Thursday ~ December 31, 2015

i am running into a new year
and the old years blow back
like a wind
that i catch in my hair
like strong fingers like
all my old promises and
it will be hard to let go
of what i said to myself
about myself
when i was sixteen and
twentysix and thirtysix
even thirtysix but
i am runnining into a new year
and i beg what i love and
i leave to forgive me

( Lucille Clifton, 1936 - 2010 )

Wednesday ~ December 30,2015

Tuesday ~ December 29, 2015

Nourish beginnings, let us nourish beginnings.
Not all things are blessed,
but the seeds of all things are blessed.
The blessing is in the seed.

( Muriel Rukeyser, 1913 - 1980 )

Wednesday ~ February 25, 2015

My illusion is more real to me than reality. And so do we often build our world on an error, and cry out that the universe is falling to pieces, if anyone but lift a finger to replace the error by truth.

( Mary Antin, 1881 - 1949 )

Monday ~ December 28, 2015

The fairest thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of science. Those who know it not, and can no longer wonder and no longer feel amazement, are as good as dead. We all had this priceless talent when we were young. But as time goes by, many of us lose it. True scientists never lose the faculty of amazement. It is the essence of their being.

( Hans Selye, 1907 - 1982 )

Sunday ~ December 27, 2015

It's all I have to bring today -
This, and my heart beside -
This, and my heart, and all the fields -
And all the meadows wide -
Be sure you count - should I forget
Some one the sum could tell -
This, and my heart, and all the Bees
Which in the Clover Dwell.

( Emily Dickinson, 1830 - 1886 )

Saturday ~ December 26, 2015

Reason upon reason
to be thankful:
for the fruit of the earth,
for the fruit of the tree,
for the light of the fire,
and to have come to this season.

( Charles Reznikoff, 1894 - 1976 )

Friday ~ December 25, 2015

Because we wanted much that year and had little. Because the winter phone for days was 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 gray 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 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 too 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 Enzweiller, 1950 - 2011 )

Thursday ~ December 24, 2015

Christmas Eve was a night of song that wrapped itself about you like a shawl. But it warmed more than your body. It warmed your heart... filled it, too, with melody that would last forever.

( Bess Streeter Aldrich, 1881 - 1954 )

Wednesday ~ December 23, 201s

Aren't we enlarged
by the scale of what we're able
to desire? Everything,
the choir insists,
might flame;
inside these wrappings
burns another, brighter life,
quickened, now,
by song: hear now,
it cascades, in overlapping,
lapidary waves of praise? Still time.
Still time to change.

( Mark Doty, 1953 -    )

Tuesday ~ December 22, 2015

Avarice, greed, concupiscence and so forth are all based om the mathematical truism that the more you get, the more you have. The remark of Jesus that it is more blessed to give than to receive is based on the human truth that the more you give away in love, the more you are. It is not just for the sake of other people that Jesus tells us to give rather than get, but for our own sakes too.

(Frederick Buechner, 1926 -   )

Monday ~ December 21, 2015

It is something to be able to paint particular picture, or to carve a statute, and to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look, which morally we can do. To affect the quality of the day - that is the highest of arts.

( Henry David Thoreau, 1817 -   )

Sunday ~ December 20, 2015

A flurry of leave at at the window
like those calender pages flying
in old movies
to indicate time passing,
and it is passing,
though where it's going
nobody seems to know.
Something is always lost
and something found -
an earring or the key
to a certain door,
to some second self.
I watch as energy and matter
bow and switch places,
as last year's leaves appear
and disappear again.

( Linda Pastan, 1932 -   )

Saturday ~ December 19, 2015

Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you.

( Carl Sandburg, 1878 - 1967 )

Friday ~ December 18, 2015

Tribal people say the words are sacred.  We don't mean that you are supposed to kneel down and worship them. We mean that you should in your being recognize that when you speak, your utterance has consequences inwardly and outwardly and that you are accountable for those consequences. You can't just say anything that comes to your head and then get distressed if another person acts on it. Now that other person may have misunderstood you, which means that they have a responsibility to find out exactly what you mean before they act, but the principle is still there. Without linguistic honor there can be no community, there can be no creative vision, there can be no peace, and there can be no relationship.

