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.