Being present

RIC_3239, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

Beauty and grace are performed whether or not we sense them.
The least we can do is try to be there.

Annie Dillard

Strength

RIC_3250, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

Strength indeed lies in accepting one’s frailties and not in persuading oneself that one has “overcome” them.

Tariq Ramadan, What I Believe

Sounds of Nature

RIC_3165, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

Everything in life is speaking in spite of its apparent silence.

Hazrat Inayat Khan

Living well with stories

_RIC3487, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

A good life requires living well with stories.
When life goes badly, a story is often behind that too.

Arthur W. Frank, letting stories breathe

Gardeners of the Spirit

DSC_4931, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

Help us to be the always hopeful gardeners of the spirit,

Who know that without darkness nothing comes to birth

As without light nothing flowers.

May Sarton, Journal of a Solitude

Life experiences

_DSC4626, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

Our life experiences will have resonances

within our innermost being, so that we will

feel the rapture of being alive.

Joseph Campbell

A Person

RIC_4312, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

The Earth is the centre of the universe

The house is the centre of the earth

The family is the centre of the house

The person is the centre of the family.

Basque Song

Finding Self

RCC_8633, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

To look into a mirror;

And to see a mirror,

I find myself again.

Anonymous

Question of Faith

RIC_1548, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

What would happen if Christians devoted the same discipline and self-sacrifice to non-violent peacemaking that armies devote to war?

Ron Sider, quoted in James Loney, Captivity

Emotion

RIC_2066, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

We are more likely to be motivated by emotion than information.

Tom Butts

Love

RCC_2322, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

What will survive of us is love.

Philip Larkin

Sedentary Agitation

RCC_9184, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

Sedentary Agitation:
Being regularly upset by all that you see
but not getting up and doing anything about it.

Cory Booker

We are One

RC1_7742, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

We are all Story. … We are energy moving forward to the fullest possible expressions of ourselves, …

We are one. We are, in the end, one story, one song, one spirit, one soul.

Richard Wagamese, One Story, One Song

Every breath you take

_DSC5566, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

To hold nothing back

in every breath

is a spiritual practice.

Mark Nepo, The Book of Awakening

Perspective

RIC_9773, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

Out of clutter, find simplicity.

From discord, find harmony.

In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity

Albert Einstein

War

RIC_1903, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

War creates peace like hate creates love.

David L. Wilson

My life

RCC_9432, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

My life is my practice.

Ram Dass

The Days

RCC_9469, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

The days are too short for love;

how can there ever be time for quarrelling?

Margaret Gatty

Choices

RC1_0016, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

Probably no nation is rich enough to pay for both war and civilization.

We must make our choice; we cannot have both.

Abraham Flexner

Lost in the act of becoming

RIC_2012, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

… something is always

lost in the act of becoming —

as though necessity breeds

the loss of some universal truth ...

Michael Meyerhofer, Dinner Roll Zen in Illuminations, eds. by Mark L. Tompkins and Jennifer McMahon

Questions

RIC_1949, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

Questions are the creative acts of intelligence.

Frank Kingdon

Role of Artist

RIC_1907, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

The role of the artist I now understood as that of revealing through the world-surfaces the implicit forms of the soul, and the great agent to assist the artist was the myth.

Joseph Campbell

Courage

RIC_1999, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

One cannot remain neutral in the face of injustice, for to do so is to become an accomplice to the injustice.

James Loney, Captivity

To give light

RIC_6958, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

What is to give light must endure burning.

Victor E. Frankl

Present Moment

RC1_7734, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

There is only one moment when we can feel truly alive. That is the present moment.

The present moment is the only moment where life is available.

Thich Nhat Hanh

Reconciliation

RIC_2023, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

If we want to achieve reconciliation, not only do we have to struggle with the enemy, but we also have to wrestle with ourselves. And in the struggle we may find ourselves blessed and embraced by the presence of something greater.

Karen Armstrong, Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life

Bliss

RIC_2105, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

Bliss does not come from outside. It comes from inside, from serving the people.