( Paula Gunn Allen, 1930 -   )

Thursday ~ December 17, 2015

We are much involved, all of us, with questions about things that matter a good deal today by will be forgotten by this time tomorrow - the immediate whereas and whens and hows that face us daily at home and at work - but at the same time we tend to lose track of the questions about things that matter always., life-and-death questions about meaning, purpose, and value. To lose track of such deep questions as these is to risk losing track of who we really are in our own depths and when we are really going.

( Frederick Buechner, 1926 -   )

Wednesday ~ December 16, 2015

We touch this strength, our power, who we are in the world, when we are most fully in touch with one another and with the world. There is no doubt in my mind that, in so doing, we are participants in ongoing incarnation, bringing god to life in the world. For god is nothing other than the eternally creative source of our relational power, our common strength, a god whose movement is to empower, bringing us into our own together, a god whose name in history is love.

(Carter Heyward, 1945 -  )

Tuesday ~ December 15, 2015

Not because of victories
I sing,
having none,
but for the common sunshine,
the breeze,
the largeness of the spring.
Not for victory
but for the day's work done
as well as I was able;
not for a seat upon the dais
but at the common table.

( Charles Reznikoff, 1894 - 1976 )

Monday ~ December 14, 2015

Now if you listen closely
I'll tell you what I know
Storm clouds are gathering
The wind is gonna blow
The human race is suffering
And I can hear the moan,
"Cause nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.

( Maya Angelou, 1928 - 2014 )

Sunday ~ December 13, 2015

Blessed be my brain,
   thay I may conceive of my own power.
Blessed br my breast
   that I may give sustenance to those I love.
Blessed be my womb
   that I may create what I choose to create.
Blessed be my knees
   that I may bend so as not to break.
Blessed br my feer
   that I may walk in the path of my highest will.

( Robin Morgan, 1941 -   )

Saturday ~ December 12, 2015

The secret of success is concentration; wherever there has been a great life, or a great work, that has gone before. Taste everything a little, look at everything a little; but live for one thing.


( Olive Emilie Albertina Schreiner, 1855 - 1920 )

Friday ~ December 11, 2015

The encouraging thing is that every time you met a situation, though you may think at the time it is am impossibility and you go through the tortures of the damned, once you have met it and lived through it you find that forever after you are freer than you you ever were before. If you can live through that, you can live through anything. You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience by every experience in which you stop to look fear in the face... The danger lies in refusing to face the fear, in not daring to come to grips with it. If you fail anywhere along the line, it will take away your confidence. You must make yourself succeed every time. You must do the thing you think you cannot do.

(Eleanor Roosevelt, 1884 - 1962 )

Thursday ~ December 10, 2015

Spread love everywhereyou go: first of all in your own house... Let no one ever come to you without leaving better and happier. Be the living expression of God's kindness; kindness in your face; kindness in your eyes, kindness in your smile, kindness in your warm greeting.

( Mother Teresa, 1910 - 1997 )

Wednesday ~ December 9, 2015

I have no creative use for guilt, yours or my own. Guilt is only another way of avoiding informed action, of buying time out of the pressing need to make clear choices, out of this approaching storm that can feed the earth as well as bend the trees.

( Audre Lorde, 1934 - 1992 )

Tuesday ~ December 8, 2015

But how are we to love when we are stiff and numb and disinterested? How are we to transform ourselves into limber and soft organisms lying open to the world at the quick? By what process and what agency do we perform the Great Work, transforming lowly materials into gold? Love, like its counterpart Death, is a yielding at the center. Not in the sentiment. Nor in the genitals. Look deep into my eyes and see the love-light.Figured forth in intelligent cooperation, sensitive congeniality, physical warmth. At the center the love must live... Love is not a doctrine, Peace is not an international agreement. Love and Peace are beings who love as possibilities in us.

(Mary Caroline Richards, 1916 - 1999)

Monday ~ December 7, 2015

I invented this rule for myself to be applied to every decision I might have to make in the future. I would sort out all the arguments and see which belonged to fear and which to creativeness, and other things being equal would make the decision which had the larger number of creative reasons on its side. I think it must be a rule something like this that makes jonquils and crocuses come pushing through cold mud.

(Katherine Butler Hathaway, 1890 - 1942)

Sunday ~ December 6, 2015

I doubt that anyone does not really believe in God. people may think they don't have any belief, but you will usually find that there is a belief in something beyond themselves. In any case, I would not judge people's character by their belief or unbelief. I would judge their character by their deeds; and no matter what they said about their beliefs, their behavior would soon show whether they were people of good character or bad.

