From the age of three on, as far back as I remember, I just knew there was a God behind everything.

In and through community lies the salvation of the world.

As I grow through love, so grows my joy, ever more present, ever more constant.

The act of loving is an act of self-evolution even when the purpose of the act is someone else's growth.

Most do not fully see this truth that life is difficult. Instead they moan more or less incessantly, noisily or subtly, about the enormity of their problems, their burdens, and their difficulties as if life were generally easy, as if life should be easy. They voice their belief, noisily or subtly, that their difficulties represent a unique kind of affliction that should not be and that has somehow been especially visited upon them, or else upon their families, their tribe, their class, their nation, their race or even their species, and not upon others.

When we teach ourselves and our children discipline, we are teaching them and ourselves how to suffer and also how to grow.

Abandon the urge to simplify everything, to look for formulas and easy answers, and to begin to think multidimensionally, to glory in the mystery and paradoxes of life, not to be dismayed by the multitude of causes and consequences that are inherent in each experience -- to appreciate the fact that life is complex.