The main question is not, how can we hide our wounds...but how can we put our woundedness in service to others.

When we have sold our identity to the judges of this world, we are bound to become restless, because of a growing need for affirmation and praise.

To live a spiritual life we must first find the courage to enter into the desert of our loneliness and to change it by gentle and persistent efforts into a garden of solitude. The movement from loneliness to solitude, however, is the beginning of any spiritual life because it it is the movement from the restless senses to the restful spirit,l from the outward-reaching cravings to the inward-reaching search, from the fearful clinging to the fearless play.

Jesus said Communion first, community comes out of that, and out of community, ministry.

Learning to weep, learning to keep vigil, learning to wait for the dawn. Perhaps this is what it means to be human.

Did I offer peace today? Did I bring a smile to someone's face? Did I say words of healing? Did I let go of my anger and resentment? Did I forgive? Did I love?' These are the real questions. I must trust that the little bit of love that I sow now will be many fruits, here in this world and the life to come.

The real enemies of our life are the 'oughts' and the 'ifs.' They pull us backward into the unalterable past and forward into the unpredictable future. But real life takes place in the here and now.