I have no idea about what death is, but because I have been in association with it so intimately, I have a much greater sense of the value of life and of what life can be.

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

Cancer changes your whole life.

I had thought joy to be rather synonymous with happiness, but it seems now to be far less vulnerable than happiness. Joy seems to be a part of an unconditional wish to live, not holding back because life may not meet our preferences and expectations. Joy seems to be a function of the willingness to accept the whole, and to show up to meet with whatever is there. It has a kind of invincibility that attachment to any particular outcome would deny us.

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.

When we listen, we offer with our attention an opportunity for wholeness.

Religion is a bridge to the spiritual, but the spiritual lies beyond religion.