She didn't even know how dangerous the truth could be, all the tiny, shattering seeds it carried.

Every person on the face of the earth makes mistakes, Lily. Every last one. We're all so human. Your mother made a terrible mistake, but she tried to fix it.' 'Good night,' I said, and rolled onto my side. 'There is nothing perfect,' August said from the doorway. 'There is only life.

Did you know there are thirty-two names for love in one of the Eskimo languages?" August said. "And we just have this one. We are so limited, you have to use the same word.

Honeybees depend not only on physical contact with the colony, but also require it's social companionship and support. Isolate a honeybee from her sisters and she will soon die.

I wished she'd been smart enough, or loving enough, to realize everybody has burdens that crush them, only they don't give up their children.

Finally, I began to write about becoming an older woman and the trepidation it stirred. The small, telling "betrayals" of my body. The stalled, eerie stillness in my writing, accompanied by an ache for some unlived destiny. I wrote about the raw, unsettled feelings coursing through me, the need to divest and relocate, the urge to radically simplify and distill life into a new, unknown meaning.

How do we accomplish this matter of gathering life together in God? We must begin primarily by refocusing our attention keeping our minds and hearts directed toward God. The essence of the centered life is attention to God in all we think, say and do. It is the growing realization of His presence in our most down-to-earth living.