My theory is that, as with our children, as with every surface of that geodesic dome inside the 8-Ball, every age we've ever been is who we are.
My mind kept thinking its harsh thinky thoughts, but I would distract myself from them gently and say, 'Those are not the truth, those are not trustworthy, those are for entertainment purposes only.'...
Mostly things are not that way, that simple and pure, with so much focus given to each syllable of life as life sings itself. But that kind of attention is the prize. To be engrossed by something outs...
Most people's intuitions are drowned out by folk sayings. We have a moment of real feeling or insight, and then we come up with a folk saying that captures the insight in a kind of wash. The intuition...
Most of us don’t notice how great we look until years, even decades later. Not long ago, I was looking at photos of myself at various ages and weights—way before the neckular deterioration began, way...
Mercy means compassion, empathy, a heart for someone’s troubles. It’s not something you do – it is something in you, accessed, revealed, or cultivated through use, like a muscle. We find it in the mos...
It's so awful, attacking your child. It's the worse thing I know, to shout loudly at this 50 lb. being with his huge trusting brown eyes. It's like bitch-slapping E.T.
Imagining God can be so different from wishful thinking, if your spiritual experiences change your behavior over time. Have you become more generous, which is the ultimate healing? Or more patient, wh...
If you want to feel loving, I coached myself, do something loving. This is basic soul care.
If we can believe in the Gnostic gospel of Thomas, old Uncle Jesus said, If you bring forth what is inside you, what you bring forth will save you. If you don't bring forth what is inside you, what yo...
I want people who write to crash or dive below the surface, where life is so cold and confusing and hard to see.Your anger and damage and grief are the way to the truth.
I saw a button pin once that said: I’m not tense. I’m just very, very alert.
I recognize the divinity in you, but actually more like, I recognize our each-otherness, instantly
I read more than other kids; I luxuriated in books. Books were my refuge.
I mean God as shorthand for the Good, for the animating energy of love; for Life, for the light that radiates from within people and from above; in the energies of nature, even in our rough, messy sel...
I mean God as Jane Kenyon described God: I am food on the prisoner’s plate . . . / the patient gardener / of the dry and weedy garden . . . / the stone step, / the latch, and the working hinge. I mean...
I have gotten lost all of my life, maybe more than most, and been found every time.
I decided to go to the beach at San Quentin, and practice living as if today was one of the precious few left to me. What a concept.
However, in the meantime, we are going to concentrate on writing itself, on how to become a better writer, because, for one thing, becoming a better writer is going to help you become a better reader,...
Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work: you don’t give up. I