Frequently, as so many poets and psalmists and songwriters have said, the invisible shift happens through the broken places.

...It really IS easier to experience spiritual connection when your life is in the process of coming apart.

Try to write in a directly emotional way, instead of being too subtle or oblique. Don't be afraid of your material or your past. Be afraid of wasting any more time obsessing about how you look and how people see you. Be afraid of not getting your writing done.

I don’t know why life isn’t constructed to be seamless and safe, why we make such glaring mistakes, things fall so short of our expectations, and our hearts get broken and out kids do scary things and our parents get old and don’t always remember to put pants on before they go out for a stroll. I don’t know why it’s not more like it is in the movies, why things don’t come out neatly and lessons can’t be learned when you’re in the mood for learning them, why love and grace often come in such motley packaging.

My idea of absolute happiness is to be in bed on a rainy day, with my blankie, my cat, and my dog.

Maybe it's wishful thinking, this snaggly faith of mine, or maybe it's Miles Davis saying, Don't play what's there, play what's not there.

Because this business of becoming conscious, of being a writer, is ultimately about asking yourself, How alive am I willing to be?