"Between fight and flight is a third path: The Way Between. The Way Between stands its ground, neither causing harm nor allowing harm to be done. . . . Everything can be done with the Way Between, from the smallest task to moving the largest mountains."  --Rivera Sun, The Way Between

"As I walk with Beauty

As I walk, as I walk,

The universe is walking with me,

In beauty it walks before me,

In beauty it walks behind me,

In beauty it walks below me,

In beauty it walks above me,

Beauty is on every side."

--Traditional Navajo Prayer

"You cannot get through a single day without having an impact on the world around you. What you do makes a difference and you have to decide what kind of a difference you want to make."  --Jane Goodall

"Outrage without an accompanying action turns into paralysis."  --Sr. Helen Prejean

The Preciousness of Life

"It is not so difficult to understand why, through all the ages, people searching for the meaning of life tried to live as close to nature as possible. Not only St. Benedict, St. Francis, and St.Bruno in the olden days, but also Thomas Merton, who lived in the woods of Kentucky, and the Benedictine monks who built their monastery in an isolated canyon in New Mexico. It is not so strange that many young people are leaving the cities and going out into the country to find peace by listening to the voices of nature. And nature indeed speaks: the birds to St. Francis, the trees to the Native Americans, the river to Siddhartha. And the closer we come to nature, the closer we touch the core of life when we celebrate. Nature makes us aware of the preciousness of life. Nature tells us that life is precious not only because it is, but also because it does not have to be."  --Henri Nouwen

"Culture makes people understand each other better. And if they understand each other better in their soul, it is easier to overcome the economic and political barriers. But first they have to understand that their neighbor is, in the end, just like them, with the same problems, the same questions."  --Paulo Coelho

The Friend Who Cares

"When we honestly ask ourselves which persons in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving much advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a gentle and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not-knowing, not-curing, not-healing, and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is the friend who cares."  --Henri Nouwen