For the real difference between happiness and joy is that one is grounded in this world, the other in eternity. Happiness cannot encompass suffering and evil. Joy can. Happiness depends on the present. Joy leaps into the future and triumphantly creates a new present out of it.

Fasting and feasting are universal human responses, and any meal, shared with love, can be an agape.

We must look towards societies that set a high value on nonaggression and noncompetitive ness, and therefore handle conflicts by nonviolent means. We can see how child rearing patterns produce nurturing adult behaviors.

We're never going to have respectful and reverential relationships with the planet- and sensible policies about what we put in the air, the soil, the water - if very young children don't begin learning about these things literally in their houses, backyards, streets and schools. We need to have human beings who are oriented that way from their earliest memories.

Storytelling bridges the generational gaps in ideology.

Peace cultures thrive on and are nourished by visions of how things might be, in a world where sharing and caring are part of the accepted lifeways for everyone.

A meal, however simple, is a moment of intersection. It is at once the most basic, the most fundamental, of our life's activities, maintaining the life of our bodies; shared with others it can be an occasion of joy and communion, uniting people deeply.