I have become the woman I hardly dared imagine I could be. There are parts I don’t love—until a few years ago, I had no idea that you could have cellulite on your stomach—but not only do I get along w...
I do not at all understand the mystery of grace—only that it meets us where we are but does not leave us where it found us.
Grief, as I read somewhere once, is a lazy Susan. One day it is heavy and underwater, and the next day it spins and stops at loud and rageful, and the next day at wounded keening, and the next day at...
Gratitude begins in our hearts and then dovetails into behavior. It almost always makes you willing to be of service, which is where the joy resides. It means that you are willing to stop being such a...
Amen is how most of us end our prayers, the standard response to prayers in the synagogue and the church and the mosque. The word means And so it is or Truly. Well, that’s very nice, but what on earth...
All wise people say the same thing that you are deserving of love and that it's all here now everything you need. When you pray you are not starting the conversation from scratch just remembering...
...[T]here should be a real sense of your imagination and your memories walking and woolgathering, tramping the hills, romping all over the place. Trust them. Don't look at your feet to see if you are...
Two things put me in the spirit to give. One is that I have come to think of everyone with whom I come into contast as a patient in the emergency room. I see a lot of gaping wounds and dazed expressio...
The first holy truth in God 101 is that men and women of true faith have always had to accept the mystery of God's identity and love and ways. I hate that, but it's the truth.
You get your confidence and intuition back by trusting yourself, by being militantly on your own side. You need to trust yourself, especially on a first draft, where amid the anxiety and self-doubt, t...
We're Easter people, living in a Good Friday world.
We live stitch by stitch, when we’re lucky. If you fixate on the big picture, the whole shebang, the overview, you miss the stitching. And maybe the stitching is crude, or it is unraveling, but if it...
The single most radical thing I know . . . is that I get to take care of myself.
The neck is where it all shows. Like the thighs of the head.
The act of writing turns out to be its own reward.
Start with your childhood, I tell them. Plug your nose and jump in, and write down all your memories as truthfully as you can.
Some people have a thick skin and you don't. Your heart is really open and that is going to cause pain, but that is an appropriate response to this world.
She lived in fear of ifonic endings. (91)
Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life, and it is the main obstacle between you and a shitty first draft. I think per...
Now she and I sit together in her room and eat chocolate, and I tell her that in a very long time when we both to go heaven, we should try to get chairs next to each other, close to the dessert table.
