Sabbaths

RIC_1125-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

     

     And yet no leaf or grain is filled

     By work of ours, the field is tilled

     And left to grace.  That we may leap,

     Great work is done while we're asleep.

         Wendell Berry, Sabbaths

Rising

RIC_7860-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

Whenever something is true, good, or beautiful

whether it be art, prayer, or thought, it rises.

And in rising, it converges with everything else

that is true, good, or beautiful.

Gregory Wolfe,

Convergences, Intruding Upon the Timeless: Meditations on Art, Faith, and Mystery

Love

RCC_6044-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

Lost is all the time that is not engaged in love.

from an Italian poem

Poets

RIC_3271-2, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

Poets write in the line of prophecy,

and their work teaches us how to live.

Jay Parini, Why Poetry Matters

You

RIC_3409-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

When you are inspired by some great purpose ... 

dormant forces, faculties and talents become alive, 

and you discover yourself to be a greater person by far 

than you ever dreamed yourself to be. 

Patanjali

Responsibility

RIC_4939-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

Our greatest responsibility is to be good ancestors.

Jonas Salk

History & Memory

RIC_5437-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

     History and memory share events; that is, they share

     time and space. Every moment is two moments.

       Anne Michaels, Fugitive Pieces

The inner me

RIC_5951-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

El yo interior se encuentra en mi tela, puerza en mi tela, puesto que soy yo quien la hace.

The inner me is necessary in the canvas because I am the one who makes it. 

Le moi intérieur, il est forcément dans ma toile, puisque c’est moi qui la fais.

Pablo Picasso

Setting Free

RIC_3291-2 , 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

New Ending

RIC_3463-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending.

Maria Robinson

Compassion

RIC_3154, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

     

     Compassion is rarely a solution but it is

     always a sign of a deeper reality, of a

     deeper human possibilities. And

     compassion is unleashed and wider and

     wider circles by signs and stories, never

     by statistics and strategies. 

       Krista Tippett

Reach Out & Risk

RIC_2965-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

Reach out to those you fear.

Touch the heart of complexity.
Imagine beyond what is seen.
Risk vulnerability one step at a time.

John Paul Lederach,

The Moral Imagination: The Art and Soul of Building Peace

"The number of documented victims of extrajudicial killings is much higher than the number of political prisoners: 350 political prisoners over more than a thousand extrajudicial killings [in the Philippines in the last 10 years]."  

     - Dr. Ligaya Lindio-McGovern, Professor of Sociology, Indiana University, USA 

Burden of Memory

RCC_5948-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

     The camera relieves us of the burden of memory ...

     records in order to forget.

       John Berger

Birthing

RCC_6231-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

No one is born just once. 

If you’re lucky, you’ll emerge again

in someone’s arms;

or unlucky, wake

when the long tail of terror brushes

the inside of your skull.

Anne Michaels, Fugitive Pieces

Centre of Our Being

RIC_1464-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

     May we all grow in grace and peace, and not neglect the

     silence that is printed in the center of our being. It will

     not fail us. 

       Thomas Merton

Find your soul

RIC_2400-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

If you do not find your soul, 

the world is unreal to you.

Kabir

Conviction

RIC_2886-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

Prison walls and iron bars can only lock away our bodies

but not our minds, our thoughts and what we stand for.

Angie B. Ipong with Mars Marata and Other Political Prisoners,

A Red Rose for Andrea: Writings from Prison

"The number of documented victims of extrajudicial killings is much higher than the number of political prisoners:

350 political prisoners over more than a thousand extrajudicial killings [in the Philippines in the last 10 years]."  

     - Dr. Ligaya Lindio-McGovern, Professor of Sociology, Indiana University, USA 

Your Life

RIC_2698-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

     What can it be that has never yet been seen?
     What has never yet been seen is your own unprecedented
     life fulfilled.
     Your life is what has yet to be brought into being. 

         Joseph Campbell, Thou Art That: Transforming Religious Metaphor

A frame

RIC_1358-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

A frame is a unit of space-time; i.e., a moment is not an abstraction, but is filled with what is seen by the eye.

Czeslaw Milosz,

A Book of Luminous Things: An International Anthology of Poetry

Silences

RIC_1468-1a, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

My silences have not protected me.

Your silence will not protect you.

Audre Lorde

Possibility

RIC_2406-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

The power of Jesus's parables challenge and enabled his followers to co-create with God a world of justice and love, peace and nonviolence. The power of Jesus' historical life challenged his followers by proving at least one human being could cooperate fully with God. And if one, why not others? If some, why not all? "Ashes denote," wrote Emily Dickinson, "that fire was." And if fire ever was, fire can be again.

John Dominic Crossan, 

The Power of Parable: How Fiction by Jesus Became Fiction about Jesus

Students & Teachers

RIC_1307-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

     Those who wake are the students.

     Those who stay awake are the teachers.

       Mark Nepo

Myths

RIC_2579-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

Myths derive from the visions of people searching their own most inward world. Out of myths cultures are founded.

Joseph Campbell, Thou Art That: Transforming Religious Metaphor

God

RIC_1401-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

     God is the One who is with us when we have to do

     something we don't think we are capable of doing.

       Harold S. Kushner, Overcoming Life's Disappointments

Power

RIC_1424-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don't have any.

