Our wounds are often the openings into the best and most beautiful part of us.

In a true you-and-I relationship, we are present mindfully, nonintrusively, the way we are present with things in nature.We do not tell a birch tree it should be more like an elm. We face it with no agenda, only an appreciation that becomes participation: 'I love looking at this birch' becomes 'I am this birch' and then 'I and this birch are opening to a mystery that transcends and holds us both.

True optimism is not the prospect of control over pain or elimination of it but survival through it.

Evoke one good memory for each bad one from now on.

Fate often allows a future to take shape with no regard for our expectation, plan, or readiness. Fate's skillful editing of our life choices is like the careful grooming of lads on their first day of school: combed, polished, scrubbed, newly dressed, and glowing too. This is how we become ready for our life lessons.

Our wounds are often the openings into the best and most beautiful part of us.

The human heart holds much more love than it can ever disburse in one lifetime.