I was jolted awake from a horrible nightmare. It was 3:00 a.m. and I was in a panic. No one would be awake at such an hour. I needed someone to talk to! I felt so unbalanced and in need for counsel, especially in this darkness. Everything seems worse in the quiet darkness of the night.

We just celebrated Mother's Day and I've been thinking about the years of struggle I experienced as I tried to find ways of honoring my mother (who never wanted to be a mother). She was, after all, an abusive and self-centered mother, thanks, in part, to her own upbringing.

The opportunity for change is not the same as the reality of change. Alcoholics know this. Smokers know this. Overweight people know this. All of them are probably the most knowledgeable people on the planet when it comes to recovery and life change. They know the dangers of where they are.

Is there anything more beautiful than a butterfly? Maybe, but I've yet to find it. As a small child I was so in love with them that I tried to put them in jars like fireflies, but they always got away.

Mysticism comes from the Greek word meaning, "to conceal." It is the pursuit of achieving communion with or conscious awareness of Ultimate Reality, the Divine, Spiritual Truth, or God through direct, personal experience rather than rational thought. It is an experience of the existence of realties beyond perceptual or intellectual comprehension...