Sometimes life is just awful, and that's the way it is. It doesn't have to reflect so much on God, as just be noted as this is what man is willing to do to his fellow man. It doesn't mean God is like this too.

God made the ability to feel pain. He didn't have to, you know. He made the ability to feel pain and He also made it possible to feel joy. Should I hate Him for allowing one and praise Him for allowing the other? God knew what He was doing. I may not always agree, but that is part of what respecting His authority means."

Society isn't prepared to imagine a soul wandering through time to heal its grief.

Uncertainty, on the other hand, is the fertile ground of pure creativity and freedom. Uncertainty means stepping into the unknown in every moment of our existence. The unknown is the field of all possibilities, ever fresh, ever new, always open to the creation of new manifestations. Without uncertainty and the unknown, life is just the stale repetition of outworn memories. You become the victim of the past, and your tormentor today is your self left over from yesterday.

The conclusion of this little package of insight is that there are no victims. Wise people often say this, but when they declare that all is wisely and justly ordered, their listeners remain baffled. What about wars, fires, random murders, aircraft disasters, despotism, gangsters, and on and on? All of these imply victims and often cruel victimizers, too.

According to a poem by Rumi, one of my favorite poets and philosophers, "This is not the real reality. The real reality is behind the curtain. In truth, we are not here. This is our shadow." What we experience as everyday reality is merely a shadow play. Behind the curtain there is a soul, living and dynamic and immortal, beyond the reach of space and time. By acting from that level, we can consciously influence our destiny.

Given the amount of unjust suffering and unhappiness in the world, I am deeply grateful for, sometimes even perplexed by, how much misery I have been spared.

When we have passed the tests we are sent to Earth to learn, we are allowed to graduate. We are allowed to shed our body, which imprisons our souls.

A kingdom man understands that God never said a godly life would be easy; He just said it would be worth it.

Maybe life on earth could be heaven, doesn't just the thought of it make it worth a try?

Your faith in miracles, and yourself, must be greater than your fear. However easy or rough your birth process is, you have to be willing to fall down, get up, look stupid, cry, lauggh, make a mess, clean it up and no stop until you get there.No matter what.

I don't know if it be a peculiarity in me, but I am seldom otherwise than happy while watching in the chamber of death, should no frenzied or despairing mourner share the duty with me. I see a repose that neither earth nor hell can break; and I feel and assurance of the endless and shadowless hereafter - the Eternity they have entered - where life is boundless in its duration, and love in its sympathy, and joy in its fulness.