Saturday ~ March 2, 2019

Do all the good you can,
By all the means you can,
In all the ways you can,
In all the places you can,
At all the times you can.
To all the people you can
As long as ever you can.

(John Wesley, 1703 - 1791)

Friday ~ March 1, 2019

I don't have to tell you, one never snaps one's fingers on the beat. It's considered aggressive. Don't push it, just let it fall. And if you would like to be respectably hip, then at the same time tilt the left earlobe. Establish a state of nonchalance. And if you would like to be respectably cool, then tilt the left earlobe on the beat and snap the finger on the after beat. And then, you really don't care.

(Duke Ellington, 1899 - 1974)

Thursday ~ February 28, 2019

We live between the act of awakening and the act of surrender. Each morning we awaken to the light and the invitation to a new day in the world of time; each night we surrender to the dark to be taken to play in the world of dreams where time is no more. At birth, we were awakened and emerged to become visible in the world. At death, we will surrender again to the dark to become invisible. Awakening and surrender: They frame each day and each life; between them the journey where anything can happen, the beauty and the frailty.

(John O'Donoghue, 1956 - 2008)

Wednesday ~ February 27, 2019

The charity that begins at home cannot rest there but draws one inexorably over the threshold and off the porch and down the street and so out and out and out and out into the world which becomes the home wherein charity begins until it becomes possible, in theory at least, to love the whole of creation with the same patience, affection, and amusement one first practiced, in between the pouts and tantrums, with parents, siblings, spouse, and children.

(Nancy Mairs, 1943 - 2016)

Tuesday ~ February 26, 2019

We do not grow absolutely, chronologically. We grow sometimes in one dimension, and not in another, and evenly. We grow partially. We are relative. We are mature in one realm, childish in another. The past, present, and future mingle and pull us backward, forward, or fix us in the present. We are made up of layers, cells, constellations.

(Amais Nin, 1903 - 1977)

Monday ~ February 25, 2019

When religion tells us to love our neighbors as ourselves, on the face of it the command is good, but when we come to look into it we are struck with a shocking sense of irony. Because our trouble is that we do love our neighbors as ourselves - we love them in just about the same way. For all to often, we do not love ourselves, we hate ourselves. We hate, that is, our real selves... We hate our inferiorities, our instabilities, our cowardice; and we hate the fact that we are not as talented, not as beautiful, not as graceful, not as gifted as other people. We hate ourselves for not being more than we are and we transfer this hatred to the world about us... We form a fantasy, a pleasing fantasy, of what we are really like, of what we could do if only we had the chance that other people have. We tell ourselves that these other people represent an injustice done to ourselves. And we become conspirators against them. That is where the trouble begins.

( A. Powell Davies, 1902 - 1957)

Sunday ~ February 24, 2019

If you're trying to transform the brutalized society into one where people can live in dignity and hope, you begin with the empowering of the most powerless. You build from the ground up.

(Adrienne Rich, 1929 - 2012)