Wednesday ~ December 25, 2013

Because we wanted so much that year
and had little. Because the winter phone
for days stayed silent that would call
our father back to work, and he
kept silent too with our mother,
fearfully proud before us.
Because I was young that morning
in grey light untouched on the rug
and our gifts were so few, propped
along the furniture, for a second
my heart fell, then saw how large they made the the spaces between them
to take the place of less. Because
the curtained sun rose brightly
on our discarded paper and the things
themselves, these forty years,
have grown to small to see, the emptiness
measured out remains the gift,
fills the whole room now, that whole year
out across the snowy lawn. Because
a drop of shame burned quietly
in the province of love. Because
we had little that year
and were given much.

(Joseph Enzweiler, 1950-2011)

Tuesday ~ 17 December 2013

My successes are not my own. The way to them was prepared by others. The fruit of my labors is not my own: for I am preparing the way for the achievements of another. Nor are my failures my own. They may spring from the failure of another, but they are also compensated for by another's achievement. Therefore the meaning of my life is not to be looked for merely in the sum total of my achievements. It is seen only in the complete integration of my achievements and failures with the achievements and failures of my own generation, and society, and time, and time.

(Thomas Merton, 1915 - 1968)

Monday ~ 16 - December - 2013

Many people are like unto sausages: whatever you stuff them with, that they will bear in them.

(Alexei Tolstoy, 1817 - 1875)

Sunday ~ 15 December 2013

Purge your mind of all aimless and idle thoughts, especially those that pry into the affairs of others or wish them ill. Get in the habit of limiting yourself only to those thoughts that - if you are suddenly asked, "What are you thinking at this moment?" - enable you to reply without equivocation or hesitation, "This" or "That". In this way, you show the world a simple and kindly person, a good neighbor, someone untouched by jealousy, envy, mistrust, or any other thought you would blush to admit.

( Marcus Aurelius, 121 - 180 )

Saturday ~ 14 December 2013

Water does not resist. Water flows. When you plunge your hand into it, all you feel is a caress. Water is not a solid wall, it will not stop you. But water always goes where it wants to go, and nothing in the end can stand against it. Water is patient. Dripping water wears away a stone. Remember that, my child. Remember you are half water. If you can't go through an obstacle, go around it. Water does.

(Margaret Atwood, 1939 - )

Friday ~ 13 December 2013

There is already a vast abundance of room for pity. It is easy to be overcome with self-pity, that sticky substance that ruins everything it touches. My list of excuses is a long list and even as I say it I know that under the closest scrutiny, they disappear, one by one.  There is pity in me - pity for others. But there is something in it that cannot be trusted; it is mixed with pride, arrogance, cunning. I see this only when I expose myself to the eyes of God in the quiet time. It is now that I see what my pity really is and the sources from which it springs.

( Howard Thurman, 1899 - 1981)

Thursday ~ 12 December 2013

To forgive somebody is to say that one way or another, "you have done something unspeakable, and by all rights I should call it quits between us. Both my pride and principles demand no less. However, although I make no guarantees that I will be able to forget what you've done and though we may both carry scars for life, I refuse to let it stand between us. I still want you for my friend..." When somebody you've wronged forgives you, you're spared the dull and self-diminishing throb of a guilty conscience. When you forgive somebody who has wronged you, you're spared the dismal corrosion of bitterness and wounded pride. For both parties, forgiveness means the freedom to again be at peace inside their own skins and to be glad in each other's presence.

(Frederick Beuchner, 1926 -  )

Wednesday ~ 11 December 2013

You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, "I have lived through this horror, I can take the next thing that comes along." You must do the thing you think you cannot do.

(Eleanor Roosevelt, 1884  - 1962)

Tuesday ~ 10 December 2013

We discovered that peace at any price is no peace at all. We discovered that life at any price has no value whatever; that life is nothing without the privileges, the prides, the rights, the joys which make it worth living.and also worth giving. And we also discovered that there is something more hideous, more atrocious than war or than death; and that is to live in fear.

(Eve Curie, 1904 - 2007)

Monday, 9 December 2013

To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee,
One clover, and a bee,
And revery.
The revery alone will do,
If bees are few.

(Emily Dickenson, 1830 - 1886)

Sunday, 8 December 2013

Out of our beliefs are born deeds; Out of our deeds we form habits; Out of our habits grows our character; and on our character we build our destiny.

