How strange to think that great pain may be impermanent. Something in us all seems to want to carve it in granite, as if only this would do full honor to its terrible significance. But even pain is blessed with impermanence... p 259

When people are blessed they discover that their lives matter, that there is something in them worthy of blessing.

Perhaps we can only truly serve those we are willing to touch, not only with our hands but with our hearts and even our souls. Professionalism has embedded in service a sense of difference, a certain distance. But on the deepest level, service is an experience of belonging, an experience of connection to others and to the word around us. It is this connection that gives us the power to bless the life in others. Without it, the life in them would not respond to us.

The spiritual is inclusive. It is the deepest sense of belonging and participation.We all participate in the spiritual at all times, whether we know it or not.

Cancer changes your whole life.

We usually look outside ourselves for heroes and teachers. It has not occurred to most people that they may already be the role model they seek. The wholeness they are looking for may be trapped within themselves by beliefs, attitudes, and self-doubt. But our wholeness exists in us now. Trapped though it may be, it can be called upon for guidance, direction, and most fundamentally, comfort. It can be remembered. Eventually we may come to live by it.

It is not that we have a soul, but that we are a soul.