And we can pray only when we realize that we cannot do anything, that we have reached our limit, that someone else must make that new beginning.

Often we are so burdened and overwhelmed with other thoughts, images, and concerns that it may take a long time before God's Word has cleared all that away and gets through to us.

A change has come indeed. Your hands, so strong and active, are bound; in helplessness now you see your action is ended; you sigh in relief, your cause committing to stronger hands; so now you may rest contented. Only for one blissful moment could you draw near to touch freedom; then, that it might be perfected in glory, you gave it to God.

We say that religion is a matter of mood: we must wait until the mood strikes us. And then we often wait for years —perhaps until the end of our life—until we are once again in the mood to be religious. This idea is based on a great illusion. It is alll well and good to let religion be a matter of mood, but God is not a matter of mood. He is still present even when we are not in the mood to meet with him.

One is less lonely when one is alone.

Culturally it means a return from the newspaper and the radio to the book, from feverish activity to unhurried leisure, from dispersion to concentration, from sensationalism to reflection, from virtuosity to art, from snobbery to modesty, from extravagance to moderation.

Yes, I said to myself, there are things I will never be able to do again. I don't like that and may even hate it, but that doesn't change the way things are. The sooner I make peace with that fact and accept the way things are, the sooner I'll be able to live in peace and enjoy my new normalcy.

When you start to "fall down the stairs" there is that moment when you realize that you have no control over what is going on. You simply experience the plunge and see where it takes you.

[In Bali] life is a rhythmic, patterned unreality of pleasant, significant movement, centered in one's own body to which all emotions long ago withdrew.

Move with the flow. Don't fight the current. Resist nothing. Let life carry you. Don't try to carry it.

How long does it take your soul to realize that your life is full? The slower the living, the greater the sense of fullness and satisfaction.

I am a human being, not a human doing. Don't equate your self-worth with how well you do things in life. You aren't what you do. If you are what you do, then when you don't . . , you aren't.