is a self-righteous knot in me that finds zealotry so repugnant it wants to sit on the sidelines with the like-minded, plaster our cars with bumper stickers that say “Mean People Suck” and “No Billionaire Left Behind” and “Who would Jesus Bomb?”, and leave it at that. But my sense of the world as a gift, my sense of a grace operative in this world despite its terrors, propels me to allow the world to open my heart still wider, even if the openness comes by breaking — for I have seen the whole world fall into a few hearts, and nothing has ever struck me as more beautiful.

David James Duncan
”What Fundamentalists Need for Their Salvation”