The opposite of love is not rage. The opposite of love is indifference. Love engages all our emotions: Joy is the gift of love. Grief is the price of love. Anger is the force that protects that which is loved. We cannot access the depth of loving ourselves or others without our rage.

I believe laboring in joy is the meaning of life.

Stories that expand the collective we have the power to return us to one another.

When we are brave enough to sit with our pain, it deepens our ability to sit with the pain of others. It shows us how to love them.

Grieving together, we ease each other’s suffering and come to know each other.

When we choose to wonder about people we don’t know, when we imagine their lives and listen for their stories, we begin to expand the circle of those we see as part of us. We prepare ourselves to love beyond what evolution requires.

Wonder is the wellspring for love

When suffering constricts the heart, awe stretches it back out, making us more compassionate, more loving, more present.

The more I listen, the less I hate. The less I hate, the more I am free to choose actions that are controlled not by animosity but by wisdom.