The purpose of life is not to maintain personal comfort; it's to grow the soul.

We make our lives bigger or smaller, more expansive or more limited, according to the interpretation of life that is our story.

When you choose to write using yourself as the source of the story, you are choosing to confront all the silences in which your story has been protectively wrapped. Your job as a writer is to respectfully, determinedly, free the story from the silences and free yourself from both.

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.

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

Ritual consists of the external practices of spirituality that help us become more receptive and aware of the closeness of our lives to the sacred. Ritual is the act of sanctifying action - even ordinary action - so that it has meaning. I can light a candle because I need the light or because the candle represents the light I need.

Spiritual life is contractual. The sacred cannot dialogue with the unresponsive.