"We’re not here to be safe, those texts tell us, but to risk everything. We didn’t come here for the purpose which contemporary Western society seems to want us to believe we’re here for: to aspire to accumulating sufficient wealth so that we can ‘retire’ at the age of 60 or thereabouts, to a nice house in a nice safe neighborhood, to stop work and play golf or go on round-the-world cruises, to stop being useful and wait to die. It’s not that we shouldn’t hope for safety and pleasure in our lives—but these things shouldn’t be our primary motivation. We’re here to risk everything to fulfil our calling, to walk wholeheartedly along the path which leads us there, even if that path sometimes is dangerous, or hard."  —Sharon Blackie