Creativity

RIC_8353-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

Creativity is about having the courage

to invent our lives. 

Nina Wise

Grace

RIC_8359_edited-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

May God give us thankful hearts

and keep us in friendship

to our lives' end.

Amen.

Merchant Taylors' Company Grace, William S. Kervin, A Year of Grace

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Contribution

RIC_4919-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

The idea of contribution is especially instructive because it lies in the area that unites the “I” and the “we.” We contribute because we are part of something larger than our own lives and efforts, but the form of our contribution is based on our uniqueness and our individuality. 

Carol Ochs, Women and Spirituality

Context

RIC_8368, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

All thinking and learning takes place in a context. 

The mind always seeks context in order to create meaning. 

Ed Clarke

Questions

RC1_0012, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

Genuine questions –ones for which we don’t already have answers – are open invitations to innovation. 

Juanita Brown with David Issacs and the World Café Community, The World Café: Shaping Our Futures Through Conversations That Matter

Hospitality

RC1_8468, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

     

       Hospitality is the act of affirming gifts in others. 

        Juanita Brown with David Issacs and the World Café Community,
        The World Café: Shaping Our Futures Through Conversations That Matter

Seeing

RIC_1119, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

It’s never enough just to tell people about some new insight. Rather, you have to get them to experience it in a way that evokes its power and possibility. Instead of pouring knowledge into people’s heads, you need to help them grind a new set of eyeglasses so they can see the world in a new way. 

John Seely Brown, Seeing Differently: Insights on Innovation

Questions

RIC_7541-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

     Creativity requires asking genuine questions,
     those to which an answer is not already known. 
     Questions function as open-handed invitation to creativity,
     calling forth that which doesn’t yet exist. 

       Marilee Goldberg, The Art of the Question

Paths

RIC_7986-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

The paths I trace are not the only paths. 

Rebecca Solnit, Wanderlust: A History of Walking

Dream

RC1_8919, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

El sueño que no se alimenta de sueño desaparece.

The dream which is not fed with dream disappears.

Antonio Porchia, Voices, translated by W. S. Merwin

Luxury

RC1_8529, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

Luxury is a necessity that starts where necessity stops. 

Coco Chanel, Chanel by Edmond Charles Roux

Life

_DSC6556, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

      How short life must be,
      if something so fragile can last a lifetime. 

        Kafka

Patron to Heaven

RIC_7822-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

The great American writer Herman Melville says somewhere in The White Whale that a man ought to be “a patriot to heaven,” and I believe it is a good thing, this ambition to be cosmopolitan, this idea to be citizens not of a small parcel of the world that changes according to the currents of politics, according to the wars, to what occurs, but to feel that the whole world is our country.

Jorge Luis Borges, Borges en Sur

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Practicing vision

RIC_7942-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

    A change of heart or of values without a practice is only
    another pointless luxury of a passively consumptive way of
    life.

      Wendell Berry

Sunset

RCC_0963, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

Sunset in the ethereal waves:
I cannot tell if the day
is ending, or the world, or if
the secret of secrets is inside me again.

Anna Akmatova

Birds

RIC_2289, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

God loved the birds and invented trees.

Man loved the birds and invented cages. 

Jacques Deval

Life

RIC_8164-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

Life is a journey back to God,
and our relationships are the road we travel.

Susan L. Taylor, Women of Color Pray

in Shock

RIC_7420-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

Everything blooms in shock.

Linda Ann Suddarth, Spring for Edwin

Love

RIC_6348-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

Love gives itself away.
In fact, love is not love until it is given away.

Della Reese, Women of Color Pray

Light & Dark

RIC_7556-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

                                        In the seed, the genes whisper: stretch out for the light
                                              and seek the dark
                                        And the tree seeks the light, it stretches out for the dark
                                        And the more darkness it finds, the more light it discovers.

                                                                                                                                 Reide Eknar, Horologium


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Silence within

RIC_7978-2, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

Learn to get in touch with the silence within yourself and know that everything in life has a purpose.

Elizabeth Kübler-Ross

Questions

RCC_9831, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

         Who are you?

         Where are you from?

         Where are you in your journey?

Jack Kornfield, an ancient custom among nomadic peoples,amon g Bedouins and gypsies, recounted by Jon Kabat-Zinn in Coming to Our Senses

Happiness

RIC_8027-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

Happiness is not a state to arrive at,
but a manner of traveling.

Margaret Lee Runback

Joy

RIC_6125-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

He who binds to himself a joy

Doth the wingéd life destroy

But he who kisses the joy as it flies

Lives in Eternity’s sun rise.

William Blake

Stories

RIC_8241-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

Only stories adequately reflect what it is to be human.

Jonathan Sacks, Covenant & Conversation

Practicing Love

RC1_8410, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

We believe in loving our brothers regardless of race, color or creed and

we believe in showing this love by working for better conditions immediately and

the ultimate owning by the workers of their means of production.

Dorothy Day

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Challenge & Opportunity

RCC_9819, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

The impeded stream is the one that sings.

Wendell Berry, The Real Work

Gifts & Possessions

RIC_1829, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

All you are unable to give,

possesses you.

Andre Gide

Memory

RIC_6469-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

All memory is present.

Novalis (Georg Friedrich Freiherr von Hardenberg)

Another World

RIC_7827-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

    Another world is not only possible, she
   is on her way.  
   On a quiet day, I can hear her
   breathing.  

    Arundhati Roy