Encounter

Every pair of eyes we look into can become the eyes of the Beloved.

Jack Kornfield

Seeing

When you stop looking for something,
you see it right in front of you.

Eleanor Coppola

Incomparable

Guided by my heritage of a love of beauty and respect for strength – in search of my mother’s garden, I found my own.

Alice Walker


Since you are like no other being ever created since the beginning of time, you are incomparable.

Brenda Ueland

Self-respect

Whatever and however things are said and done and got here, I will decide that everything stops right in front of me; and then, I decide that there will be no hatred or other negative and destructive things that will be uttered by me.

Maya Angelou

A Sincere Life

“MA VIE EST MON MESSAGE” 

“MY LIFE IS MY MESSAGE”

Mahatma Ghandi [1869-1948]

     If you ask people in India why is it that Mahatma Gandhi was able to

     do what he did in India, they will say they followed him because of

     his absolute sincerity. … Any time he made a mistake, even in his

     personal life, or even a decision that he made in the independence

     struggle, he came out in public and said, “I made a mistake.”

       Martin Luther King, Jr. [1929-1968]

Selfless Service

Strive constantly to serve the welfare of the world; by devotion to selfless work one attains the supreme goal of life. Do your work with the welfare of others always in mind. … The ignorant work for their own profit; the wise work for the welfare of the world, without thought for themselves. … Perform all work carefully, guided by compassion.

The Bhagavad Gita

Communion

For thousands of years we have gathered in circle –
around fires, around bodies, around altars –
because we can’t do this alone.

Wayne Muller

Pilgrim

To journey without being changed is to be a nomad.
To change without journeying is to be a chameleon.
To journey and be transformed by the journey is to be a pilgrim.

Mark Nepo, The Exquisite Risk

Fiesta

The church says: The body is a sin.
Science says: The body is a machine.
Advertising says: The body is a business.
The Body says: I am a fiesta.

Eduardo Galeano

Cup of Clay

   You say you can't create something original? Don't
   worry about it. Make a cup of clay so your brother
   can drink.

     Rumi

On This Day

On This Day

God, on this day
I welcome you into my heart.
I ask you for the patience
and wisdom,
for the light and understanding
to help others, to help myself,
to allow me the strength
to make my life worthy and meaningful
as you have intended it to be.

Corrine de Winter

Identity

We behold what we are,
and we are what we behold.

Ruysbroeck, Medival mystic



We live in what we love.

St. John of the Cross, Medival mystic

Being Human

We are not cabin dwellers, born to a life cramped and confined; we are meant to explore, to seek, to push the limits of our potential as human beings. The world of the sense is just a base camp: we are meant to be as much at home in consciousness as in the world of physical reality.

Eknath Easwaran

Threshold Time

Who we become, depends upon the choices we make. At particular times in our lives, really significant choices are made that shape our fate. When we are in a threshold time, what we decide to do determines what comes next.

Jean Shinoda Bolen

Sanctuary

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Originally uploaded by rchoephoto

To find love I must enter into the sanctuary where it is hidden, which is the mystery of God.


Thomas Merton

Hope

Hope not only meets despair in equal measure, it drowns it.

James Maskalyk, Six Months in Sudan

Change

Autumn to winter, winter into spring,
Spring into summer, summer into —
So rolls the changing year, and so we change;
Motion so swift, we know not that we move.

Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

Be Still

In the rush and noise of life,
as you have intervals,
step within yourself
and be still.
Wait upon God
and feel his good presence;
this will carry you through your day's business.

Be Still, William Penn

Silence

The silence, like all silences, was made poignant and distinct by its sounds.

Annie Dillard, An American Childhood

Getting Lost

Some things we have only as long as they remain lost, some things are not lost only so long as they are distant.


Rebecca Solnit, A Field Guide to Getting Lost