My father has been with me since his death, speaking to me through the things he did, the things he built, the things he loved. So when someone recently asked, “Which should we listen to, our soul or our will,” I suddenly remembered my father teaching me how to steer the thirty-foot sailboat he built when I was a boy. He would say, “It’s the sail that follows the wind and the rudder that follows the sail.” The sail by... Read more

When we can still ourselves, our heart will sink —of its own weight—below the noise of the world, the advice of others, and even our own expectations. Once that still, our mind can relax and we have the chance to inhale what matters. This is how we practice meeting life. So when losing track of what I believe in, when wondering what work I’m called to next, I still my heart until I stop feeding the dark things that keep... Read more

A rheumatologist at a workshop at the Cleveland Clinic spoke of a twenty-one-year-old woman she was treating who was dying of cancer. The medical team caring for her was running out of treatment options and the sight of this young woman withering was weighing on everyone. On a sun-filled September day near the end, the young woman was curled in her bed in a fetal position, her family around her, the blinds closed, the room dark and silent. Entering the... Read more

The tragic murder of all these young, beautiful beings in Orlando makes all the talk of love and fear, of guns and protection, of sameness and difference urgent and real. Only the diverse forms of a nature survive and even more, thrive. And so, we are at a crossroads in the human journey. At the same time, we are both on the verge of self-destructing and on the verge of breaking into a new form of community. What we choose... Read more

Each person is born with a gift. Our call is to find it and care for it. The ultimate purpose of the gift is to exercise the heart into inhabiting its aliveness. For the covenant of life is not just to stay alive, but to stay in our aliveness. And staying in aliveness depends on opening the heart and keeping it open. Our dreams, goals, and ambitions are all kindling, fuel for the heart to exercise its aliveness, to bring... Read more

My dear father, Morris Nepo, died three years ago at the age of ninety-three. He was at his strongest and happiest when working with wood, when building things. In his basement workshop, no one could suppress his love of life and his insatiable creativity. I learned a great deal from him, though I can see now that there were many times he didn’t know he was teaching and I didn’t know I was learning. Mostly, he taught me by example... Read more

THE SWAY OF IT ALL   And so I lift my face from the mud, the mud of my past, the mud of history, the thick and ragged bark of how we think everyone but our own darkness is the enemy, I lift my face like a worn planet spinning on itself to get back into the light, to say to no one, to everyone—it is an honor to be alive.   A Question to Walk With: In conversation with... Read more

Twenty-six years ago today, the tumor growing in my skull vanished and I was thrown back in the streets like Lazarus. Today the rain is a fine mist and I open my face for a long time, receiving water from the sky. All I can say is perhaps falling in love with the world is the bravest thing we can do. I only know that my heart grows stronger every year, a muscle gaining each time I love. This rush... Read more

CRADLESONG (for Jessica)   How do I explain chemotherapy to a six-year-old up in my arms before I shed my coat?   How do I tell her I can’t kiss her on the lips because my white count is low, that we must leave early because Aunt Helen has a cold?   And when we go, she hides in her room, face in the corner, till I return and swallow her in my arms—Damn it all— I kiss her anyway... Read more

IT   First It was a woman with auburn hair whose head would moan when I’d kiss her neck. Then It was a game where despite the others I would rise in the air and toss the ball as if it were all that mattered of me and I’d only feel complete when it slipped the net, touching nothing, just falling blissfully from the sky. Then It was a solitude that overwhelmed me, on a mountain, or lingering by a... Read more