Saturday ~ August 25, 2018

Friday ~ August 24, 2018

Matter, alive with energy, evolves to spirit. While distinctive, human intelligence and creativity rise out of the very nature of the universe, which is itself intelligent and creative. In other words, human spirit is the cosmos come to consciousness.

(Elizabeth Johnson, b. 1941 )

Thursday ~ August 23, 2018

Grace strikes us when we are in great pain and restlessness. It strikes us when we walk through the dark valley of a meaningless and empty life. It strikes us when we feel our separation is deeper than usual, because we have violated another life, a life which we love, or from which we were estranged. It strikes when our disgust for our own being, our indifference, our weakness, our hostility, and our lack of direction and composure has become intolerable to us. It strikes us when, year after year, the longed-for perfection of life does not appear, when the old compulsions reign within us as they have for decades, when despair destroys all joy and courage. Sometimes at that moment, a wave of light breaks into our darkness, and it is as though a voice were saying: "You are accepted. You are accepted by that which is greater than you, and the name of which you do not know..." If that happens to us, we experience grace. After such an experience, we may not be better than before, and we may not believe more than before. But everything is transformed,

(Paul Tillich, 1886 - 1965)

Wednesday ~ August 22, 2018

Avarice, greed, concupiscence and so forth are all based on 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, b. 1926)

Tuesday ~ August 21, 2018

It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statute and so 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 - 1862)

Monday ~ August 20, 2018

A flurry of leaves at the window
like those calendar pages flying
in old movies
to indicate time passing,
and it is passing,
though where it is 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 yeat's leaves appear
and disappear again.

(Linda Pastan, b. 1932)

Sunday ~ August 19, 2018

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)