“The prayers we weave into the matching of socks, the stirring of oatmeal, the reading of stories, they survive fire.”

“From all of our beginnings, we keep reliving the Garden story.”

“Worry is the facade of taking action when prayer really is.”

“On every level of life, from housework to heights of prayer, in all judgement and effort to get things done, hurry and impatience are sure marks of the amateur.”

“Just that maybe … maybe you don’t want to change the story, because you don’t know what a different ending holds.”

“My baby is five. She falls asleep in my arms . . . . Her breath is warm on my face, all that is alive and warm and breathing inside of her now, falling upon me, and I can't capture it, hold it, this, her life now, me in this moment. She is leaving me, she's growing up and moving away from me, and she stirs and I sweep back the crop of the golden ringlets. Stay, Little One, stay. Love's a deep wound and what is a mother without a child and why can't I hold on to now forever and her here and me here and why does time snatch away a heart I don't think mine can beat without? Why do we all have to grow old? Why do we have to keep saying good-bye?”

“The practice of giving thanks...eucharisteo...this is the way we practice the presence of God, stay present to His presence, and it is always a practice of the eyes. We don't have to change what we see. Only the way we see.”