“I don’t remember who said this, but there really are places in the heart you don’t even know exist until you love a child.”

This is one thing they forget to mention in most child-rearing books, that at times you will just lose your mind. Period.

I was reminded of the Four Immutable Laws of the Spirit: Whoever is present are the right people. Whenever it begins is the right time. Whatever happens is the only thing that could have happened. And when it’s over, it’s over.

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.