This is it, in the best possible way. That thing I'm waiting for, that adventure, that movie-score-wor thy experience unfolding gracefully. This is it. Normal, daily life ticking by on our streets and sidewalks, in our houses and apartments, in our beds and at our dinner tables, in our dreams and prayers and fights and secrets - this pedestrian life is the most precious thing any of us will ever experience.

Life sneaks up on us every once in a while and gives us something we didn't ever know we wanted, and lights within us a love we didn't even know existed.

It's not hard to decide what you want your life to be about. What's hard, she said, is figuring out what you're willing to give up in order to do the things you really care about.

We sometimes choose the most locked up, dark versions of the story, but what a good friend does is turn on the lights, open the window, and remind us that there are a whole lot of ways to tell the same story.

Feeding people is a way of loving them.

Sometimes we have to leave home in order to find out what we left there, and why it matters so much.

But our hearts are more elastic than we think, and the work of forgiveness and transformation and growth can do things you can't even imagine from where you're standing now.