Anna Hazare

Saintliness

RIC_1943, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

It is the struggle and strain of hope that brings about saintliness.

Brian D. McLaren

Your time

RIC_1928, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

Walk around feeling like a leaf.

Know you could tumble any second.

Then decide what to do with your time.

Naomi Shihab Nye, The Art of Disappearing

Two Extremes

RIC_1910, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

There are two extremes to avoid:

being completely absorbed in your pain and being distracted by so many things that you stay far away from the wound you want to heal.

Henry Nouwen

The Grasp of Your Hand

DSC_8882, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

Grant me that I may not be a coward, feeling

Your mercy in my success alone; but let me find

the grasp of Your hand in my failure.

Rabindranath Tagore, The Grasp of Your Hand

Be open

RIC_1901, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

As an inlet cannot close itself to the sea that shapes it,

the heart can only wear itself open.

Mark Nepo, The Book of Awakening

Why were you not Zusya?

RIC_1916, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

When I die and go to the world to come, they will not ask me, Zusya, why were you not Moses?
They will ask me: Zusya, why were you not Zusya?

Rabbi Zusya of Hanipol , Martin Buber, Tales of the Hasidim: Early Masters

To live

RIC_2034, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

Better to die standing, than to live on your knees.

Ernesto "Che" Guevara

Being human

RIC_2004, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

Everyone should keep a piece of paper with “for my sake the world was created” in one pocket and a piece of paper with “I am but dust and ashes” in another. The Rabbi was expressing an existential truth: each individual being is important, but not self-important.

Rabbi Simcha Bunim of Peshicha (1765-1827) quoted by Seth Segall

Change

RC1_4432 a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality.

Plutarch

Express yourself

RIC_1981, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

What is not ex-pressed is de-pressed.

Mark Nepo, The Book of Awakening

Unspoken expectations are resentments in waiting.

Anonymous

When Someone Deeply Listens to You

RIC_1974, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

When someone deeply listens to you

your bare feet are on the earth

and a beloved land that seemed distant

is now at home within you.

John Fox, When Someone Deeply Listens to You

Teachings

RCC_9504, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

The ancient teachings are not a romantic throwback to a vanished lifestyle

but a resonant of our contemporary responsibilities.

Richard Wagamese, One Story, One Song

What Matters

RCC_6484 a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

As is a tale, so is life:
not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters.

Seneca

Wounds to our Ego

RIC_2029, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

The wounds to our ego are our teachers and must be welcomed.

They must be paid attention to, not litigated.

Richard Rohr, Everything Belongs

Slow

DSC_0546, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

There is a secret bond between slowness and memory,

between speed and forgetting.

Milan Kundera

Peace of mind

RIC_6718, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

Peace of mind is the cornerstone of spiritual life.

Christina Baldwin, The Seven Whispers

Awakening and surrender

RIC_1567, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

Awakening and surrender:

they frame each day and each life;

between them the journey where anything can happen,

the beauty and the frailty.

John O’Donohue, Beauty: The Invisible Embrace

Innocence

RIC_9333, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

Innocence is more than lack of knowledge and experience;

it’s learning to look at the world with wonder.

Richard Wagamese, One Story, One Song

Humility

DSC_6926, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

Humility is the ability to see yourself as an essential part of something larger.

It is the act of living without grandiosity. …

Humility teaches that there are no greater or lesser beings or things.

There is only the whole.

Richard Wagamese, One Story, One Song

Nothing/Everything

DSC_4232, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

When we are nothing, we are in a fine position to receive everything from God.

Richard Rohr, Everything Belongs

Eyes not our own

RIC_9457, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

When we can see the image of God where we don’t want to see the image of God,

then we see with eyes not our own.

Richard Rohr, Everything Belongs

Healing

RCC_2286 a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

May all that I do today contribute to the healing of the world,

and may my heart be open enough to allow the world to contribute to my healing.

Christina Baldwin, The Seven Whispers

Reaching without holding

RCC_1899, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

I envy the tree,

how it reaches

but never holds.

Mark Nepo, The Book of Awakening