In 1966, Stevie Wonder released his famous song “A Place in the Sun.” This morning that song immediately came to mind when I saw the brilliant sunlight gleaming on a bench in our garden. Having our own place in the sun affords us warmth, joy, and hope.

Grace is love and mercy freely given to us without our doing anything to earn it. Grace has its place as one of our essential aspects. The name “essential aspects” comes from the word “essence” – who we are at our core, our truest self, our essential nature. Many of us have experienced God’s grace when we are granted forgiveness, healing, or blessings. We have also experienced grace from our friends, family and others — gifts which we do not demand or necessarily deserve.

Every disappointment carries a secret message: this world was never meant to satisfy us fully.

Few things wound us as profoundly as lost hope. The collapse of anticipation into disappointment, then into despair, can fracture our inner world.

When there is so much doom and gloom, division and conflict, how do we have hope? 

Close your eyes and imagine standing at the edge of tomorrow. Can you feel it? That feeling in your stomach that something extraordinary is on its way, like we experienced as children on Christmas Eve. Or on this edge, we may feel dread … it may be a difficult conversation we must have, or the dread of putting down a loved pet. We spend so much of our lives headed into what is coming that we forget to be here now. Here’s a truth that sometimes alludes us: being absorbed in anticipation, whether it is of a party or a funeral to attend, can hijack this moment, the only one that exists.

What if disappointment is not a failure of the spiritual life, but the moment just before surrender?

Have you ever wondered why you anticipate the outcome you want? Have you ever wondered why you avoid the outcome you do not want?

Have you ever noticed how quickly joy can turn to disappointment? One moment you’re looking forward to something, and the next, it’s vaporized. This week, something I’d been anticipating for months was suddenly canceled, but in that instant, I discovered something surprising about the nature of disappointment itself.

“I know my divine essence,” she said, and told others the formula for finding theirs. But when her husband forgot their anniversary, she shattered like glass. The books and discussion groups had exposed her to spirituality, but life demanded something more than exposure. 

What if the secret to a meaningful life isn’t found in grand achievements, but in the quiet pleasures we barely notice?

What if self-doubt didn’t have to paralyze you?

What you think of yourself in the dead of night when no one’s watching, when no mirror reflects it, might be the most consequential opinion you’ll ever have. But what if, in this situation, we are wrong about ourselves? 

Some burdens were never meant to be shared. They were meant to be carried alone, in silence, until they become something else entirely. Then we realized we were not walking alone after all. 

We all carry a second set of thoughts and feelings that we’ve spent decades learning to hide. And for good reason…

There’s a locked room inside each of us. We have already been in it today. Perhaps an intrusive thought flickered through our mind during a meeting, or we caught ourselves imagining something we’d never dare speak aloud, or we judged someone or something in ways we would never share. We all carry these hidden chambers, filled with thoughts and feelings that never reach our lips. They are the feelings we’d rather deny than explain or expose. 

What if the secret to feeling truly at home isn’t found in spending time in activity, but beneath an open sky, lying on a fallen tree, breathing in sync with an ancient forest?

There is much to be said for rest. In truth, rest may be one of the most fruitful ways we spend our time. Constant activity pulls us into a whirlwind of doing, but rest draws us out of that vortex. It releases us from relentless distractions, deadlines, worries, pursuits of our desires, and mental preoccupations. In rest, our emotions settle, and our bodies remember ease.