Quotations

Hope may be the “forgotten” virtue set between faith and love, but it is the essential link between them that enables them both to work at top efficiency.

I heard a preacher say that hope is a revolutionary practice . . . 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. . .

Hope is the physician of each misery.

Hope is like a road in the country; there never was a road, but when many people walk on it, the road comes into existence...

It takes a universe
to make a child both
in outer form and inner spirit.
It takes a universe
to educate a child;
a universe to fulfill a child.
For, the child awakens to a universe.

When I was a baby my heart
was a tiny fish swimming
in a gargantuan sea of things to come.

When I was a toddler my heart
was a trout in a large lake of
thoughts and feelings.

Now my heart is becoming
a salmon ready to go to the sea
of troubles I will have to face.

When I am old my heart
will be a whale swimming
in a sea of memories.

When I die God will become
a whaler.

Perhaps there was in Beethoven the man, a child inside that never grew up and to the end of his life remained a creature of grace and innocence and trust even in his moments of greatest despair. And that innocent spirit speaks to us of hope and future and immortality.

The soul is healed by being with children.

"Sometimes, even in the middle of a busy street, I would feel the great union, the great peace when speaking and listening were attuned to the voice of the Most High."

"I have felt this rarely in my life, mostly when I was a very young child," returned Pawel. "Time slowed then, a sense of wonder expanded. Angels sent messages, poured out over the world. One had only to look up to see it, to hear it, to receive the messages. But childhood ends. ‘Reality’ conquers all."

"Childhood should not end," David said. "It should take a more mature form, but its innocence should not cease."

I know now that the spiritual Child is sleeping inside all of us. All beings, no matter how reactionary, fearful, dangerous or lost, can open themselves to the sacred within and become free even in prison. Prison is a perfect monastery.

Inner peace is a great gift. When we are at peace, we find the freedom to be ourselves, even in difficult times. We let go of what is unnecessary and embrace what really matters.

Gratitude is an amazing grace crowned in heaven with peace.

As the monk advances in practice, feelings of hardship decrease and he is suffused with energy and sustained by joy. The marathon monk has become one with the mountain, flying along a path that is free of obstruction. The joy of practice has been discovered and all things are made new each day. Awakened to the Supreme, one marathon monk described his gratitude thus:

"Gratitude for the teachings of the enlightened ones,
gratitude for the wonders of nature,
gratitude for the charity of human beings,
gratitude for the opportunity to practice ... "

In the very last conversation we ever had, five days before his death, the subject came around to gratitude ...

"If you're quiet enough, as still as that mountain, you can hear in your heart a silent ‘thank you.' The whole universe, if you listen in your heart -- every blade of grass, each bird, each stone -- it is all ‘thank you.' We are born into ‘thank you' ... every step of the way is ‘thank you.' "

Rafe may not have heard the stars move. But I believe he was hearing "the Love that moves the stars and the sun."

The ancients sometimes said
that the worst sin is
ingratitude, which is a
forgetting of the greatness,
beauty, truth, and goodness
of the Source that is
constantly creating us--
in other terms, a forsaking
of Being and of the Good.

Grandfather cultivated gratitude at every step. On Fridays, after noon prayers, he retired to his room for a half hour ritual. Eyes closed, hands on heart, grandfather melted into a trance. Softly, at times in silence, he intoned continuous words of heart-felt thanks to God interspersed with recitations from the Holy Book. At times his body swayed with his outpourings; other times he was still. Tears poured profusely down his cheeks, soaking his shirt. Curious family members who secretly peeked in invariably burst into tears.

When you no longer have expectations, the unexpected kindness of others and small acts of consideration become like "sweet manna from heaven." The feeling that rises spontaneously within one's heart at such times is true gratitude. When one is accustomed to kindness, one can lose the feeling of gratitude. One must constantly return oneself to the spiritual starting point of no expectations.

Gratitude gentles us
and grants us grace.

As I express my gratitude,
I become more deeply aware of it.
And the greater my awareness,
the greater my need to express it.
What happens here is a spiraling ascent,
a process of growth in
ever expanding circles
around a steady center.

Silence before the Beloved has deep significance in the quietness of the soul as the individual sinks into the central fire of communion. In the circle of community the most personal elemental chords of life receive their deepest stimulation. In the silent act of breathing and in the unspoken dialogue of the soul with Love, solitary as these are, deep communion can be given.

The sun tries to come out. It is a true November morning--cold and grey, with hints of blue and white light in the sky, a haze over the hills and trees, the ground covered with wet leaves, the trees dead and barren except for the pines. ... I sit content, held in peace as if God is embracing me. The silence is magnificent and healing. I become a part of it--silent, calm, at peace. My soul is quieted.