Thursday, September 30, 2010

Responsibility


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Originally uploaded by rchoephoto

If we are responsible for somthing, we empower ourselves with the ability to chage it.

Christina Baldwin, One to One

Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Hope


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Originally uploaded by rchoephoto

Hope is delicate suffering.

Amiri Baraka, African American poet,
from "Language Is a Place of Struggle": Great Quotes by People of Color, edited by Tram Nguyen

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Born naked


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Originally uploaded by rchoephoto

You're born naked, the rest is drag.

RuPaul Charles, Black Entertainer
from "Language Is a Place of Struggle": Great Quotes by People of Color, edited by Tram Nguyen

Monday, September 27, 2010

Perspective


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Originally uploaded by rchoephoto

Nothing that God ever made is the same thing to more than one person.

Zora Neale Hurston,
from "Language Is a Place of Struggle": Great Quotes by People of Color, edited by Tram Nguyen

Sunday, September 26, 2010

What is inside you


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Originally uploaded by rchoephoto

If you bring forth what is inside you,
what you bring forth will save you.
If you don't bring forth what is inside you,
what you bring forth can destroy you.

Jesus, Gnostic gospel of Thomas

Saturday, September 25, 2010

Laughter


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Originally uploaded by rchoephoto

To laugh when you are hurting is a simple but undeniable way to make what might seem impossible and cruel circumstances livable.

Joseph Boyden, From Mushkegowuk to New Orleans: A Mixed Blood Highway

Friday, September 24, 2010

Good Spirit


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Originally uploaded by rchoephoto

A good spirit is like a muscle. If you do not work and exercise it and massage it in a good and positive way it will eventually wither and die.

Brandon Astor Jones, Black Prisoner
from "Language Is a Place of Struggle": Great Quotes by People of Color, edited by Tram Nguyen

Thursday, September 23, 2010

Memory


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Originally uploaded by rchoephoto

Memory is a funny thing. If you want to bury it, it will be bottled up deeply inside. But if you decide to unleash it, it will open a floodgate and take over everything else.

Kien Nguyen, Asian American dentist
from "Language Is a Place of Struggle": Great Quotes by People of Color, edited by Tram Nguyen

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Imagination


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Originally uploaded by rchoephoto

Imagination brings you close to compassion.

Amy Tan,
from "Language Is a Place of Struggle": Great Quotes by People of Color, edited by Tram Nguyen

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Questions


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Originally uploaded by rchoephoto

How we ask questions, what questions we ask, and how we respond to them determine the insights we have and rate at which we will grow.

Christina Baldwin, One to One

Monday, September 20, 2010

World seen clearly


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Originally uploaded by rchoephoto

The facts of this world seen clearly
are seen through tears;
why tell me then
there is something wrong with my eyes?

Margaret Atwood, Notes towards a Poem that can never be Written (For Carolyn Forché)

Sunday, September 19, 2010

Defeats


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Originally uploaded by rchoephoto

We may encounter many defeats – maybe it’s imperative that we encounter the defeats – but we are much stronger than we appear to be and maybe much better than we allow ourselves to be.

Maya Angelou, The Art of Fiction, The Paris Review Interviews, vol. IV

Saturday, September 18, 2010

Three questions


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Originally uploaded by rchoephoto

If I am not for myself, who will be for me?
If I am only for myself, what am I?
If not now, when?

Rabbi Hillel

Friday, September 17, 2010

Love


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Originally uploaded by rchoephoto

Love is the big booming beat which covers up the noise of hate.

Margaret Cho

Thursday, September 16, 2010

Spirituality


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Originally uploaded by rchoephoto

Spirituality is what takes us beyond religious practice to the purpose of religion: the awareness of the sacred in the mundane, the consciousness of God everywhere, in everyone.

Joan Chittister, Welcome to the Wisdom of the World and Its Meaning for You

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Writing & Reading


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Originally uploaded by rchoephoto

Writing and reading decrease our sense of isolation. They deepen and widen and expand our sense of life: they feed the soul.

Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Welcoming strangers


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Originally uploaded by rchoephoto

The other must always must have precedence over myself, not because she or he is necessarily congenial or shares my opinions, but simply because she or he is there and needs me.

Emmanuel Levinas
quoted and paraphrased by Dow Marmur, rabbi emeritus, Holy Blossom Temple, Our duty to welcome strangers, Toronto Star, September 6, 2010, A13

Monday, September 13, 2010

Identity


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Originally uploaded by rchoephoto

One can't talk about a sense of place without acknowledging where one comes from.

Joseph Boyden, From Mushkegowuk to New Orleans: A Mixed Blood Highway

Sunday, September 12, 2010

A Sign of health in the mind


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Originally uploaded by rchoephoto

A sign of health in the mind is the ability of one individual to enter imaginatively and accurately into the thoughts and feelings and hopes and fears of another person; also to allow the other person to do the same to us.

Donald Winnicott

Saturday, September 11, 2010

All that has ever mattered


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Originally uploaded by rchoephoto

I love you, I love you.
That is all that has ever mattered.
Live your full life and I will always be with you.

cell phone call, September 11, 2001

Friday, September 10, 2010

Painting portraits


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Originally uploaded by rchoephoto

There is still something to be said for painting portraits of the people we have loved, for trying to express those moments that seem so inexpressibly beautiful, the ones that change us and deepen us.

Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

Thursday, September 9, 2010

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Children & War


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Originally uploaded by rchoephoto

The time has come to make the protection of children – all our children – a common cause that can unite us across the boundaries of our political orientation, religious affiliation and cultural traditions. We must reclaim our lost taboos, and make the abuse and brutalization of children simply unacceptable.

*   *   *

But today, to paraphrase the poet W.B. Yeats, things have fallen apart, the moral centre is no longer holding. In so many conflicts today, anything goes. Children, women, the elderly, granary stores, crops, livestock – all have become fair game in the single-minded struggle for power, in an attempt not just to prevail but to humiliate, not simply to subdue but to annihilate the “enemy community” altogether. This is the phenomenon of total war.

Olara Otunnu, Ugandan 2011 Presidential Candidate

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Question to ponder


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Originally uploaded by rchoephoto

What did you do when the poor
suffered, when tenderness
and life
burned out in them?

Otto René Castillo
Robert Márquez, ed. Latin American Revolutionary Poetry

Monday, September 6, 2010

Saving the world


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Originally uploaded by rchoephoto

Before we move from recklessness to responsibility, from selfishness to a decent happiness, we must want to save our world. And in order to save our world we must learn to love it – and in order to love it we must become familiar with it again. That is where my work begins, and why I keep walking, and looking.

Mary Oliver

Sunday, September 5, 2010

On a path


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Originally uploaded by rchoephoto

We are not going to sainthood here, we are just on a path.

Sara Miles, Take This Bread: A Radical Conversion

Saturday, September 4, 2010

Life is energy


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Originally uploaded by rchoephoto

Life is energy, and energy is creativity. And even when individuals pass on, the energy is retained in the work of art, locked in it and awaiting release if only someone will take time and the care to unlock it.

Marianne Moore

Friday, September 3, 2010

Experiential Understanding


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Originally uploaded by rchoephoto

Wisdom does not mean knowledge but experiential understanding. Wisdom helps you to change radically your habits and perceptions, as you discover the constantly changing, interconnected nature of the whole existence.

Matine Batchelor

Thursday, September 2, 2010

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Spiritual transformation


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Originally uploaded by rchoephoto

The naked truth of spiritual transformation is that if we don’t change our lives ourselves, nothing will change them for us. That’s the secret of spiritual self-mastery. No one can do it for us. Although help is available, we need to take it upon ourselves to find and utilize it.

Lama Surya Das, Buddha Is As Buddha Does