We are all strangers in a strange land, longing for home, but not quite knowing what or where home is. We glimpse it sometimes in our dreams, or as we turn a corner, and suddenly there is a strange, sweet familiarity that vanishes almost as soon as it comes...

If I sit for a while, then my impatience, crossness, frustration, are indeed annihilated, and my sense of humor returns.

Wherever she was, holy laughter was present to heal and redeem.

Part of doing something is listening. We are listening. To the sun. To the stars. To the wind.

I am encouraged as I look at some of those who have listened to their "different drum": Einstein was hopeless at school math and commented wryly on his inadequacy in human relations. Winston Churchill was an abysmal failure in his early school years. Byron, that revolutionary student, had to compensate for a club foot; Demosthenes for a stutter; and Homer was blind. Socrates couldn't manage his wife, and infuriated his countrymen. And what about Jesus, if we need an ultimate example of failure with one's peers? Or an ultimate example of love?

artists ... all have a need that cannot be met by another human being.

It is possible to suffer and despair an entire lifetime and still not give up the art of laughter.