An ecological spirituality needs to be built on three premises: the transience of selves, the living interdependency of all things, and the value of the personal in communion. Many spiritual traditions have emphasized the need to "let go of ego" but in ways that diminished the value of the person, undercutting particularly those, like women, who scarcely have been allowed individuated personhood at all. We need to "let go of the ego" in a different sense. We are called to affirm the integrity of our personal center of being, in mutuality with the personal centers of all other beings across species and, at the same time, accept the transience of these personal selves.
Gratitude is the vision of the Giver, not of the gift. It comes from God. Hope and fear are like the two wings of a bird when it is flying straight to its destination. If one wing fails, its flight fails and if both fail, it dies. Hope is the vision of God in perfect beauty.