I Didn't Learn To Swim Until I

After 'lost', I Never Need To Take A Job For The Money Again.

Faith Takes Us To Deep Places, To The Ruptures In Our Self-confidence And Our Lives. Do Not Settle For Spiritual Comfort All The Time...darkness Is Divine Also. Faith Is Not About Positive Thinking So Much As About What Kicks In When We Are Weak, Sick, And Short Of Self-confidence. The Via Positiva Never Stands Alone. The Via Negativa Is Always With Us On Our Faith Journey As Well.

Facing The Darkness, Admitting The Pain, Allowing The Pain To Be Pain, Is Never Easy. This Is Why Courage - Big-heartedness - Is The Most Essential Virtue On The Spiritual Journey. But If We Fail To Let Pain Be Pain - And Our Entire Patriarchal Culture Refuses To Let This Happen - Then Pain Will Haunt Us In Nightmarish Ways. We Will Become Pain's Victims Instead Of The Healers We Might Become.

Healthy Mysticism Praises Acts Of Letting Go, Of Being Emptied, Of Getting In Touch With The Space Inside And Expanding This Until It Merges With The Space Outside. Space Meeting Space; Empty Pouring Into Empty. Births Happen From That Encounter With Emptiness, Nothingness. . . . Let Us Not Fight Emptiness And Nothingness, But Allow It To Penetrate Us Even As We Penetrate It.

What Is Of Most Moment Of Compassion Is Not Feelings Of Pity But Feelings Of Togetherness.