all that paddling around in the alphabet soup of one's childhood, scooping up letters, hoping to arrange them into enlightening sentences that would explain why things had turned out the way they had. It evoked a certain mutiny in me.

When compassion wakes up in us, we find ourselves more willing to become vulnerable, to take the risk of entering the pain of others.

I tried to imagine a church that did not support its country's wars as a matter of patriotic course and instead stood against the devastation and suffering they caused in people's lives." (from 'The Dance of the Dissident Daughter'.)

The True Self is not our creation, but God's. It is the self we are in our depths. It is our capacity for divinity and transcendence.

How could I choose someone who would force me to give up my own small reach for meaning? I chose myself, and without consolation.

And I was struck all at once how life was out there going through its regular courses, and I was suspended, waiting, caught in a terrible crevice between living my life and not living it.

The most significant gifts are the ones most easily overlooked. Small, everyday blessings: woods, health, music, laughter, memories, books, family, friends, second chances, warm fireplaces, and all the footprints scattered throughout our days.