Sublime

"I was placed for adoption by my teenage birth parents during a time when closed adoptions were still commonplace. Each year on my adoption day, my adoptive mother would tell me the story of how I came into their lives. The story grew in detail as I aged and was interrupted by more questions. I learned that I was briefly in foster care during a sta

at the empty plates in front of us that we were eager to fill with the scrumptious food that Chef Sati had assembled in the middle of the table. He gently exclaimed, “It’s so wonderful for us to be together, and I am so grateful we can share this dinner because in many other parts of the world, our empty plates might remain empty for a long time. E

When you come to one of the many moments in life where you must give an account of yourself, provide a ledger of what you have been, and done, and meant to the world, do not, I pray, discount that you filled a dying man’s days with a sated joy, a joy unknown to me in all my prior years, a joy that does not hunger for more and more but rests, satisf

A man was working on the koan “No” for some years. He noticed how compulsive the mind can be, and for him, to bring his mind back to the koan, over and over again, many times a minute if necessary, was to gain an enlightenment at the simplest and most fundamental level—to survive the debris of the mind. It can be consoling to discover that you don’

Sister Mary Scullion is no martyr. She’s a cheerful soul who’s having a wonderful time living out the existence that best suits her nature and most brings her to life. It just so happens that she takes care of a lot of other people in the process—but everyone can sense her genuine enjoyment behind the mission, which is ultimately why her presence i

Tucia managed another step forward. A tourniquet was needed, high on the arm, until she could assess the extent of the girl’s injury. A ligation, perhaps, judging from the pulsing splatter of blood. She’d need a blade in case she couldn’t find the end of the vessel after exploring the wound. A needle and thread. Cauterization might be necessary . .

My mother, the doctor thought, was waiting for my arrival and might not last the night. “Dying of what?” I asked him. “Nothing, everything.”

Still, for all of the transformations wrought by the masterful new engines of medicine and by their multitudinous varieties of fuel, there is one singular ingredient of the art of healing that should not be allowed to vanish. That ingredient, so basic and so changeless, is a relationship; it takes place in the quiet surroundings of the sickroom or