Walt Whitman

...I know nothing else but miracles,
Whether I walk the streets of Manhattan,
Or dart my sight over the roofs of houses
toward the sky, Or wade with naked feet
along the beach just in the edge of the
water, or stand under trees in the woods,
Or talk by day with any one I love, or
sleep in bed at night with anyone I love,
Or sit at table at dinner with the rest,
Or look at strangers opposite me riding
in the car, or watch honey-bees busy
around the hive of a summer forenoon,
Or animals feeding in the fields, or birds,
Or the wonderfulness of insects in the air,
Or the exquisite delicate thin curve of the
new moon in spring.

These with the rest, one and all, are to me
miracles, the whole referring, yet each distinct in in its place.

To me every hour of the light and dark
is a miracle.  Every cubic inch of space
is a miracle, every square yard of the
surface of the earth is spread with
miracles, every foot of the interior swarms
with miracles.

Rev. Peter Gomes

Hope is a slippery word and particularly so when it is used in connection with the future and as an antidote to anxiety and fear, but it is just hope that people require in facing their futures; and hope´s greatest power is that it enables the present by embracing the future... Hope does not deny the circumstances of the present, and hope doesn't help us get out of our difficulties.  Hope doesn't get us out, but it does get us through.

Madeleine L'Engle

I will not have anything to do with a God who cares only occasionally.  I need a God who is with us always, everywhere, in the deepest depths as well as the highest heights.  It is when things go wrong, when the good things do not happen, when our prayers seem to have been lost, that God is most present.  We do not need the sheltering wings when things go smoothly.  We are closest to God in the darkness, stumbling along blindly.

Nancy Wood

My help is in the mountain
Where I take myself to heal
The earthly wounds
That people give to me.
I find a rock with sun on it
and a stream where the water runs
gently and the trees which one
by one give me company.
So must I stay for a long time
Until I have grown from the rock
And the stream is running through me
And I cannot tell myself from one tall tree,
Then I know that nothing touches me
Nor makes me run away.
My help is in the mountain
That I take away with me.

Earth cure me.  Earth receive my woe.
Rock strengthen me.  Rock receive my
weakness. Rain wash my sadness away.
Rain receive my doubt.  Sun make sweet
my song.  Sun receive the anger from
my heart.

Thomas Merton

You do not need to know precisely what is happening or exactly where it is all going.  What you need is to recognize the possibilities and challenges offered by the present moment and to embrace them with courage, faith and hope.