Forgiveness is a miracle of grace whereby the offense no longer separates. ... It means that we will no longer use the offense to drive a wedge between us, hurting and injuring one another. Forgiveness means that the power of love that holds us together is greater than the power of the offense that separates us. That is forgiveness. In forgiveness we are releasing our offenders so that they are no longer bound to us ... freeing them to receive God's grace.

Every time you forgive, you dissolve a condition you have placed on your own capacity to love. Every time you forgive, love is awakened in you more deeply and your capacity to extend love is increased. That is the nature of the journey.

We hunger to be known and understood. We hunger to be loved. We hunger to be at peace inside our own skins. We hunger not just to be fed these things but, often without realizing it, hunger to feed each other these things because they too are starving for them. We hunger not just to be loved but to love, not just to be forgiven but to forgive, not just to be known and understood, but to know and understand each other to the point of seeing that in the last analysis we all have the same good times, the same bad times, and that for that very reason there is no such thing in the world as anyone who is really a stranger.

Recent studies have validated the brain/earth relationship through magnetics. Ancient texts tell us that the body seeks a harmonic balance with the earth. This balance is the goal of the life experience, and may be consciously regulated through non-polarized thoughts of forgiveness and feelings of compassion.

True forgiveness always has a sacrificial character. It can never have a passive character. For we do not simply make a decision to "forget" the wrong or injustice that has been perpetrated upon us but, in addition, we take upon ourselves an inner obligation to MAKE AMENDS for the objective harm which evil action has wrought not only upon us but also upon the world. In true forgiveness we willingly, out of complete inner freedom, take upon ourselves an inner obligation to give the world as much compassion, love, and goodness as the evil action has objectively taken away from it.

Faithful creator, You are the source and resource of all purposed and created life. In an attitude of gratitude I accept your encouragement to learn what it means to be authentically human and make peace with my own humanity, so that I can accept a sacredness of other beings. With thanksgiving I accept the spiritual, ethical and moral responsibility for my own inner healing and joy. I embrace the mystery of healthy loving relationships as I learn to be an agent of change, reason and tenderness upon the earth that is an outpouring of your love for all life. I accept your help so that I may learn to live honorably in covenant community, lifting my voice in care, over criticism. Amen.

Making peace with ourselves means accessing inner peace that can be cultivated and extended to others. Authentic inner peace does not mean living in isolation, but discovering our own true nature and living in harmony with other people and the environment.

The highest form of intervention that an individual may offer within a given situation, is not to ask for something to be, rather to become that which is desired. If peace is THE DESIRED REALITY within the global matrix, peace must BECOME THE REALITY within the local matrix of your experience. You must BECOME THAT PEACE.

The first peace, which is the most important, is that which comes within the souls of people when they realize their relationship, their oneness, with the universe and all its powers, and when they realize that at the center of the universe dwells the Great Spirit, and that this center is really everywhere, it is within each of us.

Enlightenment, peace, and joy will not be granted by someone else. The well is within us, and if we dig deeply enough in the present moment, the water will spring forth. We must go back to the present moment in order to be really alive... You will be able to make a breakthrough and discover joy and peace right in the present moment, inside of yourself and all around you.

Peace is all around us -- in the world, in nature and within us -- in our bodies and our spirits. Once we learn to touch this peace, we will be healed and transformed.

A legend: In the beginning of the world the divine light was held in primeval vessels. But somehow no one knows how the vessels were shattered, and discord and confusion spread everywhere. The great task for human beings is to repair the ancient vessels, to gather together the sacred light, to call home all those who have been lost or in exile, to heal the separation and bring peace to the world.

Drop They still dews of quietness
Til all our strivings cease;
Take from our souls the strain and stress,
And let our ordered lives confess
the beauty of Thy peace.

Guild members, we are told, would begin their day with the master in prayer to the guild's patron saint before turning to the work, and prayers of one kind or another punctuated the whole day. ... Oh, for the ordered structure of the guild workshop! The strong clear voice "re-minding" me, in the real sense of that word, to return to the silence.

There are times not to answer the door, not to answer the phone, not to do undone things, but to rest in silence from everything. The world can wait five minutes. In fact no matter how busy we are, no matter how well organized, no matter how little rest we allow ourselves, we will never do all that needs to be done. But to do well what we are called to do, it is essential to nurture a capacity for inner stillness. Such quiet, deep-down listening is itself prayer.

Communication with God is a deep inner knowing that God is within you and around you. God "speaks" through the still, small voice within. When you have constant communion with God, a constant receiving from within, there is never any doubt; you know your way. You become an instrument through which a job is done, therefore you have no feeling of self-achievement... The main things, if you are to find inner peace, are to bring your life into harmony with the laws which govern this universe (these are the same for all of us), and to find and fit into your special work in this world -- your job in the divine plan.

Any type of work can be meaningful. It is the spirit in which you do it that makes the difference.

Things just happen in the right way, at the right time. At least they do when you LET them, when you work WITH circumstances instead of saying, "This isn't supposed to be happening this way", and trying hard to make it happen some other way. If you're in tune with The Way Things Work, then they work the way they need to, no matter what you may think about it at the time. Later on, you can lookback and say, "Oh, now I understand. That had to happen so that THOSE could happen, and those had to happen in order for THIS to happen..." Then you realize that even if you'd tried to make it all turn out perfectly, you couldn't have done better, and if you'd REALLY tried, you would have made a mess of the whole thing.

Art arises from a spiritual longing that all people share: to make our mark on the world and to spend our life energy in a work that rises above the mundane, adding grace to existence. We respond to the light of the world around us by giving expression to our own inner light, and when the two are on the same wave-length, the world seems more brilliant and finely focused.

When you take a dirty floor ... and make it spotlessly clean, and this polish it until it shines, it radiates back to you the love which you poured into it; the divinity of that floor has been drawn forth.

True service isn't an act, but an attitude. We can do things for other people with all kinds of self-serving motives. True service, however, stems from a feeling of humility, gratitude, and the essential recognition that we are in this together... Service is love in action -- as simple as a friendly smile or nod to a stranger -- or as all embracing as the life of Peace Pilgrim or Mother Teresa.

The only little journey we have to make -- the only little moment of transition -- is the moment where we actually become aware of the dignity and beauty and light of the presence in which we already are. I think that being here in this graced planet of landscape, nature, presence, and person is the miracle -- is the journey.