understanding

To embody a new paradigm of civilization - to learn to think like a planet in order to heal and nurture a planet - is not a typical hero's task.  It is more the task of a gardener.  The planet does not offer us challenges to be overcome to prove our worth or individuality; it presents us with a community to understand, a community with disparate needs and identities that are nonetheless intertwined in mutual dependencies.

The earth community, the Life Community, is not the property of any one religion or group or part of the world; it is the Commons that embraces us all, our planetary home.  And it needs us as never before.  It calls to us to become, not heroes but community builders, builders of home, gatherers and embracers, bearers of hospitality, keepers of the shared space that nurtures us all.  It calls us not to go forth and come back laden with honors but to honor where we are, who we are, and from that place to reach out to connect to and honor each other in the community of life.

The only way to change is by changing your understanding.

So for the question I go to the mystery of it and say I don’t know. I only know that I am alive and there is something that manifests in my life, that it is God and one day I am going to understand my life, probably in the day that I die, or afterwards. But I try to find good questions and not good answers.

Humor brings insight and tolerance. Irony brings a deeper and less friendly understanding.

To assume you know someone well enough that you can and do predict their behavior and mental perspective is a gross and often tragic mistake, for it eliminates that person's freedom to create his or her own opinion and drastically affects the emerging picture of the relationship.

I would like to comment on the God fiber within each living thing. This essence, this fiber of love and grace, runs in every vein, no matter how deeply buried. Each person has a God fiber, whatever their actions or hurt they have caused you or others.

Communication leads to community, that is, understanding, intimacy and mutual valuing.

Instead of looking at one's dreams to understand one's life, it may make more sense to look at one's life to understand one's dreams.

Hate can only exist in the absence of understanding; where understanding is present, hate cannot exist. ... Very often hate is the result of a determination not to understand, and this is why hate is so dangerous: it actually resists understanding.