Saturday ~ August 6, 2016

I try, I am trying, I will try. I shall in the meantime try. I sometimes have tried. I shall still by that time be trying.

(Dianne Glancy, 1941 -   )

Friday ~ August 5, 2016

Who knows whether there is life on any other planet anywhere in the universe, but there is life on this planet. And what is life like? Think of not knowing what life is and then finding out: a book suddenly learning how to read; a rock jutting out into the sea suddenly knowing the thump and splatter of the waves, the taste of salt. You are alive. It needn't have been so. It wasn't so once, and it will not be so forever. But it is so now. And what is it like: to be alive in this maybe one place of all places anywhere where life is? Live a day of it and see. Take any day and be alive in it.

(Frederick Buechner, 1926 -  )

Thursday ~ August 4, 2016

God is that function in the world by reason of which our purposes are directed to ends  which in our consciousness are impartial as to our own interests. God is that element in life in virtue of which judgement stretches beyond facts of existence to values of existence. God is that element in virtue of which our purposes extend beyond values for ourselves to values for others. God is that element in virtue of which the attainment of such a value for others transforms itself into values for ourselves... God is not the world, but the valuation of the world.

(Alfred North Whitehead, 1861 - 1947)

Wednesday ~ August 3, 2016

I am a stranger to half measures. With life I am on the attack, restlessly ferreting out each pleasure, foraging for answers, wringing from it the pain. I ransack life, hunt it down. I am the hungry peasants storming the palace gates. I will have my share. No matter how it tastes.

( Marita Golden, 1950 -  )

Tuesday ~ August 2, 2016

It is important to look deeply into the suffering of others. Someone whose actions are unkind, whose thoughts are unwholesome, whose speech is unwelcome is certainly suffering a lot. When you look deeply and see this suffering, your heart will open and the key of understanding will reveal itself.

(Thich Nhat Hanh, b. 1926)

Monday ~ August 1, 2016

Many things in the world have already happened. You can go back and tell about them. They are part of what we own as we speed along through the white sky. But many things in the world haven't yet happened. You help them by thinking and writing and acting. Where they begin, you greet them or stop them. You come along and sustain the new things.

William Stafford, 1914 - 1993)