(Eleanor Roosevelt, 1884 - 1962)

Saturday, December 5, 2015

It is the steady and merciless increase of occupations, the augmented speed at which we are always trying to live, the crowding of each day with more work and amusement than it can profitably hold, which has cost us, among other good things, the undisturbed enjoyment of friends.Friendship takes time, and we have no time to give it.

(Agnes Repplier, 1855 - 1950)

Friday, December 4, 2015

Life demands that duality in men and women be freed to function, released from hate or guilt. All wars derive from lack of empathy: the incapacity of one to understand and accept the likeness or difference of another. Whether in nations or the encounters of race and sex, competition then replaces compassion, subjection excludes mutuality... We need each other's qualities if we are ever to understand each other in love and life. The beautiful difference of our biological cells will not diminish through this mutual fusion. It should indeed flower, expand the mind as well as the flesh. When women can cherish the vulnerability of men as much as men can exult in the strength of women, a new breed could lift a ruinous yoke from both. We could breathe free.

(Marya Mannes, 1904 - 1990)

Thursday, December 3, 2015

You are all worked up chasing after this and trying to avoid that. These things are not coming to you, so to speak, but you are going to them. Stop desiring the one and fearing the other, and they will stay where they are, and you will not be seen pursuing of fleeing them.

(Marcus Aurelius, 121 - 180)

Wednesday, December 2, 2015

Autumn makes a double demand. It asks that we prepare for the future - that we be wise in the ways of garnering and keeping. But it also asks that we learn to let go - to acknowledge the beauty of sparseness.

(Bonaro W. Overstreet, 1903 - 1985)

Tuesday, December 1, 2015

Idolatry is the practice of ascribing absolute value to things of relative worth. Under certain circumstances money, patriotism, sexual freedom, moral principles, family loyalty, physical health, social or intellectual preeminence, and so on are fine things to have around, but to make them the standard by which all other values are measured, to make them your masters, to look at them to justify your life and save your soul is sheerest folly. They just aren't up to it.

(Frederick Buechner, 1926 -   )

Monday, November 30, 2015

Endurance can be a hard and bitter root in one's life, bearing poisonous and gloomy fruit, destroying of our lives. Endurance is only the beginning. There must be acceptance.

(Pearl S. Buck, 1982 - 1973)

Sunday, Noverber 29, 2015

Do not depend on the hope of results... You may have to face the fact that your work will be apparently worthless and even achieve no result at all, if not perhaps results opposite to what you expect. As you get used to this idea, you start more and more to concentrate not on the results, but on the value, the rightness, the truth of the work itself... You gradually struggle less and less for an idea and more and more for specific people... in the end, it is the reality of personal relationship that saves everything.

(Thomas Merton, 1915 - 1968)

Saturday, November 28, 2015

The sculptor Michelangelo was once asked how it was that he could create such beautiful works. "It's very simple," he answered. "When I look at a block of marble, I see the sculpture inside it. All I have to do is remove was doesn't belong." The master says: "There is a work of art each of us was destined to create. That is the central point of our life, and  - no matter how we try to deceive ourselves - we know how important it is to our happiness. Usually, that work of rt is covered by years of fear, guilt and indecision. But, if we decide to remove those things that do not belong, if we have no doubt as to our capability, we are capable of going forward with the mission that is our destiny. That is the only way to live with Honor."

(Paulo Coelho, 1947 -   )

Friday, November 27, 2015

It is not the conscious changes made in our lives by men and women - a new job, a new town, a divorce - which really shapes them, like the the chapter headings in a biography, but a long, slow mutation of emotion, hidden, all-penetrative; something by which they may be so taken up that the practical outward changes of their lives in the world, noted with surprise, scandal or envy by others, pass almost unnoticed by themselves. This gives a shifting quality to the whole surface of life; decisions made with reason and the tongue may never be made valid by the heart.

(Nadine Gordimer, 1923 - 2014)

Thursday, November 26, 2015

We have stopped for a moment to encounter each other, to meet, to love, to share. This is a precious moment, but it is transient. It is a little parenthesis in eternity. If we share with caring, lightheartedness and love, we will create abundance and joy for each other. And then this moment will have been worthwhile.