Alice Walker

Mythology

RIC_2085, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

     A whole mythology is an organization of

     symbolic images and narratives,

     metaphorical of the possibilities of human

     experience and the fulfillment of a given

     culture at a given time. 

       Joseph Campbell, 
       "Metaphor and Religious Mystery," Thou Art That: Transforming
       Religious Metaphor

Choice

RIC_8196-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

I am not what happened to me. 

I am what I choose to become. 

Carl Jung

Loneliness

RIC_1207-2, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

     I am vehemently grateful that, by whatever means, I

     learned to assume that loneliness should be in part

     pleasure, sensitizing and clarifying, and that it is even a

     truer bond among people than any kind of proximity. 

       Marilynne Robinson, When I Was a Child I Read Books

Life of Compassion

RIC_1129-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

We cannot eliminate hunger,

but we can feed each other.

We cannot eliminate loneliness,

but we can hold each other.

We cannot eliminate pain,

but we can live a life

of compassion.

Mark Nepo, Accepting This

.

Letting Go

RIC_2420-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

     Don't keep searching for the truth;
     Just let go of your opinions.

       Seng Ts'an

Discipline of blessings

RIC_1971-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

But the discipline of blessings is to taste
each moment, the bitter, the sour, the sweet
and the salty, and be glad for what does not
hurt. The art is in compressing attention
to each little and big blossom of the tree
of life, to let the tongue sing each fruit,
its savor, its aroma and its use.

Marge Piercy, The art of blessing the day

The inexpressible

RCC_0956, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

     

     The inexpressible is the only thing that is

     worthwhile expressing.

        Frederick Franck, The Zen of Seeing

Lost

RCC_6587, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

"Lost" for me is when I separate myself from what I know

to be true about myself. I become blind to my shadows

and wall myself off from others.

Tom Beech in Leading from Within: Poetry That Sustains the Courage to Lead

by Sam M. Instrator & Megan Scribner

A Parable

RIC_1939-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

     A parable, that is, a metaphorical story, always points

     externally beyond itself, points to some different and

     much wider referent. Whatever its actual content is, a

     parable is never about that content. Whatever is internal

     subject, a parable always points you toward and wants

     you to do to some external referent.

       John Dominic Crossan,

       The Power of Parable: How Fiction by Jesus Became Fiction about Jesus

Imagination

RIC_2009-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

The reality of all the arts is that of the imagination. ... The security of the imagination lies in calling, all our lives, for more liberty, more rebellion, more belief.

Muriel Rukeyser, "The Resistances," The Life of Poetry

.

Life Story

RIC_1455-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

     How often do we tell our own life story? How often do

     we adjust, embellish, make sly cuts? And the longer life

     goes on, the fewer are those around to challenge our

     account, to remind us that our life is not our life, merely

     the story we have told about our life. Told to others, but

     - mainly - to ourselves.

       Julian Barnes, The Sense of an Ending

Poetry

RIC_1780-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

The universe of poetry is the universe of emotional truth.

Our material is the way we feel and the way we remember.

Muriel Rukeyser,

"The Universe of Poetry," The Life of Poetry

.

Hope

RIC_2013-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

     Princess Turandot: “What is born each night and dies

     each dawn?”

     Prince of Tartary: “Hope.”

       Giacomo Puccini, Turandot

Blesssing

RIC_2384-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

Attention is love, what we must give

children, mothers, fathers, pets,

our friends, the news, the woes of others.

What we want to change we curse and then

pick up a tool. Bless whatever you can

with eyes and hands and tongue. If you

can’t bless it, get ready to make it new.

Marge Piercy, The art of blessing the day

.

The content of faith

RIC_2140-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

     The content of faith, for us, is not opposed to,

     exclusive of, other faiths.

         Muriel Rukeyser, "Poetry and Belief," The Life of Poetry

Doorways

RIC_1763-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

Doorways are sacred to women for we are the doorways of life and we must choose what comes in and what goes out.

Marge Piercy

Celebrating International Women's Day - http://www.internationalwomensday.com/.

Belief

RIC_1930-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

People are not interested in what to believe;

they're interested in how to believe. 

 Diana Butler Bass,
The United Church Observer (March 2012)

Silence

RIC_1752-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

And the end of words

is to bring people to the knowledge

of things beyond

what words can utter.

Isaac Penington

History

RIC_1726-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

     History is that certainty produced at the point where the

     imperfections of memory meet the inadequacies of

     documentation.  ...  It's more the memories of the

     survivors, most of whom are neither victorious nor

     defeated. 

       Julian Barnes, The Sense of an Ending

Sin

RIC_9853-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

Every sin is an attempt to fly from emptiness.

Simone Weil, Gravity and Grace

Miracle

RIC_1968-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

     To live in the beauty of the ordinary, to live in the 

     holiness of simplicity, that is the miracle, the treasure to

     be found within the mundane. 

       Janelle Shantz Hertzler, The Mundane and the Miracle in Seasons of Solace

Seeing

RIC_2026-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

Seeing, in the finest and broadest sense, means using your senses, your intellect, and your emotions. It means encountering your subject matter with your whole being.

Freeman Patterson, Photography and the Art of Seeing

Choice

RIC_1044-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

     When facing a dilemma, choose the 

     more morally demanding alternative. 

       Harold S. Kushner, Living a Life That Matters

What you say

_DSC5156, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

What you say is what you are.

Childhood saying