Human lives are hard, even those of health and privilege, and don't make much sense. This is the message of the Book of Job: Any snappy explanation of suffering you come up with will be horseshit.

The mix in our rooms is so touching: the clutter and the cracks in the wall belie a bleakness or brokenness in our lives; while photos and a few rare objects show our pride, our rare shining moments ... these rooms are future ruins

We're Easter people, living in a Good Friday world.

Grief ends up giving you the two best things: softness and illumination.

Then it came to me: I was asking the wrong question. The right one is: Where is God in gang warfare? And the answer is, The same place God is in Darfur, and in our alcoholism, and when children are bullied: being crucified.

Human lives are hard, even those of health and privilege, and don't make much sense. This is the message of the Book of Job: Any snappy explanation of suffering you come up with will be horseshit. God tells Job, who wants an explanation for all his troubles, "You wouldn't understand.

Some aching beauty comes with huge loss, although maybe not right away, when it would be helpful. Life is a very powerful force, despite the constant discouragement. So if you are a person with connections to life, a few tendrils eventually break through the sidewalk of loss, and you notice them, maybe space out studying them for a few moments, or maybe they tickle you into movement and response, if only because you have to scratch your nose.

In the rabbinical tradition, there is great insight in the notion that when we see suffering, we remember that this is only the sixth day. We're not done here. The good news is that God isn't, either. God is searching with us for a cure for cancer. God rejoiced at the cure for smallpox.

Above me, wind does it's best to blow leaves off the aspen tree a month too soon. No use wind. All you succeed in doing is making music; the noise of failure growing beautiful.

when a heartbroken daughter of the King offers her pain and suffering to Christ, the enemy suffers a great defeat. Do we feel strong? No, we feel heartbroken. But when we enter into that divine exchange and take our sorrow to Christ, we become strong in His strength.

In secret pleasure — secret tears This changeful life has slipped away

Filter your pain through the brevity of this life and the unending beauty of the next.