When we are forced to stop the noise around us and in us, we begin to hear everything that is not us, and this is the beginning of humility and the renewal of our soul's energy; as only by listening to all that is larger than us can we discover and feel our place in the Universe.

To listen is to continually give up all expectation and to give our attention, completely and freshly, to what is before us, not really knowing what we will hear or what that will mean. In the practice of our days, to listen is to lean in, softly, with a willingness to be changed by what we hear.

Repetition is not failure. Ask the waves, ask the leaves, ask the wind.

We tend to make the thing in the way the way.

In a world that lives like a fist mercy is not more than waking with your hands open.

Who's to say the effort to be real isn't the beginning of wings?

This is the ongoing purpose of full attention: to find a thousand ways to be pierced into wholeness.