I don't think pain is a prerequisite for growth, but on the other hand, most of us choose very painful ways to learn.

Relationships never end, because they're of the mind; only bodies can separate. When you're missing someone, know it just means that on a soul level they've come to visit.

God exists in eternity. The only point where eternity meets time is in the present. The present is the only time there is.

If you want to have a nonmiraculous day, I suggest that newspaper and caffeine form the crux of your morning regimen. Listen to the morning news while you're in the shower, read the headlines as you are walking out the door, make sure you're keeping tabs on everything: the wars, the economy, the gossip, the natural disasters. . . But if you want the day ahead to be full of miracles, then spend some time each morning with God.

We go through those circumstances in order to evolve into people who can hold to our loving center no matter what the world throws us. A loving universe makes sure that we go through those things too.

The historian Arthur Schlesinger has pointed out that people tend to get interested in politics again every 30 years. The universe moves in cycles of three. The number figures in everything from Pythagoras's theory that the universe is based on three to the Father-the-Son-and-the-Holy- Ghost to the three-sided pyramidal shapes that intersect in the Jewish Star of David. The notion of the mystical three, metaphysically, spiritually, and even politically, is quite interesting to me.

We don't reach the light through endless analysis of the dark. We reach the light by choosing the light.