Life is a thing of many stages and moving parts. What we do with ease at one time of life we can hardly manage at another. What we could not fathom doing when we were young, we find great joy in when we are old. Like the seasons through which we move, life itself is a never-ending series of harvests, a different fruit for every time.

A seeker searched for years to know the secret of achievement and success in human life. One night in a dream a sage appeared bearing the answer to the secret. The sage said simply: "Stretch out your hand and reach what you can." "No, it can't be that simple," the seeker said. And the sage said softly, "You are right, it is something harder. It is this: Stretch out your hand and reach what you cannot." Now that's vision.

Just when summer gets perfect-fresh nights, soft sun, casual breezes, crushingly full and quietly cooling trees, empty beaches, and free weekends- it ends. Life is like that too. Just when we get it right, it starts to change. The job gets easy and we know just how to do it, and they tell us we're retired. The children grow up and get reasonable and they leave home, just when it's nice to have them around. . . . That's life on the edge of autumn. And that's beautiful-if we have the humility for it.

Temptations are part of life, part of growing up. We grapple with them often - in some instances for our lifetime - before we come to realize that it is not so much the victory as it is the struggle that is holy.

Compassion makes no distinction between friends and enemies, neighbors and outsiders, compatriots and foreigners. Compassion is the gate to human community.

Grief is a sign that we loved something more than ourselves. . . . Grief makes us worthy to suffer with the rest of the world.

What is the spirituality we need for the 21st century? We face a choice: to retire from this fray into some marshmallow paradise where we can massage away the heat of the day, the questions of the time, the injustice of the age, and live like pious moles in the heart of a twisted world. Or, we can gather our strength - our spiritual strength - for the struggle it will take to wake up from this pious sleep.