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I don__ know why everyoneis still trying to find out whether heaven and hell exist.Why do we need more evidence?They exist here on this very Earth.Heaven is standing atop Mount Qasiounoverlooking the Damascene sightswith the wind carrying Qabbani__dulcet words all around you.And hell is only four hours away in Aleppo where children__ cries drown out the explosions of mortar bombsuntil they lose their voice,their families, and their limbs.Yes, hell certainly does existright now, at this moment,as I pen this poem. And all we__e doingto extinguish this hellfireis sighing, shrugging, liking, and sharing.Tell me: what exactly does that makeus? Are we any better than the gatekeepers of hell?

When the well's nearly dry and you're not sure you have the strength to persevere, fill up on love and friendship, then take another step, and then another, until you reach your goal.

When you learn to talk people up, you will never talk yourself down.

Don't give up when dark times come. The more storms you face in life, the stronger you'll be. Hold on. Your greater is coming.

If God give you strength and courage, don't use it to intimidate people or overpower them, rather use your gift to help others find their own way to strength.

Later, you told me what your mother had said. How your father, the farmer, rose up slowly. You told me how your mother wailed on the other end of the phone, grieving her loss and complaining about the basketball of a goitre perched on her shoulder. She told you, your father walked onto the veranda and saw a chook floating ten feet above the ground. The chook didn__ flap a feather and just sat there brooding, swaying in the breeze.

I dreamed my shoulders held up the sky for a thousand hawks that squawked and cawed and beat their feathered wings against the hotness of the day. I supported their flight, watching and marveling, until sweat dripped from my body, and groans crossed my lips over fatiguing muscles. Choosing to let the sky fall, I awoke. My eyes opened to a cast of hawks gripping me in their talons. They supported my weight, hauling me high above the clouds through a blue expanse of heaven. And though they struggled__quawking and flapping wearily__ever once did a single bird release its hold.

I would rather lie facedown on the ground and use my body as a bridge, than stand proud and tall and use my body as a wall.

Some things cannot be fixed. They can only be carried.

When you try to take someone's pain away from them, you don't make it better. You just tell them it's not OK to talk about their pain.

True comfort in grief is in acknowledging the pain, not in trying to make it go away. Companionship, not correction, is the way forward.

What we all share in common - the real reason for this book - is a desire to love better. To love ourselves in the midst of great pain, and to love another when the pain of this life grows too large for one person to hold. This book offers the skills needed to make that kind of love a reality.

The reality of grief is far different from what others see from the outside. There is pain in this world that you can't be cheered out of. You don't need solutions. You don't need to move on from your grief. You need someone to see your grief, to acknowledge it. You need someone to hold your hands while you stand there in blinking horror, staring at the hole that was your life. Some things cannot be fixed. They can only be carried.

Every loss is valid. And every loss is not the same. You can't flatten the landscape of grief and say that everything is equal. It isn't.

There are moments of frustration in life. You must build good relations to support you in these moments. You must also learn to encourage yourself and decide to stay determined in life.

Acknowledgment--being seen and heard and witnessed inside the truth about one's own life--is the only real medicine of grief.

A King and Queen cannot support a crown with eyes looking down. Their universe expands as far as you can see.

The Gospel isn__ a life management program. It shouldn__ merely be the crutch we fall on when life gets ugly. It should be the legs we walk on, the air we breathe.