Any time we read a newspaper or take any look at the world around us, we are aware of the cruelty and violence that dominates our world.

The world is terrified of joyful women. Make a stand. Be one anyway.

Judaism, Christianity, and I'm sure other religions also, are having to deal with the fact that they may or may not have lived up at all times to the injunctions of their own mystical center. For instance, when I went to Sunday school, I remember learning more about Jewish history than about God. So, once again, that doesn't mean there's anything wrong with the Jewish religion, it just means that sometimes people are not fed the mystical food - the spiritual food - of their own religious background.

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.

Things don't spiral out of control when we surrender them; they spiral out of control when we try to control them!

The fact is, there are Fortune 500 companies that have been founded during recessions.

The miracle-minded perception would be to make happiness itself our goal and to relinquish the thought that we know what that would look like.