Now when I say that this has something to do with the child in us, I mean that there is in the child a longing to find a meaning, an openness to mean… - David Steindl-Rast

Whatever life gives to you, you can respond with joy. Joy is the happiness that does not depend on what happens. It is the grateful response to the opportunity that life offers you at this moment

A minute of “waiting” in computer time is no longer than a moment spent “waiting” on a magnificent rocky beach for the sun to rise over the ocean; my perception is what makes them seem different. And how I perceive such things is a matter of spiritual discipline.

If you are striving to be perfect and pure, everything depends on getting the right idea of what absolute purity and perfection mean. We tend to get trapped in the idea of a static perfection that leads to rigid perfectionism. Abstract speculation can create an image of God that is foreign to the human heart. On the level of religious doctrine, it's a God that is totally purged of anything that we call dark. Then we try to live up to the standards of a God that is purely light and we can't handle the darkness within us. And because we can't handle it, we suppress it. But the more we suppress it, the more it leads its own life, because it's not integrated. Before we know it, we are in serious trouble.