In that inevitable, excruciatingly human moment, we are offered a powerful choice. This choice is perhaps one of the most vitally important choices we will ever make, and it determines the course of our lives from that moment forward. The choice is this: Will we interpret this loss as so unjust, unfair, and devastating that we feel punished, angry, forever and fatally wounded-- or, as our heart, torn apart, bleeds its anguish of sheer, wordless grief, will we somehow feel this loss as an opportunity to become more tender, more open, more passionately alive, more grateful for what remains?

Even when our intentions are noble and our efforts sincere, even when we dedicate our lives to the service of others, the corrosive pressure of frantic over-activity can nonetheless cause suffering in ourselves and others. A "successful" life can become a violent enterprise.

Emptiness is the pregnant void out of which all creation springs. But many of us fear emptiness. We prefer to remain...surrounded by things...we imagine are subject to our control.

As we explore the nature of our gift, our goal is to move toward this kind of giving: cheerful giving that flows gently and easily, kingly giving that flows surely from who we are. As we encounter the questions—Who are we ? What do we love ?—the gift we bring will be easy, because our gift naturally emerges from who we are. The offering we bring is ourselves, just as we are. Our gift is our true nature. There can be no greater gift than this.

If we do not allow for a rhythm of rest in our overly busy lives, illness becomes our Sabbath— our pneumonia, our cancer, our heart attack, our accidents create Sabbath for us.

What we love and what captures our curiosity draws us forward into some place of great destiny.

Our lives are made of these moments. Simple words and actions, taken together, weave a single day, and our days become our life. Every gesture is a seed, and the seed determines the harvest.