Saturday, June 30, 2012

True Success

RC1_4443 by rchoephoto
RC1_4443, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.


True success consists not in becoming the person you dreamed of
being when you were young, but in becoming the person you were meant to be, the person you are capable of being when you are at
your best. 

Harold S. Kushner, Overcoming Life's Disappointments: Learning from Moses How to Cope with Frustration

Thursday, June 28, 2012

What We Mean

RIC_0378-1 by rchoephoto
RIC_0378-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.


What we say with our words is so much less important than what we mean with our lives.
Only our lives give weight to our words. 

Mary Jo Leddy, Radical Gratitude

Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Awareness

RIC_0317-1 by rchoephoto
RIC_0317-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.


     When we have a heightened awareness of life’s fleeting
     impermanence, life itself becomes ever more precious and vivid. 

       Roger Housden, Ten Poems to Say Goodbye

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Becoming Grateful

DSC_6919 by rchoephoto
DSC_6919, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.


My own insight is that we cannot rebuild our lives simply by constructing bigger, better, and stronger buildings.
We must begin by thinking in a more foundational way, a more radical way. We must begin by becoming grateful. 

Mary Jo Leddy, Radical Gratitude

Monday, June 25, 2012

As they are

RCC_6023-1 by rchoephoto
RCC_6023-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.


     What would people look like
     if we could see them as they are,
     soaked in honey, stung and swollen,
     reckless, pinned against time?


       Ellen Bass, If You Knew







Sunday, June 24, 2012

Openness

RCC_6049-1 by rchoephoto
RCC_6049-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.


At the heart of love is openness. An unfettered openness of heart
and spirit, it seems to me, is what intimacy — with another and
with all life — really means. That openness is what I now believe
true detachment to be.

Roger Housden, Ten Poems to Say Goodbye

Saturday, June 23, 2012

Open Heart

RIC_8212-1 by rchoephoto
RIC_8212-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.


     When we open our hearts to pain and suffering,
     we begin to heal,
     not becuase suffering is redemptive
     but because opening our heart is.

       Sharon Salzberg, Lovingkindness

Friday, June 22, 2012

To Dream

RIC_6806-1 by rchoephoto
RIC_6806-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.


To dream is to imagine a world and a life better
than the one we know now.

Harold S. Kushner, Overcoming Life's Disappointments: Learning from Moses
How to Cope with Frustration 

Thursday, June 21, 2012

What Matters

RIC_4301 by rchoephoto
RIC_4301, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.


What matters is what we bear away within us:
the story, the song of our living.

Richard Wagamese, One Story, One Song

Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Show Me


RC1_7737 by rchoephoto
RC1_7737, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.


To you the churches and faith traditions
I give this challenge:
If the word of God is real when He said,
“You shall love thy neighbour…”
then show me.
Don’t tell me
because I have no more time
to listen.
Art Solomon, Anishinaabek elder,
quoted in KAIROS, In Peace and Friendship: A New Relationship with Aboriginal Peoples

Tuesday, June 19, 2012

The difference we make

DSC_5561 by rchoephoto
DSC_5561, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.


     The difference we make in other people's lives is not always visible,
     not always articulated to us, but it is real.

       Harold S. Kushner, Overcoming Life's Disappointments: Learning from Moses How to Cope with Frustration

Monday, June 18, 2012

Sunday, June 17, 2012

Saturday, June 16, 2012

Story

RIC_5378-1 by rchoephoto
RIC_5378-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.


They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but we can't get the whole picture unless we have the whole story. And the magic in words is that the story can make the picture.

Christina Baldwin, Storycatcher: Making Sense of Our Lives through the Power and Practice of Story

Friday, June 15, 2012

Wisdom

RIC_6825-1 by rchoephoto
RIC_6825-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.


     Wisdom is the reward you get for a lifetime of listening when you
     would rather have talked.

       Mark Twain

Thursday, June 14, 2012

Peace

RIC_6939-3 by rchoephoto
RIC_6939-3, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.


Until he extends his circle of compassion to include all living things, man will not himself find peace.

Albert Schweitzer

Wednesday, June 13, 2012

True Peace

RIC_1284-1 by rchoephoto
RIC_1284-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.


True peace is not merely the absence of tension;
it is the presence of justice.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Tuesday, June 12, 2012

A Circle

RIC_9478-1 by rchoephoto
RIC_9478-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.


A circle must have a center        
But a single dot does not make a Circle.       

Mercy Amba Oduyoye           

Monday, June 11, 2012

You are here to stay

RIC_9057-1 by rchoephoto
RIC_9057-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.


     How does an essence of the world
     Leave the world?
     How does wetness leave water?
     Don't even try.
     You are here to stay.


       Rumi

Sunday, June 10, 2012

Saturday, June 9, 2012

Creative Thinking

RIC_1680-1 by rchoephoto
RIC_1680-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.


     The connection between perspective and creative
     thinking has to do with habituation and over-
     familiarization. Where creative thinking is concerned,
     that is the irony of the skill: the more adept you are at
     something, the less likely you are to look at it in a
     different way."

       Michael Michalko

Friday, June 8, 2012

The Contemplative

RIC_0346-1 by rchoephoto
RIC_0346-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.


The poet enters into oneself in order to create.
The contemplative enters into God in order to be created.


Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation

Thursday, June 7, 2012

Tools

RIC_1421-1 by rchoephoto
RIC_1421-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.


     The tools matter less than the skill with
     which they're employed.

       David Kopulos

Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Watch

RIC_0949-1 by rchoephoto
RIC_0949-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.


Watch your thoughts, for they become words.
Watch your words, for they become actions.
Watch your actions, for they become habits.
Watch your habits, for they become character.
Watch your character, for they becomes your destiny.


Mother Teresa

Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Listening

RIC_5940-3 by rchoephoto
RIC_5940-3, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.


     If there is anything worth calling theology, it is
     listening to people’s stories, listening to them and
     cherishing them.

        Mary Pellauer

Sunday, June 3, 2012

Imagination

RIC_1900-1 by rchoephoto
RIC_1900-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.


     The fundamental job of the imagination in ordinary life, then,
     is to produce out of the society we have to live in, a vision of the
     society we want to live in.

       Northrop Frye

Saturday, June 2, 2012

Friday, June 1, 2012

Ending & Beginning

RIC_7793-2 by rchoephoto

RIC_7793-2, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.


Be inspired by the flame
Where everything shines as it disappears.

Rainer Maria Rilke, 
"Sonnets to Orpheus XII," In Praise of Mortality, trans. by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macey