Our role in life is to bring the light of our own souls to the dim places around us.

I have to be honest with you, it never occurred to me, as years went by, that my country would look like this as I grew into it, and as it grew into a different world. That's why I keep pressing the notion that we must seek wisdom.

Our role in life is to bring the light of our own souls to the dim places around us.

Life is an exercise in the development of feeling. When we repress feelings, we become sour and judgmental. When we live awash in great feeling over small things, we become jaded long before we have even begun to enjoy. When feelings are in balance they sweeten long days and great distances with gratitude and hope.

I celebrate myself," the poet Walt Whitman wrote. The thought is so delicious it is almost obscene. Imagine the joy that would come with celebrating the self — our achievements, our experiences, our existence. Imagine what it would be like to look into the mirror and say, as God taught us, "That's good.

Contemplation is a very dangerous activity. It not only brings us face to face with God. It brings us, as well, face to face with the world, face to face with the self. And then, of course, something must be done. Nothing stays the same once we have found the God within…. We carry the world in our hearts: the oppression of all peoples, the suffering of our friends, the burdens of our enemies, the raping of the Earth, the hunger of the starving, the joy of every laughing child.

Religious life is not going to go away. It will take a different form. Why am I so sure it's not going to go away? Because there are people whose personalities and gifts, and interests and soul, are simply immersed in living this kind of a spiritual lifestyle. That only makes sense. If you can live an artistic lifestyle, why can't somebody live a spiritual lifestyle? We've always, in every single great tradition, had a percentage of the population that stands in the middle of us being the beacon that calls us to realize that the spiritual life is an essential part of every life.