(Deepak Chopra, 1946 -   )

Wednesday, November 25, 2015

If you have come to help me, you are wasting your time, but if you have come because of your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.

(Lila Watson, 1940 -   )

Tuesday, November 24, 2015

I think you should learn, of course, and some days you must learn a great deal. But you should also have days when you allow what is already in you to swell up inside of you until it touches everything. And you can feel it inside you. If you never take time out to let that happen, then you just accumulate facts, and they begin to rattle around inside of you. You can make noise with them, but never really feel anything with them.

(E>L> Konigsburg, 1930 - 2013)

Monday, November 23, 2015

Driven by the forces of love, the fragments of the world seek each other so that the world may come into being. Love alone is capable of uniting living beings in such a way as to complete and fulfill them, for it alone takes them and joins them by what is deepest in themselves.

(Pierrw Teilhard de Chardin, 1881 - 1955)

Sunday, November 22, 2015

Meditation is to be aware of what is going on-in our bodies, in our feelings, in our minds, and in the world. Each day 40,000 children die of hunger. The superpowers now have 50,000 nuclear warheads, enough to destroy our planet many times. Yet the sunrise is beautiful, and the rose that bloomed this morning along the wall is a miracle. Life is both dreadful and wonderful. To pratice meditation is to be in touch with both aspects. Please do think we must be solemn in order to meditate well, we have to smile a lot.

(Thich Njat Hanh, 1926 -    )

Saturday, Noverber 21, 2015

By happiness I mean here a deep sense of flourishing that arises from an exceptionally healthy mind. This is not a mere pleasurable feeling, a fleeting emotion, or a mood, but an optimal state of being. Happiness is also way of interpreting the world, since while it may be difficult to change the world, it is always possible to change the way we look at it.

(Mattieu Ricard, 1946 -    )

Friday, November 20, 2015

Spiritual empowerment is evidenced in our lives by our willingness to tell ourselves the truth, to listen to the truth when it's told to us, and to dispense the  truth as lovingly as possible, when we feel compelled to talk from the heart.

( Christina Baldwin, 1946 -    )

Thursday, November 19, 2015

At every moment in every person's life there is work to be done, always work to be done, some of it small, some of it Great. The Great Work, in a sense, always has to do with changing the world, and, as a necessary predicate to that, understanding the world. You rise every morning aware that you are called to this work. You won't live to see it finished. But if you can't hear it calling, you aren't listening hard enough. It's always calling, sometimes in a big voice, sometimes in a quiet voice.

(Tony Kushner, 1956 -   )

Wednesday, November 18, 2015

The "Seven Social Sins" Knowledge without character, Science without humanity, Wealth without work, Commerce without morality, Politics without principles, Pleasure without conscience, Worship without self-sacrifice.

(Mahatma Gandhi, 1869 - 1948)

Tuesday, November 17, 2015

In ordinary life we hardly realize that we receive a great deal more than we give, and that it is only with gratitude that life becomes rich.

(Dietrich Bonhoeffer, 1906 - 1945)

Monday, November 16, 2015

In a world more and more polluted by the lying of politicians and the illusions of the media, I occasionally crave to hear and tell the truth...Friendship is by its very nature freer of deceit than any other relationship we can know, because it is the bond least affected by striving for power, physical pleasure, or material profit, most liberated from any oath of duty or of constancy.

(Francine du Ppessix Gray, 1930 -      )

Sunday, November 15, 2015

To love is the greatest thing in life, it is very important to talk about love, to feel it, to nourish it, to treasure it, otherwise it will soon be dissipated, for the world is very brutal. If while you are young you don't feel love, if you don't look with love at people, at animals, at flowers, when you grow up you find that your life is empty, you will be very lonely, and the dark shadows of fear will follow you always. But the moment you have in your heart this extraordinary thing called love and feel the depth, the delight, the ecstasy of it, you will discover that for you the world is transformed.

( Jiddu Krishnamurti, 1895 - 1986 )

Saturday, November 14, 2015

I am done with great things and big plans, great institutions and big success. I am for those tiny, invisible, loving, human forces that work from individual to individual, creeping through the crannies of the world like so many rootlets, or like the capillary oozing of water, which, if given time, will rend the hardest monuments of pride.

