Saturday ~ March 14, 2014

If you stay in comfort too long
you will not know
the weight of a water pot
on the bald head of a village women...
If you stay in comfort too long
you will not know the pain
of childbirth without a nurse in white...
You will forget
the unfeeling bare feet
gripping the warm soil turned by the plow
You will forget
the voice of the season talking to the oxen.

(Chenjerai Hove, 1956 -    )

Wednesday ~ February 12, 2014

To be bored is to turn down cold whatever life happens to be offering you at the moment. It is to cast a jaundiced eye at life in general including most of all your own life. You feel nothing is worth getting excited about because you are yourself not worth getting excited about. To be bored is a way of making the least of things you often have a sneaking suspicion you need the most. To be bored is a form of suicide.

(Frederick Buechner, 1926 - )

Tuesday ~ February 11, 2014

There is a quiet courage that comes from an inward spring of confidence in the meaning and significance of life. Such courage is an underground river, flowing far beneath the shifting events of one's experience, keeping alive a thousand little springs of action. It has neither trumpet to announce it nor crowds to applaud it; it is best seen in the lives of men and women who do their work from day to day without hurry and without fever. It is the patient waiting of the humble ones whose integrity keeps their spirits sweet and their hearts strong. Wherever one encounters it, a lift is given to life and vast reassurance invades one's being. To walk with such a person in the daily round is to keep company with angels.

(Howard Thurman, 1899 - 1981)

Friday ~ February 7, 2014

Remember how long you have procrastinated, and how consistently you have failed to put to good use your suspended sentence from the gods. It is about time you realized the nature of the universe (of which you are a part) and the power that rules it (to which your part owes its existence). Your days are numbered. Use them to throw open the windows of your soul to the sun. If you do not, the sun will soon set, and you with it.

(Marcus Aurelius, 121 - 180)

Monday ~ February 3, 2014

If enough people think of a thing and work hard enough at it, I guess it's pretty nearly bound to happen, wind and weather permitting.

(Laura Ingalls Wilder, 1867 - 1957)

Friday ~ January 31, 2014

Our nature imposes on us a certain pattern of development which we must follow if we are to fulfill our best capacities and achieve at least the partial happiness of being human. This pattern must be properly understood and it must be worked out in essential elements. Otherwise, we fail. But it can be stated very simply, in a single sentence: We must know the truth, and we must love the truth we know, and we must act according to the measure of our love.What are the elements of this "pattern" I speak of? First, and most important of all: I must adapt myself to objective reality, Second, this adaptation is achieved by the work of my highest spiritual faculties - intelligence and will. Third, it demands expression when my whole being, commanded by my will, produces actions which, by their moral vitality and fruitfulness, show that I am living in harmony with true order of things.

(Thomas Merton, 1915 - 1968)

Thursday ~ January 30, 2014

Youth is not a time of life - it is a state of mind. It is not a matter of ripe cheeks, red lips and supple knees; it is a temper of will, a quality of imagination, a vigor of emotions; it is a freshness of the deep spring of life. Youth means a temperamental predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite of adventure over love of ease.

(Samuel Ullman, 1840 - 1924)