To eat in a monastery refectory is an exercise in humility; daily, one is reminded to put communal necessity before individual preference. While consumer culture speaks only to preferences, treating even whims as needs to be granted (and the sooner the better), monastics sense that this pandering to delusions of self-importance weakens the true self, and diminishes our ability to distinguish desires from needs. It's a price they're not willing to pay.

When you are unhappy, is there anything more maddening than to be told that you should be contented with your lot?

But hope has an astonishing resilience and strength. Its very persistence in our hearts indicates that it is not a tonic for wishful thinkers but the ground on which realists stand.

I was taught that I had to 'master' subjects. But who can 'master' beauty, or peace, or joy?

Traversing a slow page, to come upon a lode of the pure shining metal is to exult inwardly for greedy hours.

The very nature of marriage means saying yes before you know what it will cost. Though you may say the “I do” of the wedding ritual in all sincerity, it is the testing of that vow over time that makes you married.

I write what I would like to read.