Saturday ~ February 29, 2020

I do not pretend to understand the moral universe; the arc is a long one, my eye reaches but little ways; I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by the experience of sight; I can divine it by conscience. And from what I see I am sure it bends towards justice.

(Theodore Parker, 1810 - 1860)

Friday ~ February 28, 2020

When you take a step forward you are bound to disturb something. You disturb the air as you go forward, you disturb the dust, the ground. You trample upon things. When a whole society moves forward this tramping is on a much bigger scale and each thing that you disturb, each vested interest which you want to remove, stands as an obstacle.

(Indira Gandhi, 1917 - 1984)

Thursday, February 27, 2020

I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do not know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

(Mary Oliver, 1935 - 2019)

Wednesday ~ February 26, 2020

People too have gravity -
of manner, of morals, and of body.
It is good to have gravity but not too much of it:
like a bag of cement, you might not be able to move around or make ethical distinctions.
But with too little of it you are flighty, your feet hardly touch the ground.
Though cement and flightiness have their charms,
 it's better to find your center of gravity and have it be the place you radiate from.

(Ron Padgett, b. 1942)

Tuesday ~ February 25, 2020

Nothing in the world is as soft and yielding as water.
Yet for dissolving the hard and inflexible,
nothing can surpass it.
The soft overcomes the hard;
The gentle overcomes the rigid.
Everyone knows this is true,
but few can put it into practice.

(Tao te Ching, 6th century BCE)

Monday ~ February 24, 2020

I always like to look on the optimistic side of life, but I am realistic enough to know that life is a complex matter.

I always like to look on the optimistic side of life, but I am realistic enough to know that life i=s a complex matter.

Walt Disney

Monday ~ February 24, 2020

The trouble with letting people see you at your worst isn't that they'll remember; it's that you'll remember.

(Sarah Manguso, 1974)

Sunday ~ February 23, 2020

I've been thinking about the patience
Of ordinary things, how clothes
Wait respectfully in closets
And soap dries quietly in the dish,
And towels drink the wet
From the skin of the back.
And the lovely repetition of stairs.
And what is more generous than a window?

(Pat Schneider, b. 1934)