To embrace the magnitude of our destiny, we must at times question its existence in order to become convinced of its presence.

Devastation is in fact the raw material from which the best journeys are forged and the richest roads are paved.

Are my efforts driven by the need to win at all cost, or am I inspired by the desire to hold onto my integrity despite the cost? For I would be wise to realize that exercising the former will cost me both the former and the latter.

I’ve always marveled that geese can feel a call stirring, rise on hardy wings to engage it, and without contemplation, compass or map complete the feat. And could it be that they achieve this astounding accomplishment because far too often contemplation, compass or map rob the call by sterile analysis when we should liberate the call through expectant obedience.

The world is shaken by major events, but it is ‘transformed’ by slight subtleties. And while we may be far too small to create even one major event, we are just the right size to craft a thousand subtleties.

Sacrifice is not setting oneself up to die. It is liberating oneself to live.

As an action, deciding to sacrifice oneself is nothing more than deciding to restore who we are by turning against what we’ve become.

If the baser instinct of rampant self-preservation adamantly refuses to surrender itself to the infinitely greater call of self-sacrifice, in attempting to save our lives we will have in reality completely destroyed our lives.

The world was different at the top of the maple tree, for from far up in its lofty branches I was no longer part of everything that was running pell-mell below me. And I discovered that it was in taking myself out of the world that I finally began the process of understanding my place in the world.