Poetry of Life

RIC_9812-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

The primary symptom of a soul that has become sick

is that it becomes blind to the poetry of life.

M. Craig Barnes, The Pastor as Minor Poet: Texts and Subtexts in the Ministerial Life

Life we planned

RIC_1141-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

         We must be willing to get rid of the life we planned so
    as to have the life that is waiting for us.

      Joseph Campbell

Between people

RIC_0002-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

When Martin Buber, the great Jewish philosopher and theologian, was asked “Where is God?” he was wise enough not to give the cliché answers: God is everywhere; God is found in churches and synagogues. Buber would answer that God is found in relationships. God is not found in people; God is found between people.

Harold S. Kushner, Living a Life That Matters

Art

RIC_1489-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

Art on my view is a form of immersion and connection; art is a way of entering deeply into relationship with non-human materials and with human communities. ... Art shows the self of the artist as a place or rather a field of forces in that world: a zone of traversal, flight, or concretization.

Crispin Sartwell, End of Story: Toward an Annihilation of Language and History

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Suffering is Optional

RIC_0854-2, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

Pain is inevitable; Suffering is optional.

Zen Aphorism

Paradox

RIC_9981-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

   What means the fact — which is so common — so

   universal — that some soul that has lost all hope for

   itself can inspire in another listening soul an infinite

   confidence in it, even while it is expressing its despair?

      Henry David Thoreau

The Whole and the Broken

RIC_1603-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

Ultimately the whole and the broken

live side by side in us all. 

Estelle Frankel, Sacred Therapy

Music

RIC_1220-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

When words leave off,

music begins. 

Heinrich Heine

A walk

RIC_9855-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

   

   If you never stepped on anybody’s toes,

   you never been for a walk.

     Barbara Kingsolver, High Tide in Tucson

Living

RIC_9999-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

Most people are not afraid of dying;

they are afraid of not having lived. 

Harold S. Kushner, Living a Life That Matters

Sacred

RIC_8007-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

No-one has the right to define for another what is sacred.

Karen Toole-Mitchell

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Photography

RCC_9994, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

Photography records what awareness observes.

Joel Meyerowitz

Education

DSC_5665, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

Every education is a kind of inward journey. 

Václav Havel

Imagination

RCC_9936, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

   The role of the imagination is to create new meanings 

   and to discover connections that, even if obvious, 

   seem to escape detection. Imagination begins with

   intuition, not intellect.

     Paul Rand

Three Stage of Moral Development

RIC_9993-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

Three Stage of Moral Development:

Doing right out of fear of punishment,

doing right out of a feeling of communal solidarity with others,

and doing right because it is right.

Lawrence Kohlberg

To be complete

RIC_0014-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

   You can’t be a complete person without having to

   wrestle with your own demons – and, for that matter,

   with your own angel. 

     Harold S. Kushner, Living a Life That Matters

By words

RCC_3986, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

By words our thoughts are given wings.

Glenn Dixon, Pilgrim in the Place of Words: A Journey Through the 6,000 Languages of Earth

Beginning

RC1_4533, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

   Once we’ve thrown off our habitual

   paths, we think all is lost; but it’s only 

   here that the new and the good begins.

    

    Leo Tolstoy

Wholeness

RCC_9906, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

   Wholeness is not the product of self-sufficiency or 

   independence, but rather of the genuinely inclusive 

   communion that results from sharing our humanity

   with one another in light of the grace of God.

      Thomas E. Reynolds, Vulnerable Communion: A Theology of Disability and Hospitality

Limits of my world

DSC_1692, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

The limits of my language mean

the limits of my world.

Ludwig Wittgenstein

To be hopeful

RCC_2293, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

To be hopeful,

to embrace one possibility after another – that is surely the basic instinct.

Barbara Kingsolver, High Tide in Tucson

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Caring

RIC_2020, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

Healing begins with caring.
So does civilization.

Bill Moyers, Healing and the Mind

Home

RIC_5010-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

You need to be away from your homeland to really understand its hold on you. 

Judy Fong Bates, The Year of Finding Memory

 

Love and Honesty

RIC_2046, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

    If you did not truly love another 

   and feel confident that the love

   was returned, one could never be

   completely honest. 

     Quoting her friend Lucy Grealy,

     Ann Patchett, Truth & Beauty: A Friendship

Prayer

_DSC6813, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

I hold on to my adopted shore, chanting private vows:

wherever I am, let me never forget to distinguish want from need.

