We're quietly aching for something to celebrate

In the same way that we have to clean wax from our ears and dirt from our eyes, we're all asked to clean out our conclusions and judgments, which block our heart from meeting the world.

But compassion is a deeper thing that waits beyond the tension of choosing sides. Compassion, in practice, does not require us to give up the truth of what we feel or the truth of our reality. Nor does it allow us to minimize the humanity of those who hurt us. Rather, we are asked to know ourselves enough that we can stay open to the truth of others, even when their truth or their inability to live up to their truth has hurt us.

Whether you find it through mediation or sighing over tea or just turning all your devices off for five minutes, listening is an ancient lifeline by which we are awakened time and again. Once reawakened, we more easily find our way to each other, and so help each other live.

Birds learn how to fly, never knowing where flight will take them.

Every human has an unfathomable gift that only meeting life head on will reveal.

No amount of thinking can stop thinking.