Simplicity means that you have brought things to a kind of unity in yourself; you have made certain connections. That is, you have to make a just response to the real complexity of life in this world. People have tried to simplify themselves by severing the connections. That doesn't work. Severing connections makes complication. These bogus attempts at simplification ignore or despise the real complexity of the world. And ignoring complexity makes complication--in other words, a mess. (wendell berry)

love as the will to extend one's self for the purpose of nurturing one's own or another's spiritual growth -- that dimension of our core reality where mind, body and spirit are one. (peck)

an individual does not need to be a believer in a religion to embrace the idea that there is an animating principle in the self - a life force - that when nurtured enhances our capacity to be more fully self-actualized and able to engage in communion with the world around us. (bell hooks)

What you do speaks so loud that I cannot hear what you say.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"it is not enough to give soup and bread. this the rich can do . . . you have to love folks very much to make them forgive you the bread you give them." st. vincent