Let me be a good animal today.

Let me dance in the waves of my private tide,
the habits of survival and love.

Barbara Kingsolver, High Tide in Tucson

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Daily Mantra

_DSC6744, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

Don't make things more complicated

than they need to be.

Ali Edwards

Seeing

_DSC6992, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

Nothing here below is profane

for those who know how to see.

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Self

RIC_9751_edited-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

Loneliness is the poverty of self.

Solitude is richness of self.

May Sarton

Purpose & Kindness

RIC_7779-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

Lord, let me shake

With purpose. Wild hope can always spring

From tended strength. Everything is in that.

That and nothing but kindness.

James Dickey, The Strength of Fields

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Fun

RIC_7996-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

The world is magical;

there are good people in it.

Inherent in life is fun.

Alice Walker,

The Same River Twice: Honouring the Difficult

Business of our lives

RCC_8694, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

   Here we have a prospect of one common interest

   from which our own is inseparable, that to turn all the

   treasures we possesses into the channel of Universal

   Love becomes the business of our lives.

      John Woolman

Secrets of Tomorrow

RIC_7581-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

   
   What you learn today, for no reason at all, will help
   you discover all the wonderful secrets of tomorrow.

     Norton Juster, The Phantom Tollbooth

Optimism

RCC_9929, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

    Optimism is a strategy for making a better future.
   Because unless you believe that the future can be
   better, you are unlikely to step up and take
   responsibility for making it so.

    Noam Chomsky

What lies within us

RC1_0691, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

What lies behind us and what lies

before us are small matters when

compared to what lies within us.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Love is the way to feel

RCC_6791, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

Whatever happens or don’t. Love is the way to feel.

Alice Walker,

The Same River Twice: Honouring the Difficult

Labyrinth

RIC_7641-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

There are no blind ends in a labyrinth, the path often doubles back on itself, the direction forward which we are facing is continually changing, and if we do not turn back or give up we will reach the centre to find the rose, the Goddess, the Grail, a symbol representing the sacred feminine. To return to ordinary life, we much again travel the labyrinth to get out, which is also a complex journey for it involves integrating the experience into consciousness, which is what changes us.

Jean Shinoda Bolen, Crossing to Avalon

 

The one and only one

RIC_9608_edited-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

Only you can make your mind up!

You’re the one and only one.

Theodor S. Geisel, aka Dr. Seuss, Hunches in Bunches

Sympathy

RC1_0715, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

Sympathy is a consequence of inclusion, the affectionate

result of an expanded identity that occurs when “self” and

“other” are recognized as simply “self.”

Lin Jensen, "Having the Lake to Ourselves”
   in The Best Buddhist Writing 2011, ed. by Melvin McLeod

Art

RCC_8638, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

Art is the elimination of the unnecessary.

Pablo Picasso

What do you want of your life?

RCC_6610, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

I asked myself the question, "What do

you want of your life?" and I realized

with a start of recognition and terror,

"Exactly what  I have – but to be

commensurate, to handle it all better. 

May Sarton, Journal of a Solitude

Seeing

RIC_9719-3, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

The meaning of life is to see.

Hui Neng

Art is the mirror

RIC_9647-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

Art is the mirror, perhaps the only one,

in which we can see our true collective

face. We must honour its sacred

function. We must let art help us.

Alice Walker,
  The Same River Twice: Honouring the Difficult

Doorway to God

RC1_6161, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

The wailing of broken heart is the doorway to God.

Rumi

Monoculture

RCC_1860, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr. 

The governing pattern a culture obeys is a master story – one

narrative in society that takes over the others, shrinking

diversity and forming a monoculture. When you’re inside a

master story at a particular time in history, you tend to

accept its definition of reality. You unconsciously believe and

act on certain things, and disbelieve and fail to act on other

things. That’s the power of the monoculture; it’s able to

direct us without us knowing too much about it.

 F. S. Michaels, Monoculture: How One Story Is Changing Everything

Adventure

RIC_9915-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

Adventure is stepping through brand-new doors with your mouth shut and your eyes wide open.

Barbara Kingsolver, High Tide in Tucson

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Learning

RIC_9722_edited-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr. 

... that is what learning is.
You suddenly understand
something you've understood all your life,
but in a new way.

Doris Lessing