In a world of deep divisions and growing uncertainty, we need moments of wholeness that can keep our hearts open, ease our troubled minds and bring us closer to the hidden unity that is natural to life and essential for our own souls.

Awe can involve states of heightened awareness and wonder that reconnect us to the heart of nature. Joy, unlike happiness, is not a passing thing, but a state of being that can reveal hidden talents and timeless wisdom. Gratitude is connected to grace and to our innate nobility and natural capacity for both compassion and forgiveness.

In experiencing awe and joy, gratitude and grace we can reconnect to lost and rejected aspects of ourselves that we need for survival, but also for psychological and spiritual growth. Since the world will not settle soon, we need to feel that life, despite all its heart-breaking conflicts, remains holy, that healing remains possible and that grace can fall upon us at any time.