Millions of people are joined in the knowledge that writing brings insight and calm in the same way that prayer, meditation, or a long walk in the woods does. They have discovered that writing allows the racing mind to move at the pace of pen and paper or the pace of typing on the waiting screen - that journal writing is a spiritual practice.

Friendship has no civil, and few emotional, rights in our society.

We need a revolution in the West: not violent overthrow, but a willingness to take responsibility for the course of history being set forth in our names. We need a revolution determined to activate broad, inclusive social change.

With compassion, we see benevolently our own human condition and the condition of our fellow beings. We drop prejudice. We withhold judgment.

Despair is our chance to wrestle with fire and come through.

Ritual is the way you carry the presence of the sacred. Ritual is the spark that must not go out.

History is what scholars and conquerors say happened; story is what it was like to live on the ground.