Curiosity restores is a state of heightened awareness. Culturally, this has been considered a child's activity. By the time we're grown, we're supposed to know enough not to get bogged down in life's miraculous detail. But the spiritual journey reactivates our sense of miracle and invites us to pause again, squatting over the sidewalk cracks, to ponder the lives of ants and stars.

Words are how we think; stories are how we link.

This unceasing interplay between experience and narrative is a uniquely human attribute. We are the storytellers, the ones who put life into words.

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

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

To work in the world lovingly means that we are defining what we will be for, rather than reacting to what we are against.

My real journey had very little to do with traveling Europe, and a whole lot to do with traveling my own mind.