Earth is our home ... the largest living creature in our solar system. The land, the water, the air, and all the things that live on and in them form a gigantic community, an enormous cell. Here fungi, eagles, toads, worms, grasses, mosquitoes, ferns, people, dolphins, spiders, oak trees, and lions — up to ten million separately distinguishable forms of life or species — share Earth's environments. Whatever happens to one part, for good or ill, ultimately affects us all, the whole Earth: our home of abundant riches and indescribable beauty.
I no longer feel that life is ordinary. Everyday life is filled with mystery. The things we know are only a small part of the things we cannot know but can only glimpse. Yet even the smallest of glimpses can sustain us. Mystery seems to have the power to comfort, to offer hope, and to lend meaning in times of loss and pain. In surprising ways it is the mysterious that strengthens us at such times... What I have found in the end was that the life I had defended as a doctor as precious was also Holy.