January 20, 2014

Monday

Never, never be afraid to do what's right, especially if the well-being of a person or animal is at stake. Society's punishments are small compared to the wounds we inflict on our soul when we look the other way.

(Martin Luther King, Jr. 1929 – 1968)

Saturday ~ January 18, 2014

Perhaps the most valuable result of all education is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do, when it ought to be done, whether you like it or not. It is the first lesson that ought to be learned.

(Thomas H. Huxley, 1825 – 1895)

January 17, 2014

Friday

Some there are that torment themselves afresh with the memory of what is past; others, again, afflict themselves with the apprehension of evils to come; and very ridiculously both – for the one does not now concern us, and the other not yet… One should count each day a separate life.

(Seneca, 4 BCE – 65 CE)

Thursday ~ January 16, 2014

The moment I have defined another being as my enemy, I lose part of myself, the complexity and subtlety of my vision. I begin to exist in a closed system. When anything goes wrong, I blame my enemy. If I wake troubled, my enemy had led me to this feeling. If I cannot sleep, it is because of my enemy. Slowly all the power in my life begins to be located outside. And my whole being is defined in relation to this outside force, which becomes daily more monstrous, more evil, more laden with all the qualities in myself I no longer wish to own. The quality of my thought then is diminished. My imagination grows small. My self seems meager. For my enemy has stolen all of these.

(Susan Griffin, 1943 - )

January 15, 2013

Wednesday

All that a person does outwardly is but the expression and completion of inward thought. To work effectively, we must think clearly; to act nobly, we must think nobly.

(William Ellery Channing, 1780 – 1842)

Monday ~ January 13, 2014

Thank God every morning when you get up that you have something to do which must be done, whether you like it or not. Being forced to work, and forced to do your best, will breed you in temperance, self-control, diligence, strength of will, contentment, and a hundred other virtues which the idle never know.


Thank God every morning when you get up that you have something to do

Wednesday ~ December 25, 2013

Because we wanted so much that year
and had little. Because the winter phone
for days stayed silent that would call
our father back to work, and he
kept silent too with our mother,
fearfully proud before us.
Because I was young that morning
in grey light untouched on the rug
and our gifts were so few, propped
along the furniture, for a second
my heart fell, then saw how large they made the the spaces between them
to take the place of less. Because
the curtained sun rose brightly
on our discarded paper and the things
themselves, these forty years,
have grown to small to see, the emptiness
measured out remains the gift,
fills the whole room now, that whole year
out across the snowy lawn. Because
a drop of shame burned quietly
in the province of love. Because
we had little that year
and were given much.

(Joseph Enzweiler, 1950-2011)