Community is like a large mosaic… a fellowship of… people who together make God visible in the world. —Henri Nouwen I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service is joy. —Rabindranath Tagore   Shared values are not the same thing as shared humanity. Shared values are based on agreements that come from the head. They form the basis of culture. But it’s our shared humanity that is... Read more

The most unusual thing happened while walking Zuzu today. There was a thick shelf of clouds hovering when the sun broke through, infusing the nearest clouds with prominent bands of light. At once, the sun revealed itself as the pistil of the Universe and each cloud was a petal unfurling its luminous veins. I had to stop and peer into this vestige of Eternity. Then, the light spilled off the gilded clouds onto my dog’s face and along my forearm.... Read more

Sometimes, the life-giving downpour will snap a limb on its way to releasing spring. And once the storm has vanished, the flowers come alive and open. And sometimes, a boy drawn by their wild color will find the broken limb among the flowers and bring it home to secretly carve a walking stick for his bent and smiling grandfather who is as crooked as the fallen limb.  From outside the story, this seems a sweet happenstance. But when it’s our... Read more

Often the instruments of change are not kind or just and the hardest openness of all might be to embrace the change while not wasting your heart fighting the instrument. The storm is not as important as the path it opens. The mistreatment in one life never as crucial as the clearing it makes in your heart. This is very difficult to accept. The hammer or cruel one is always short-lived compared to the jewel in the center of the... Read more

After almost seventy years, I confess that though I have struggled I have never been lost and have never stopped loving—everything. And this has enabled me to inhabit life authentically. In the beginning, there were goals I was taught to work toward and these longings for worth were honed in time into personal ambitions, which all fell away. For staying true to the love of everything as our teacher has turned out to be the most enduring ambition of all.... Read more

I was in a circle of those who climbed from the sea of trouble onto the shore of a day like today. We were tired, aglow, broken. Out of a sudden silence a young woman stood and sang You’ve Got a Friend. When I heard, “You just call out my name and I’ll be there…” I saw you all. No vow has meant more to me. Yet there was the time I couldn’t get there. And the time I was... Read more

As a fire needs wood, the soul needs care to burn strong and bright. And just as it doesn’t matter what kind of wood is given to the fire, the soul doesn’t value one form of care over another. Any act of care will make the soul come alive through us. And since all things are worthy of care and in need of care, any ground of experience we devote ourselves to will brighten our aliveness—in us and between us.... Read more

I was bearing up under a weight I could no longer see, when the exhalation of something older than all my trouble unfurled my understanding, like a scarf blown out of the hands of someone clutching it. And my mind, floating between preoccupations, was now see-through and weightless. For the first time in months, the grief I’d been obeying went silent. I felt whole in a new way, as if the skin of all I’d been through had grown over... Read more

When you can admit how heavy you are with sadness, then we can talk. Right now, there are too many knives flying around and it’s hard to see your hands. I dream of the day that we can sit in the sun under a breeze with nothing to say. Your sorrow hides in your anger like a soft bird falling in a storm. The storm that is you drives us all away. No wonder your heart feels like it’s on fire. A Question to... Read more

I’ve sat in hundreds of cafés, watching lives pass by, each eager to meet someone, each desperate to get away. I’ve stared into hundreds of photographs, each a window to another patch of time and space, where beautiful souls were falling down and getting up. Still, I can’t quite grasp how many of us there are and how each of us is a world unto ourselves. Right now, in this café on Fourth Ave., an older woman in a sweater... Read more