I once told a lady on a plane, 'You have to go through the heartache in order to find the Light of Love, and the Light of GOD, within yourself.'

I could not embrace the truth of this, nor recognize the beauty that surrounded me, until I found this beauty within me.

A great philosopher once said, 'When the student is ready the teacher will come.' I have known many great teachers throughout my life, and now I am one. And yet I tell you now, someone wiser than me chooses my words, for even I am surprised by what I learn.

I love being here. I love the sunsets, the sunrises. I know that it is an honor to simply be AWARE of being AWARE. I am in AWE of the wonder of this world.

In the beginning I saw only love's pain, it's beauty forever hidden from me back then. It was a hard road my friend, and yet at this end of my life I am eternally grateful for who I am.

We paint a picture with words, and the picture is a lonely one. We 'who wear the mark' are many in number. We live in all areas of the world. We are born to rich and poor alike. We walk silently among you. You look right at us. We look right at you. But you do not see. Within us we carry the secret seeds of heartache. We mask our secrets under layers of denial, in a vain attempt to protect ourselves from a world we know will do us harm.

'The mask if worn long enough, becomes the face.'

She is the very best part of 'Who I Really Am.' She is everything beautiful about me. There are few who have been able to see her. Small children see her, but they don't know they see. Animals can see her, and the very old as well, very few others are aware of her existence.

We have been given this life. We do not choose who our family will be. We do not choose their actions towards us. It is for us to learn to stand strong and be faithful to 'Who we really are.'

One of my friend's kid, a young man named Garrett, told me, 'The reason the other kids like you so much isn't because you are easy on them. It's because you remember what it's like to be a kid.' He couldn't have paid me a better compliment.

'Mary,' my little friend asked, 'What is the Soul?'

'Your Soul is the deepest best part of who you really are.'

'You mean -- It's our conscience!' another boy exclaimed.

'Yes, that's exactly what I mean. Your Soul is you conscience.'



A Moment of Kindness

The streets are empty on this rainy night
It makes a sad and lonely sight

The lights all turned off
I see not one friendly house
on this dark, dark night

The people who love
The people who care
All shut their doors
when they see you there.

The time they cannot spare
to the sad and lonely
who are always around somewhere.

The time it takes to show you care
could be spent combing your hair.

When we wither up and die
all alone in the dark someone says,
They always were kind of strange in the head.

But I know
And God knows
we died because no one
could find the time it takes
To show they cared.

A moment of kindness
Can carry us through a lifetime of heartache.

How long is a moment?
As long as it takes.


I will never again be sorry for my life, and never again will I hide. I know what I felt is felt by all. Yet, having said this, we remain ever so sad that the world recreates our heartache, forever adding to the burdens that tear into the heart of our Universe.

A great philosopher said, 'All roads lead back to the self.'

I tried to get away. I tried to run from her. The more I ran, the more the past haunted me.

All of my life I have tried to escape my upbringing. And all of my life I kept running right into it. I am not running anymore. This is my life. This is who I am. So listen carefully,

'I am not sorry for any of it.'

Now,