I sip my coffee. I look at the mountain, which is still doing its tricks, as you look at a still-beautiful face belonging to a person who was once your lover in another country years ago: with fond nostalgia, and recognition, but no real feelings save a secret astonishment that you are now strangers. Thanks. For the memories. It is ironic that the one thing that all religions recognize as separating us from our creator--our very self-consciousness--is also the one thing that divides us from our fellow creatures. It was a bitter birthday present from evolution, cutting us off at both ends.

Dan Gerber is one of our finest living poets.

We are here to bring to consciousness the beauty and power that are around us and to praise the people who are here with us.

What a hideout: Holiness lies spread and borne over the surface of time and stuff like color.

It's a little silly to finally learn how to write at this age. But I long ago realized I was secretly sincere.

An Inuit hunter asked the local missionary priest: If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to hell? No, said the priest, not if you did not know. Then why, asked the Inuit earnestly, did you tell me?

The interior life is often stupid.