"I don't have time for instant coffee!"
-Me (and then I realized how incredibly silly that sounded) :)
"Nothing's clean, baby, but we do the best we can, don't we?"
-Ava Gardner to Howard Hughes in "The Aviator"
"But it ain't our feelings we have to steer by through life--no, no, we'd make shipwreck mighty often if we did that. There's only the one safe compass and we've got to set our course by that--what it's right to do."
-Anne's House of Dreams by Lucy Maud Montgomery
"The courage of life is often a less dramatic spectacle than the courage of a final moment; but it is no less a magnificent mixture of triumph and tragedy."
-JFK
This is the truth, not just a poem.
This is a poem and not just the truth.
-Linda Hogan (Chickasaw)
I release you, my beautiful and terrible
fear. I release you. You were my beloved
and hated twin, but now, I don't know you
as myself. I release you with all the
pain I would know at the death of
my children.
You are not my blood anymore.
I give you back to the white soldiers
who burned down my home, beheaded my children,
raped and sodomized my brothers and sisters.
I give you back to those who stole the
food from our plates when we were starving.
I release you, fear, because you hold
these scenes in front of me and I was born
with eyes that can never close.
I release you
I release you
I release you
I release you
I am not afraid to be angry.
I am not afraid to rejoice.
I am not afraid to be black.
I am not afraid to be white.
I am not afraid to be hungry.
I am not afraid to be full.
I am not afraid to be hated.
I am not afraid to be loved,
to be loved, to be loved, fear.
Oh, you have choked me, but I gave you the leash.
You have gutted me but I gave you the knife.
You have devoured me, but I laid myself across the fire.
I take myself back, fear.
You are not my shadow any longer.
I won't take you in my hands.
You can't live in my eyes, my ears, my voice
my belly, or in my heart my heart
my heart my heart
But come here, fear
I am alive and you are so afraid
of dying.
-Joy Harjo (Muskogee)
Fear is a liar, poisoning today
with fantasies of what
may come tomorrow
Until each joy is shadowed
by a sorrow
And, dreading it, we leak our
lives away.
If we have mate and child
we fear to part.
And if we long, we fear we
won't attain
And, snatching at it - even as
we gain - forfeit the heaven,
the harmony, the heart.
Fear is a liar.
Truth is what God molds our
days in love
And with the same precision
as he makes a wing for
flight or petal fold within
a sheath, or shapes an eye
for vision
He hands us strength to welcome
what is right.
Then, swift and sudden, hurls us
our delight.
-Anonymous
Not one day in anyone’s life . . . is an uneventful day, no day without profound meaning, no matter how dull and boring it might seem, no matter whether you are a seamstress or a queen, a shoeshine boy or a movie star, a renowned philosopher or a Down’s syndrome child. Because in every day of your life, there are opportunities to perform little kindnesses for others, both by conscious acts of will and unconscious example. Each smallest act of kindness – even just words of hope when they are needed, the remembrance of a birthday, a compliment that engenders a smile – reverberates across great distances and spans of time, affecting lives unknown to the one whose generous spirit was the source of this good echo, because kindness is passed on and grows each time it’s passed, until a simple courtesy becomes an act of selfless courage years later and far away. Likewise, each small meanness, each thoughtless expression of hatred, each envious and bitter act, regardless of how petty, can inspire others, and is therefore the seed that ultimately produces evil fruit, poisoning people whom you have never met and never will. All human lives are so profoundly and intricately entwined – those dead, those living, those generations yet to come – that the fate of all is the fate of each, and the hope of humanity rests in every heart and in every pair of hands. Therefore, after every failure, we are obliged to strive again for success, and when faced with the end of one thing, we must build something new and better in the ashes, just as from pain and grief, we must weave hope, for each of us is a thread critical to the strength – to the very survival -- of the human tapestry. Every hour in every life contains such often-unrecognized potential to affect the world that the great days for which we, in our dissatisfaction, so often yearn are already with us; all great days and thrilling possibilities are combined always in this momentous day . . .
Brighten the corner where you are, and you will light the world.
-Dean Koontz, From the Corner of His Eye. (New York: Bantam Books, 2000), pp. 476-477.
VISUALIZE WHIRLED PEAS
-bumper sticker
"This wallpaper is dreadful. One of us has simply got to go."
-Oscar Wilde (1854-1900), writer & playwright
Spoken while on his deathbed
I believe in Jesus Christ and in the beauty of the gospel that began in Bethlehem. I believe in Him whose spirit glorified a little town; of whose coming only shepherds saw the sign, and for whom the crowded inn could find no room. I believe in Him whom the kings of the earth ignored and the proud could never understand; whose paths were among the common people, whose welcome came from men of hungry hearts. I believe in Him who proclaimed the love of God to be invincible: whose cradle was a mother's arms, whose home in Nazareth had love for its only wealth, who looked at men and made them see what His love saw in them; who by His love brought sinners back to purity, and lifted human weakness up to meet the strength of God. I confess our everlasting need of God: the need of forgiveness for our greed and selfishness, the need of life for empty souls, the need of love for hearts grown cold. I acknowledge the glory of all that is like Christ: the steadfastness of friends, the blessedness of homes, the beauty of compassion, the miracle of hearts made kind at Christmas, the courage of those who dare to resist all passion, hate and war.
I believe that only by love expressed shall the earth at length be purified.
And I acknowledge in Christ a faith that sees beyond the partial fact, a trust in life redeemed that looks beyond our present evil. And I pray that this redemption may begin in us.
-Walter Russell Bowie, Lift Up Your Hearts
"More or less sad are finally all those who are aware of things beyond questions of daily bread but who would wish to live without this sadness, deep and still, without which there is no true joy."
-M. Keller
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