( William James, 1842 - 1910 )

Friday, November 13, 2015

We eventually learn that spirituality is not about leaving life's problems behind, but about continually confronting them with honesty and courage. It is about ending our feeling of separation from others by healing our relationships with parents, co-workers, and friends. It is about bringing heightened awareness and compassion to our family life, careers, and community service.

( Jiddu Krishnamurti, 1895 - 1986 )

Thursday, November 12, 2015

Gossip is theology translated into experience. In it we hear great stories of conversation, like the drunk who turns his or her life around, as well as stories of failure. We see that pride really does go before a fall, and that hope is essential. We watch closely those who retire, or who lose a spouse, lest they lose interest in living. When we gossip we are also praying, not only for them but for ourselves.

     (Kathleen Norris, 1947 - )

Wednesday, November 11, 2015

In Flanders field the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below,
We are the dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were lived, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up your quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch;be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

(John McCrae, 1872 - 1918)

Tuesday ~ October 20, 2016

Let's start with a fundamental human problem, and I don't mean race or religion or origin. I mean fear. Fright, my young friend, may be the first serious enemy you have to face in our society. It's the most destructive emotional bogeyman there is. Cold feet, panic, depression, and violence are all symptoms of fear - when it's out of control. But this feeling, ironically, can also trigger courage, alertness, objectivity. You must learn not to try to rid yourself of this basic, human emotion but to manipulate it for your own advantage. You cannot surrender to fear, but you can use it as a kind of fuel. Once you learn to control fear - to make it work for you - it will become one of your best friends.

( Jose Torres, 1936 - 2009 )

Monday ~ October 19, 2016

The day comes when remaining the same becomes more painful than the risk to grow. And when that happens there are many goodbyes. We leave old patterns, old friends, old lovers, old ideas, and some cherished beliefs. Loss and growth are so often one and the same.

( Phoebe Eng, b. late 20th century )

Sunday ~ October 18, 2016

When grief sits with you, its
tropical heat thickening the air,
heavy as water more fit for gills
than lungs;
when grief weighs you like your
own flesh
only more of it, an obesity of grief.
you think, how long can a body withstand this?
Then you hold life like a face
between your palms, a plain face,
no charming smile, no violet eyes,
and you say, yes, I will take you
I will love you again.

( Ellen Bass, 1947 -   )

Sunday ~ October 18, 2015

FOFUVAVB.org

Thursday ~ May 14, 2015

The summer's flower is to the summer sweet,
Though to itself it only live and die,
But if that flower with base infection meet,
The basest weed outbraves his dignity:
For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds;
Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds.

(William Shakespeare, 1564 - 1616)

Wednesday ~ May 13, 2015

I acknowledge the commonplace in my life and my surroundings. I have been letting life grow dingy on my sleeve. Often it is easy to take all things for granted. This I do with my friends; often also with the joys that are inherent in much of my living; also with the blessings and graces of life without which much of living would be utterly beyond the springs of my endurance. I acknowledge the commonplace in my life and my surroundings.

(Howard Thurman, 1900 - 1981)

Tuesday ~ May 12, 2015

One vital spirit is distributed among the animals, and one rational spirit is allotted to humankind. There is also one earth for all creatures that live on earth and share a single light by which they see and a single atmosphere by which they breathe.

(Marcus Aurelius, 121 - 180)

Monday ~ May 11, 2015

In hatred as in love, we grow like the thing we brood upon. What we loathe, we graft into our very soul.

(Mary Renault, 1905 - 1983)

Sunday ~ May 10, 2015

People are frugal in guarding their personal property; but as soon as it comes to squandering time they are most wasteful of one thing in which it is right to be stingy. You are living as if destined to live forever; your own frailty never occurs to you; you don't notice how much time has already passed, but squander it as though you had a full and overflowing supply - though all the while that very day which you are devoting to somebody or something may be your last. You act like mortals in all that you fear, and like immortals in all that you desire...How late it is to begin really to live just when life must end! How stupid to forget our mortality, and put off sensible plans to our fiftieth and sixtieth years, aiming to begin life from a point which few have arrived!

(Seneca, 4 BCE - 65 CE)

Saturday, May 9, 2015

To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty, which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their primitive forms - this knowledge, this feeling, is at the center of true religion.

(Albert Einstein, 1879 - 1955)