Life is an ever-flowing river interrupted by things large and small that stop the flow. And the purpose of love is to remove the interrupters. When fear pins me like a boulder, I need you to roll it off my heart. And when complication falls like the bough of a tree after a storm blocking your door, I will haul it away. I used to dread the interrupters, but without them, we would never have come to mean so much... Read more

When we insist on rowing with just one oar, we go around in circles. This is what happens when we insist that we are right. When we refuse to walk with some form of light, we bump around in the dark. This is what happens when we react without listening. When we cling, our hands stay closed and we can hold nothing. This is what happens when we are defensive. It seems a modern condition: to row in circles in... Read more

To loosen your mind is to watch a crane without making a sound. To follow your heart is to ride a dragon while carrying a flower. To accept one’s fate is to free the ox and make a garden of the wheel. To believe is to carve a flute for the song not yet written.   A Question to Walk With: In conversation with a friend or loved one, describe a time when you loosened your mind and a time... Read more

You come to me discouraged that you can never land where you aim, that life is always off course, that there is always a tragic gap between what we want and what we’re given. I can only say that we are always becoming, that the gold hidden in the break is the lasting treasure. Ever since Icarus tried to touch the sun, we have ached to fly, only to discover, when forced to land, that being kind and useful where... Read more

Gratitude releases power because, like a flower opening, giving thanks brings us into the light and, as a fish rides the current of a stream, we through our gratitude ride the current of life. While curiosity makes us aware of the animating thresholds of life, gratitude gives us the quiet courage to cross those thresholds and enter life. After years of practicing gratitude, I have come to see that alignment reveals miracle, that is, when we can align who we... Read more

When the accusations grow wildly like leaves in the jungle, there’s no room for light. And everyone just keeps hiding and running until far enough away from all the insanity, a single truth like a single leaf floats to the ground and it seems there’s nothing left to lose. And in the sudden stillness, where the bombs couldn’t reach, you can feel the throb in your hands and the throb in your mind. And wanting to start over, with less... Read more

As a boy, I would stare into things a bit too long for the adults around me. They told me I was sad and that I should cheer up. I know now that I was feeling depth not sadness. Later, when I was silent too long, those afraid of silence warned me that being empty would make me lonely. I know now that I was not drown- ing in emptiness, but gliding like a small bird in the spaciousness that... Read more

It’s 5:30 am, the sun is creeping over the horizon, and it’s stunningly quiet at the gate. Each of us waiting for flight 4975 to open its honeycomb doors. Each of us in an unexpected pause, our lives in a slight ellipsis between here and there, between trouble and peace. Dale, the wizened gate agent, cautions us not to carry too much. If I had only known when I was younger. The beautiful old woman next to me is thinking... Read more

For the hummingbird, the instant the nectar enters its beak. For the dolphin, the moment it slips back into the wave. For you and me, the slice of time we slip through when what we look for—in here and out there—is the same. Like the moment a wing is one with the wind. Or the moment that love and truth gather in the back of our throat when everything we care for is about to leave or arrive and we... Read more

In the middle of the war, a red poppy trembled in the rubble. It made him put his gun down and stop. He had entered the eye of battle and knelt before the poppy, bullets whizzing, thinking, if we could just lie down with the poppies. And in the middle of the hunt, the old hunter saw the fox before anyone else, staring at him in a long patch of light. But he couldn’t shoot it because he suddenly wanted... Read more