You Know How I Always

Astonishing Material And Revelation Appear In Our Lives All The Time. Let It Be. Unto Us, So Much Is Given. We Just Have To Be Open For Business.

It's Funny: I Always Imagined When I Was A Kid That Adults Had Some Kind Of Inner Toolbox Full Of Shiny Tools: The Saw Of Discernment, The Hammer Of Wisdom, The Sandpaper Of Patience. But Then When I Grew Up I Found That Life Handed You These Rusty Bent Old Tools - Friendships, Prayer, Conscience, Honesty - And Said 'do The Best You Can With These, They Will Have To Do'. And Mostly, Against All Odds, They Do.

My Father Was A Writer, So I Grew Up Writing And Reading And I Was Really Encouraged By Him. I Had Some Sort Of Gift And When It Came Time To Try To Find A Publisher I Had A Little Bit Of An "in" Because I Had His Agent I Could Turn To, To At Least Read My Initial Offerings When I Was About 20. But The Only Problem Was That They Were Just Awful, They Were Just Terrible Stories And My Agent, Who Ended Up Being My Agent, Was Very, Very Sweet About It, But It Took About Four Years Until I Actually Had Something Worth Trying To Sell.

Grief Is Just So Scary.... If We Finally Begin To Cry All Those Suppressed Tears, They Will Surely Wash Us Away Like The Mississippi River. That's What Our Parents Told Us. We Got Sent To Our Rooms For Having Huge Feelings. In My Family, If You Cried Or Got Angry, You Didn't Get Dinner.

When We're Dealing With The People In Our Family - No Matter How Annoying Or Gross They May Be, No Matter How Self-inflicted Their Suffering May Appear, No Matter How Afflicted They Are With Ignorance, Prejudice Or Nose Hairs - We Give From The Deepest Parts Of Ourselves.