Wisdom

RC1_9580, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.


     It is said that no one truly knows a nation 
     until one has been inside its jails.
     A nation should not be judged 
     by how it treats its highest citizens,
     but its lowest ones.

        Nelson Mandela

Happy Ending

Toronto 1a (2013, 10.15), a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.


     If you want a happy ending, 
     that depends, of course, 
     on where you stop your story. 

        Orson Wells

Perspective

RC1_9577, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

The particular, concrete image is the lens through which we see the world. 

Pat Schneider, How the Light Gets In

Community

Sleeping Angel 2, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.


     Yet without community there is certainly no
     liberation, no future, only the most vulnerable and
     temporary armistice between me and my
     oppression.

        Audre Lorde, The Cancer Journals

Art

Angel sleeping, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.


Art points out the beauty we otherwise miss, as well
as the injustices we might otherwise dismiss.

Bob Hulteen, Popular Culture and Our Future

Truth

RC1_9578
Originally uploaded by rchoephoto

God revealed

a sublime truth to the world,

when God sang,

"I am made whole by your life, Each soul,

each soul completes

me."

Hafiz

Justice

RIC_6382
Originally uploaded by rchoephoto

When some people go hungry …
It’s not food that’s in short supply …
It’s justice!

Feeding others

RCC_8966
Originally uploaded by rchoephoto

To feed others means acknowledging our own hunger and at the same time acknowledging the amazing abundance we’re fed by God.

Sara Miles, Take This Bread: A Radical Conversion

Compassion

RCC_8980
Originally uploaded by rchoephoto

The true expression of nonviolence is compassion.  Some people seem to  think that compassion is just a passive emotional response instead of rational stimulus to action.  To experience genuine comapssion is to develop a feeling of closeness to others combined with a sense of responsibility for their welfare.

Dalai Lama, quoted by Don Cheadle in Not on Our Watch: The Mission to End Genocide in Darfur and Beyond

Homeless

RCC_6898
Originally uploaded by rchoephoto

Probably no word better summarizes the suffering of our times than the word “homeless.” It reveals one of our deepest and most painful conditions, the condition of not having a sense of belonging, of not having a place where we can feel safe, cared for, protected, and loved.

Henri J. M. Nouwen

Democracy

We can have a democracy or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of the few.  We cannot have both.

Justice Louis Brandeis

Suffering

When suffering knocks at your door

and you say there is no seat for him,

he tells you not to worry

because he has brought his own stool.

Chinua Achebe