A friend is one to whom one may pour out the contents of one's heart, chaff and grain together, knowing that gentle hands will take and sift it, keep what is worth keeping, and with a breath of kindness, blow the rest away.”
My answer to a friend: There is no success in ministry, only service and moments of celebration. If you choose to minister, expect to be misunderstood. All of the pain people carry will fall upon your brow, and you shall be the stand-in for every ignorant statement...
A friend does not sacrifice another for political reasons whether the politics be secular or religious. Jesus certainly doesn't. To do one in the name of the other is not just fraudulent but slanderous.
The novelist Pearl Buck argued that artists are people who tend to be extremely sensitive to any emotional input: "The truly creative mind in any field is no more than this: A human creature born abnormally, inhumanely sensitive. To them, a touch is a blow, a sound is...
Think of a single mother who goes to the Church or the Parish, and tells the secretary: I WANT TO BAPTIZE MY SON." And the attendant says: No, you can't, because you're not married.. Let's keep in mind that this mother had the courage to continue with a pregnancy, and...
You can be flawed, anxious and sometimes irritated, but don't forget that your life is the greatest company in the world. Only you can prevent her from going into decline. There are many who appreciate, admire and love you. And you don't know but there are people for...
Practicing an art, no matter how well or how badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven's sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possibly can. You will get an enormous...
The soul is always complicated. Most of its thought and emotions could never be expressed in plain language. You could have the patience of Job and still never understand your partner (or friend or lover or family member), because the soul by nature doesn't lend...
The Christmas spirit does not shine out in the Christian snob. For the Christmas spirit is the spirit of those who, like their Master, live their whole lives on the principle of making themselves poor—spending and being spent—to enrich their fellow humans, giving...
Welcome the present moment as if you had invited it. It is all we ever have so we might as well work with it rather than struggling against it. We might as well make it our friend and teacher rather than our enemy.