When we die before we die, we are surrendering to the Real, to union with God—now—and therefore later too. 

Surrender and letting go might sound like losing, but they are actually about accessing a deeper sense of the self, which is already whole and filled with abundant life.

Contemplation brings us to the place of divine fullness where hope lives. Contemplation is living in a unity that produces a deep non-rational, and calm hope. God allows us to bring “on earth what is in heaven” every time we can allow, receive, and forgive the conflicts of the moment and sit in some degree of contentment.

Sooner or later, life is going to lead us into the belly of the beast, into a situation that we can’t fix, can’t control, and can’t explain or understand. That’s where transformation most quickly happens. That’s when we’re uniquely in the hands of God. 

If you try to understand God’s grace by any ledger of merit, you will never understand it. 

The pattern of transformation, the pattern that connects, is always death transformed, not death avoided. The universal spiritual pattern is death and resurrection; loss and renewal. But, we want one without the other. 

If we cannot find some way to transform our wounds into sacred wounds, we will become cynical, negative, or bitter. This might be the major task of religion, because we will be wounded, sooner or later.

We are obsessed by thoughts as soon as we wake up, useless chatter all day. Setting expectations are invariably disappointments and resentments waiting to happen. 

If we can encounter one thing in its uniqueness, it can lead to an encounter with all of creation at the same time. The contemplative mind does not demand, is not needy, and is not easily offended. 

The finite manifests the infinite. The physical is the doorway to the spiritual. All we need is right here, right now. As above, so below.