(Henry Hancock, mid-20th century)

Saturday, 7 December 2013

There comes an hour of sadness
With the setting sun,
Not for the sins committed,
But  the things I have not done.

(Minot Judson Savage, 1841 - 1918)

Friday, 6 December, 2013

Apparent failure may hold in its rough shell the germs of a success that will blossom in time, and bear fruit throughout eternity.

(Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, 1825 - 1911)

Thursday ~ 5 December, 2013

Talk of Mysteries! Think of our life in nature - daily to be shown matter, to come into contact with it, rocks, trees, wind on our cheeks! The solid earth! The actual world! The common sense!Contact! Contact! Who are we? Where are we?

(Henry David Thoreau, 1817 - 1862)

Wednesday ~ December 4, 2013

When we can begin to take our failures non-seriously, it means we are ceasing to be afraid of them.It is of immense importance to learn to laugh at ourselves.

(Katherine Mansfield, 1888 - 1823)

Tuesday ~ December 3, 2013

The temptation is always to reduce life to size. A bowl of cherries. A rat race. Amino acids. Even to call it a mystery smacks of reductionism. It is the mystery. As far as anybody seems to know, the vast majority of things in the universe do not have whatever life is. Sticks, stones, stars, space - they simply are. A few things are and are somehow aware of it. They have broken through into Something, or Something has broken through into them. Even a jellyfish, a butternut squash. They're in it with us. We're all in it together, or it is us. Life is it. Life is with.

(Fredrick Buechner, 1926 - )

Monday ~ December 2, 2013

The ideal condition would be, I admit that we should be right by instinct. But since we are all likely to go astray, the reasonable thing is to learn from those who can teach.

(Sophocles, c. 495 - 405)

Sunday ~ December 1, 2013

Whether your faith is that there is a God or that there is not a God, if you don't have any doubts you are either kidding yourself or asleep. Doubts are the ants in the pants of faith. They keep it awake and moving.

(Frederick Buechner, 1926 - )

Saturday ~ November 30, 2013

A Deed Knocks first at Thought
And then - It knocks at Will -
This is the manufacturing spot
And Will at Home and well
It  then goes out an Act
Or is entombed so still
That only to the ear of God
Its Doom is audible -

(Emily Dickinson, 1830 - 1886)

Friday ~ November 29, 2013

Look around you and see how everything is perpetually changing, and get used to the idea that nature loves nothing more than to change the things that are and to make more things like them come into being. In a way, everything is a seed of the thing that grows out of it. Don't be so naive and narrow-minded as to assume that a seed is only something planted in the earth or in the womb.

(Marcus Aurelius, 121 - 180)

Thursday ~ November 28, 2013

Taking stock of what I have and what I haven't,
What do I find?
The things I've got will keep me satisfied,
Checking up on what I have and what I haven't,
What do I find?
A healthy balance on the credit side...
I got sun in the morning and the moon at night,
And with the sun in the morning and the moon in the evening,
I'm all right.

(Irving Berlin, 1888 - 1989)

Wednesday ~ November 27, 2013

Everything in nature invites us constantly to be what we are. We are often like rivers, careful and forceful, timid and dangerous, lucid and muddled, eddying. gleaming, still. Lovers, farmers, and artists have one thing in common, at least - a fear of "dry spells", dormant periods in which we do no blooming, internal droughts only the waters of imagination and psychic release can civilize. All such matters are delicate, of course. But a good irrigator knows this: too little water brings on the weeds while too much degrades the soil the way too much easy money can trivialize a person's initiative. In his journal, Thoreau wrote, "A person's life should be as fresh as a river. It should be the same channel but a new water every instant."

( Gretel Ehrlich, 19946 - )

This is the day we are given;
Let us rejoice and be glad in it.

Tuesday ~ November 26, 2013

Always experience says, "Rely on your own strength, hold fast to your own resources, desert not your own mind." In the same sure moment, the same voice whispers, "Upon your own strength, upon your own resources, upon your own mind, at long last you cannot rely. Your own strength is weakness, your own mind is shallow, your own spirit is feeble." The paradox: all experience strips us of much except our sheer strength of mind, of spirit. All experience reveals that upon these we must not finally depend. Brooding over us and about us, even in the shadows of the paradox there is something more - there is a strength beyond our strength, giving strength to our strength.

( Howard Thurman, 1899 - 1981)


This is the day we are given;
Let us rejoice and be glad in it..

