mahabbarata

forgiveness is holiness, by forgiveness the universe is held together.

God is no white knight who charges into the world to pluck us like distressed damsels from the jaws of dragons, or disease • god chooses to become present to and through us • it is up to us to rescue one another.

all art is a revolt against man's fate.

the darkest hour has only sixty minutes

barn burned down • now i can see the moon

if donating organs communicates something important about what we believe, then offering them at the department of motor vehicles makes getting a driver's license a sacred moment

listen, my wary one, its far too late to unlove each other
instead let's cook something elaborate and not invite anyone to share it
but eat it all up very slowly

God is closer to us, the mystics say, than our breath • closer than we are to ourselves • st. john of the cross says, 'we are God like a stone is in the earth... already in the center.' there is no other way to get closer to god than we already are • the spiritual life, then, is not about actually coming closer to God but rather the realization of the communion and union that already exists, and always has, and always will, forever.

good photos to good people and from a good person.

a person's good deeds are used by the lord as seeds for planting trees in the garden of eden: thus, each person creates his or her own paradise.

the only way to make a man worthy of love is by loving him.

prayer and love are learned in the hour when prayer becomes impossible and your heart turned to stone.

so, instead of loving what you think is peace, love others and love God above all, and instead of hating the people you think are warmongers, hate the appetite and the disorder in your own soul, which are the causes of war • if you love peace, then hate injustice, hate tyranny, hate greed - but hate these things in yourself, not in another.

to deliver oneself up, to hand oneself over, entrust oneself completely to the silence of a wide landscape of woods and hills, or sea or desert; to sit still while the sun comes up over the land and fills its silence with light • to pray and work in the morning and to labor in meditation in the evening when night falls upon that land and when the silence fills itself with darkness and with stars • this is true and special vocation • there are few who are willing to belong completely to such silence, to let it soak into their bones, to breathe nothing but silence, to feed on silence, and to turn the very substance of their life into a living vigilant silence.

something happened when i took your picture • i became enchanted by the sight of you, standing there. looking at the book, perfect in that gentle light • i took the photograph over and over, again and again, compulsively, knowing that when i stopped and set the camera down, the moment would be lost, as the dream dies when one awakens, and i could not bear to let it go.

an age is called "dark," not because the light fails to shine but because people refuse to see it.

if a mother respects both herself and her child from his very first day onward, she will never need to teach him respect for others.

if there is anything that deserves to be called miraculous, is it not love? what other power, what other mysterious force is there which can invest life with such undeniable splendor? the miracle which everyone is permitted to experience sometime in his life, the miracle, which demands no intervention, no intercession, no supreme exertion of will, the miracle which is open to the fool and the coward as well as the hero and saint, is love • born of an instant, it lives eternally.

there are nothing but gifts on this poor, poor earth.

[in outer space] you develop an instant global consciousness, a people orientation, an intense dissatisfaction with the state of the world, and a compulsion to do something about it • from out there on the moon, international politics look so petty • you want to grab a politician by the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, "look at that, you son of a bitch."

we die • that may be the meaning of life • but we do language • that may be the measure of our lives.

she bring me love love love, crazy love.

for those who have come to know God, the whole world is a prayer mat.

i am startled to think how happy i am most of the time, considering that my health is a mess • i use a wheelchair due to multiple sclerosis and have struggled with five different cancers • i'm completely blind in one eye, can't see at night, and can drive only short distances in daylight, at speeds that enrage other drivers • my blood pressure is high, my thyroid function low • my bones are crumbling, and i'm shorter than i was two years ago.

yet i am happy • my wheelchair gets me most places i want to go • large type on my computer allows me to write • i don't have to put on pantyhose and go to an office everyday • if it snows, i watch the trees turn white instead of worrying about a nerve-racking ride home from the city • chatting by the office coffeepot has been replaced by e-mail with friends • i have all the things that i promised myself i would have retired someday: books by the stack, a view of the lake, a golden retriever • cancer has taught me that "someday" is today • and today i am doing exactly what i want to be doing.

a person travels the world over in search of what he needs and returns home to find it.

neither a lofty degree of intelligence nor imagination nor both together go into the making of genius • love, love, love, that is the soul of genius.