Saturday ~ May 7, 2016

I seek this day an active wonder. An active wonder is the desperate need of my mind and spirit. The awareness of the unexplored and the untried until I find my way into their secret places: this I need and I seek. The illumination of wonder over my familiar landscape, revealing ordinary things, fresh glories, making manifest in my familiar heights and depths that which I have never known; this I need and I seek this day.

(Howard Thurman, 1899 - 1981)

Monday ~ April 11, 2016

From the simplest lyric to the most complex novel, literature is asking us o pay attention. Pay attention to the frog. Pay attention to the west wind. Pay attention to the boy on the raft, the lady on the tower, the old man on the train. In sum, pay attention to the world and all that dwells therein and thereby learn at last to pay attention to yourself and all that dwells therein.

( Frederick Buechner, b. 1926 )

Sunday ~ April 3, 2016

No one can build you the bridge on which you, and only you, must cross the river of life. There may be countless trails and bridges and demigods who would gladly carry you across, but only at the price of pawning and forgoing yourself. There is one path in the world that none can walk but you. Where does it lead? Don't ask, walk!

( Friedrich Nietzsche, 1844 - 1900 )

Saturday ~ April 2, 2016

Unless we are very, very careful, we doom each other by holding onto images of one another based on preconceptions that are in turn based on indifference to what is other than ourselves. This indifference can be, in its extreme, a form of murder and seems to me a rather common phenomenon.

Friday ~ April 1, 2016

You've got to tell the world how to treat you. If the world tells you how you are going to be treated, you are in trouble.

( James Baldwin, 1924 - 1987 )

Saturday ~ February 13, 2016

If I were much wiser, and much more patient, and had much greater concentration, I could sit in silence in my chair, look out my windows at a green tree and the blue sky, and know that breathing is a gift; that a breath is sufficient for the moment; and that breathing air is breathing God.

( Andre Dubus, 1936 - 1999 )

Thursday ~ February 11, 2016

I think perfection is based on the obsessive belief that if you run carefully enough, hitting each stepping-stone just right, you won't have to die. The truth is that you will die anyway and that a lot of people who aren't even looking at their feet are going to do a whole lot better than you, and have a lot more fun while they're doing it.

(Anne Lamont, b. 1954)