I know this much is true: In my group room can be a Muslim, a transsexual, an atheist lesbian, two folks who would self-identify as “born again,” a Roman Catholic or two (practicing and/or ‘recovering’), a couple of folks who know nothing whatsoever about religion and are on the fence about the fact that my groups are mandatory. I can count on one hand all the times I’ve ever had to moderate any kind of religious argument or negative judgment. I can state with as much certainty as I can about anything in life this truth: at the core of our human experience is our common plight of suffering and that the thing that unites is our shared search for meaning and necessary reliance on one another as we seek to transcend, to heal.


Compassion, understanding comes from understanding, on our most deeply human level , that we are all in this together and that we desperately, yes, desperately in a very deep existential sense, need each other to survive. Most of us have to wait until we are mired in overwhelming life crises and deep suffering to understand this deep eternal truth. I get to sit witness to its grace everyday and to the miracle of the human and divine spirit at work in the courage of faith’s redemption and human transformation.