Struck

RIC_8996-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.


I had been my whole life a bell, and never knew it until at that moment I was lifted and struck.


Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

Wisdom, Skill & Virtue

RIC_7823-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

     Wisdom is knowing what to do next,
     skill is knowing how to do it,
     and virtue is doing it.

      David Starr Jordan

Wisdom

RIC_8557-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

The owl of Minerva begins its flight only in the gathering darkness.

Hegel

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What you are and will be

RIC_8348-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

What you are is what you have been.

 What you will be is what you do now. 

Buddha

Prayer

RIC_8335-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

O Creator of my beginning.

Bear me. 

Bear with me.

Bear me forth into this once more day –

this time of my life You have given me.

Bless me.

Mary Jo Leddy

Creation

RCC_5860-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

     I am a scientist who thinks it wise to enter the doors of
     creation not with a lion tamers’ whip and chair, but with
     the reverence humankind has traditionally summoned for
     entering places of worship: a temple, a mosque, or a
     cathedral. A sacred grove, as ancient as time.
      
       Barbara Kingsolver

Civilized Society

RIC_8412-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

Kindness and compassion toward all 

living things is the mark of a civilized 

society.

Cesar Chavez

Infinite responsibility

RC1_0681, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

   Our being spreads out far beyond us, and mingles with the

   beings of others.  We live in other peoples’ thoughts, their

   plans, their dreams  . . .  we have an infinite responsibility.

    Iris Murdoch

Sacred

RIC_5020-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

Only the hand that erases can write the true thing.

Urban Tigner Holmes III, A History of Christian Spirituality

True Self

RIC_7533-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

The “spark” which is my true self is the flash of the Absolute recognizing in me.

Thomas Merton, Love and Living

Rationality & Emotion

RIC_8676-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

Human rationality depends critically on sophisticated emotionality.

It is only because our emotional brains work so well that our reasoning can work at all.

Jonathan Haidt, The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom

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Perspective

RIC_8356-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

     In one drop of water are found all the 
     secrets of all the oceans. 
      
      Kahlil Gibran

Creativity

RIC_8410-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

We can pick our teachers and 

we can pick our friends and   we can pick the books we read 

and the music we listen to and the movies we see, etcetera.

You are a mashup of what you let into your life.

Paula Scher

To be seen

RIC_8423-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

     In order for connection to happen,
     we have to allow ourselves to be seen
     — really seen.
      
      Brené Brown, The Gifts of Imperfection

Tragedy

RIC_7922-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

La tragedia del hombre es mayor cuando se la deja caer.

The tragedy of man is greater when he gives it up.

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

Becoming free

RIC_2814, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

     The moment you can visualize being free from the things
     that hold you back, you have indeed begun to set yourself
     free.
      
      Unknown

Art

RIC_8523-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

The principle of art is to pause, not bypass.

Jerzy Kosiński

Heart

RIC_6654-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

En una alma llena cabe todo y en una alma vacía no cabe nada.

¡Quién comprende!

A full of heart has room for everything and an empty heart has room for nothing.

Who understands?

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

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Leader

RIC_7904-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

A life-affirming leader is one who knows how to rely on and use the intelligence that exists everywhere in the community, the company, the school, or the organization. A leader these days needs to be a host – one who convenes people, who convenes diversity, who convenes all viewpoints in creative processes where our intelligence can come forth.

Margaret Wheatley


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Choices

DSC_2926, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

      Life is the sum of all your choices.
      
       Albert Camus

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