Solitude is the soul's holiday, an opportunity to stop doing for others and to surprise and delight ourselves instead.

Alone-in moments of prayer or meditation, or simply in stillness-we breathe more deeply, see more fully, hear more keenly. We notice more, and in the process, we return to what is sacred.

Growth and transformation occur not by changing who we are, but as we summon the courage to be who we are.

It has taken awhile, but I certainly do know it now ­­– the most wonderful gift I had, the gift I finally learned to cherish above all else, was the gift of all those perfectly ordinary days.

I can only bring peace to my children when I possess it myself.

We are the windows through which our children first see the world. Let us be conscious of the view.

Now I see that the journey was never meant to lead to some new and improved version of me; that it has always been about coming home to who I already am.

In stillness, we find our peace. Knowing peace at home, we bring peace into the world.

Stay focused on what is beautiful and abundant even as illness carves more and more of what you love away

Life finds its balance. Children grow up. Second chances come along. In the meantime, I could choose to savor this moment. What good would it do to allow annoyance to interfere with gratitude?

When we focus on what is good and beautiful in someone, whether or not we think that they "deserve" it, the good and beautiful are strengthened merely by the light of our attention.

You smiled and talked to me of nothing and I felt that for this I had been waiting long.

Writing is beautiful, like putting on a gold suit and going to sleep in it.

Even if it were true that evolution, or the teaching of evolution, encouraged immorality that would not imply that the theory of evolution was false.

It's not only the politician that can govern and lead a nation

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God gives infinite riches.

Simply expanding Medicaid does not improve health care outcomes. In Louisiana, instead we're helping people getting better paying jobs so they can provide for their own health care.

Bigamy, n. A mistake in taste for which the wisdom of the future will adjudge a punishment called trigamy.

Sometimes we are saddened by the weight of our sins. May we not be discouraged. Christ has come to lift this burden and give us peace.

Come to him. He turns no penitent one away. Would you, if you had paid so much in suffering? Would you ever give up? All the doors that are locked against the Lord are locked by us.