“The miracle is that we are here, that no matter how undone we’ve been the night before, we wake up every morning and are still here. It is phenomenal just to be.”

We begin to find and become ourselves when we notice how we are already found, already truly, entirely, wildly, messily, marvelously who we were born to be.

Dogs are the closest we come to knowing the divine love of God on this side of eternity.

So a moral position is not a message. A moral position is a passionate caring inside you.

People help you or you help them and when we offer or receive help, we take in each other. And then we are saved.

Love falls to earth, rises from the ground, pools around the afflicted. Love pulls people back to their feet. Bodies and souls are fed. Bones and lives heal. New blades of grass grow from charred soil. The sun rises.

Nothing heals us like letting people know our scariest parts: When people listen to you cry and lament, and look at you with love, it’s like they are holding the baby of you.

Again and again I tell God I need help, and God says, ‘Well, isn’t that fabulous? Because I need help too. So you go get that old woman over there some water, and I’ll figure out what we’re going to do about your stuff.

Expectations are resentments under construction.

Grace means you’re in a different universe from where you had been stuck, when you had absolutely no way to get there on your own.

Lighthouses don’t go running all over an island looking for boats to save; they just stand there shining.

When faced with a crisis, do three things: breathe, pray and be kind.

Never compare your insides to everyone else’s outsides.

Creative expression, whether that means writing, dancing, bird-watching, or cooking, can give a person almost everything that he or she has been searching for: enlivenment, peace, meaning, and the incalculable wealth of time spent quietly in beauty.

What’s the difference between you and God? God never thinks he’s you.

Radical self-care is quantum, and radiates out into the atmosphere, like a little fresh air. It is a huge gift to the world. When people respond by saying, “Well, isn’t she full of herself,” smile obliquely, like Mona Lisa, and make both of you a nice cup of tea.

Joy is the best makeup.

Keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your life.

There were thirst and hunger, and you were the fruit. There were grief and the ruins, and you were the miracle.

The dream was always running ahead of me. To catch up, to live for a moment in unison with it, that was the miracle.

Even miracles take a little time.

Go be a blessing. Your miracle is waiting for you as you help others.

Miracles are a retelling in small letters of the very same story which is written across the whole world in letters too large for some of us to see.

Many people are alive but don’t touch the miracle of being alive.

I would rather make mistakes in kindness and compassion than work miracles in unkindness and hardness.