Listening is the oldest and perhaps the most powerful tool of healing. It is often through the quality of our listening and not the wisdom of our words that we are able to effect the most profound changes in the people around us. When we listen, we offer with our attention an opportunity for wholeness. Our listening creates sanctuary for the homeless parts within the other person. That which has been denied, unloved, devalued by themselves and others. That which is hidden.

A human life has seasons much as the earth has seasons, each time with its own particular beauty and power. And gift. By focusing on springtime and summer, we have turned the natural process of life into a process of loss rather than a process of celebration and appreciation. Life is neither linear nor stagnant. It is movement from mystery to mystery. Just as a year includes autumn and winter, life includes death, not as an opposite but as an integral part of the way life is made.

Big messages come in small packages. All it may take to restore someone's trust in life may be returning a lost earring or a dropped glove.

The secret of living well is not in having all the answers but in pursuing unanswerable questions in good company.

We may need to let go of our beliefs and ideas about life in order to have life.

Sooner or later we will come to the edge of all that we can control and find life, waiting there for us.

My sense is that you can never teach anybody anything, or change anybody in ways that they don't already have in mind.