Monday ~ November 25, 2013

I wonder if anyone else has ears so tuned and sharpened as I have, to detect the music, not of the spheres, but of the earth, subtleties of major and minor chords that the wind strikes upon the tree branches. Have you ever heard the earth breathe?

(Kate Chopin, 1850 - 1904)

This is the day we are given;
Let us rejoice and be glad in it.

Sunday ~ November 24, 2013

Many moderns have concluded that we reside in a universe where we live only unto ourselves, and where we be completely self-sufficient. These people have so defined the universe that there is nothing significant that could be called divine. They have concluded that God is dead because some of the old concepts of God have been discredited. But we always come back to this truth: In a scientific universe such as ours today, we have produced the threat of universal war that may destroy all of humanity, a materialistic philosophy replete with satisfactions that do not endure, and a growing alienation from those around us in spite of all our talk about unity and oneness. Isn't it time that we re-examined our thinking and sought a return to eternal values? Religion is a coming home.

(Walter Donald King, 1917 - 1999)

This is the day we are given;
Let us rejoice and be glad in it.

Saturday ~ November 23, 2013

When you get into a tight place and it seems you can't go on, hold on, for that's just the place and time that the tide will turn.

(Harriet Beecher Stowe, 1812 - 1896)

This is the day we are given;
Let us rejoice and be glad in it.

Friday ~ November 22, 2013

My creed is that public service must be more than just doing a job efficiently and honestly. It must be a complete dedication to the people and to the nation with full recognition that every human being is entitled to courtesy and consideration, that constructive criticism is not only to be expected but sought, that smears are not only to be expected but fought, and that honor is to be earned but not bought.

(Margaret Chase Smith, 1897 - 1995)

This is the day we are given;
Let us rejoice and be glad in it.

Thursday - November 21, 2013

It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great ones are those who in the midst of the crowd keep with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.

(Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1803 - 1882)

Wednesday - November 20, 2013

Though the morning seems to linger
O'er the hill-tops far away,
Yet the shadows bear the promise
Of a brighter coming day.

(Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, 1825 - 1911)

Tuesday ~ November 19, 2013

How wonderful it is to be able to feel things deeply!
The sheer delight of fresh air when you have been indoors all day;
The never ending wonder of sunrise and sunset;
The sound of wind through the trees and the the utter wetness of the rain;
The excitement of finding something that was lost and is found:
My fountain pen,
A beautiful word forgotten,
The return of an old book,
The reconciliation after estrangement,
The first step after months of illness...
How wonderful!

(Howard Thurman, 1899 - 1981)


This is the day we are given;
Let us rejoice and be glad in it.


Make the most of it.....

Monday - November 18, 2013

On some positions, Cowardice asks the question, "Is it safe?"
Expediency asks the question, "Is it politic?" And Vanity comes along and asks the question, "Is it popular?" But conscience asks the question, "Is it right?" And there comes a time when we must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but we must do it because Conscience tells us it is right.

(Martin Luther King, Jr., 1929 - 1968)

Sunday ~ 17 November 2013

We want more soul, a higher cultivation of a  spiritual faculties. We need more unselfishness, earnestness, and integrity. We need men and women whose hearts are the homes of high and loft enthusiasm and a noble devotion to the cause of emancipation, who are ready and willing to lay time, talent, and money on the alter of universal freedom.

(Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, !825 - 1911)

Saturday - November 16, 2013

But deep love is the desire to give
More than the living touch of warmth and fire,
More than the shy comfort of the little flesh and hands;
It is the need to give
Down to the last dark kernel of the heart,
Down to the final gift of the mind;
It is a need to give you that release which comes
Only of understanding and to know
Trust without whimpering doubt and fear.

(Josephine Johnson, 1910 - 1990)

Friday ~ November 15,2013

However close we sometimes seem to that dark and final abyss, let no one of peace and freedom despair. For no one stands alone. If we all can persevere, if we can in every land and office look beyond our own shores and ambitions, then surely the age will dawn in which the strong are just and the weak secure and the peace preserved.

(John F. Kennedy, 1917 - 1963)

This is the day we are given,
Let us rejoice and be glad in it.

Thursday ~ November 14, 2013

The soul remains a perfect sphere when it neither pushes out after something nor shrinks back into itself, neither expanding nor contracting, but shining with a radiance by which it sees the truth of all things as well as the truth inside itself.

(Marcus Aurelius, 121 - 180)