The difference we make

DSC_5561, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.


     The difference we make in other people's lives is not always visible,
     not always articulated to us, but it is real.

       Harold S. Kushner, Overcoming Life's Disappointments: Learning from Moses How to Cope with Frustration

Choose well

RIC_6926-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

Choose well: your choice is brief and yet endless. 

Ella Winter

Wisdom

RIC_6838-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

Wisdom is knowledge which has become a part of one's being.

Orison Swett Marden

Story

RIC_5378-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.


They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but we can't get the whole picture unless we have the whole story. And the magic in words is that the story can make the picture.

Christina Baldwin, Storycatcher: Making Sense of Our Lives through the Power and Practice of Story

Wisdom

RIC_6825-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.


     Wisdom is the reward you get for a lifetime of listening when you
     would rather have talked.

       Mark Twain

Peace

RIC_6939-3, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.


Until he extends his circle of compassion to include all living things, man will not himself find peace.

Albert Schweitzer

True Peace

RIC_1284-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

True peace is not merely the absence of tension;

it is the presence of justice.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

A Circle

RIC_9478-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

A circle must have a center        

But a single dot does not make a Circle.       

Mercy Amba Oduyoye           

You are here to stay

RIC_9057-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.


     How does an essence of the world
     Leave the world?
     How does wetness leave water?
     Don't even try.
     You are here to stay.

       Rumi

Memory

RIC_0345-3, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

Memory is just another form of fiction.

Antanas Sileika

Creative Thinking

RIC_1680-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

     The connection between perspective and creative

     thinking has to do with habituation and over-

     familiarization. Where creative thinking is concerned,

     that is the irony of the skill: the more adept you are at

     something, the less likely you are to look at it in a

     different way."

       Michael Michalko

The Contemplative

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The poet enters into oneself in order to create.
The contemplative enters into God in order to be created.

Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation

Tools

RIC_1421-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.


     The tools matter less than the skill with
     which they're employed.

       David Kopulos

Watch

RIC_0949-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.


Watch your thoughts, for they become words.
Watch your words, for they become actions.
Watch your actions, for they become habits.
Watch your habits, for they become character.
Watch your character, for they becomes your destiny.

Mother Teresa

Listening

RIC_5940-3, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.


     If there is anything worth calling theology, it is
     listening to people’s stories, listening to them and
     cherishing them.

        Mary Pellauer

Live Love

RIC_8311-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

Preach the Gospel always;

when necessary, use words.

St. Francis of Assisi

Imagination

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     The fundamental job of the imagination in ordinary life, then,
     is to produce out of the society we have to live in, a vision of the
     society we want to live in.

       Northrop Frye

Clarity

RIC_0349-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

When the mind is clear, behavior is always impeccable. 

Sylvia Boorstein

Ending & Beginning

RIC_7793-2, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

Be inspired by the flame

Where everything shines as it disappears.

Rainer Maria Rilke, 

"Sonnets to Orpheus XII," In Praise of Mortality, trans. by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macey

Collaboration

RIC_9599-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.


     Collaboration is a process, a process of learning, and
     it's as much as a learning about oneself as about
     others. Moreover, we can learn about others only
     through ourselves. In fact we can have a sense of
     the other only through a greater understanding of
     who we are. 

       Barry Svigals, in an interviewby Jeff Zaleski, Parabola (Summer 2012)

Fear the unlived life

RIC_0350-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.


Don’t fear death; fear the unlived life.
You don’t have to live forever,
you just have to live.

Norton Juster, The Phantom Tollbooth

Radical Love

RIC_8251-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.


     Radical love is a love so extreme that it dissolves
     our existing boundaries.

       Patrick S. Cheng, Radical Love: An Introduction to Queer Theology

Living

RIC_9084-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

That's how we live,             

always              

saying goodbye.                

Rilke, 8th Duino Elergy                   

Attitude

RIC_7517-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

     The reason people find it so hard to be happy is that they

     always see the past better than it was, the present worse

     than it is, and the future less resolved than it will be.

       Marcel Pagnol

Within Me

RIC_1095, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

I can't understand where I'm going

if I don't understand where I've been. 

The answers are within me.

Richard Wagamese, Indian Horse

Storytelling

RIC_4237, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.


     If we want to live at peace ourselves, we need to
     tell our stories.

       Richard Wagamese, Indian Horse

Pilgrims

RIC_9756-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

Pilgrims are poets who create by taking journeys.

Richard R. Niebuhr

Remembering

RIC_2288-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.


     If memory is kept alive in order to cultivate old hatreds and
     resentments, it is likely to culminate in vengeance, and in a
     repetition of violence. But if memory is kept alive in order to
     transcend hateful emotions, then remembering can be a healing.

       Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela,
       A Human Being Died That Night: A South African Woman Confronts the Legacy of Apartheid

Final Vision

RIC_4404-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

In your Oneness I am one          

in your eye, the pupil am I          

Not seen except by seeing          

Unheard except by hearing          

What song will be my music?          

What utterance be my name?          

God knowing — such may I be.          

Love loving unto love.          

Paul Quenon, Final Vision               

Life, Destiny & Death

RIC_3196-2, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

     The secret cause of your death is your destiny. Every life

     has a limitation, and in challenging the limit you are

     bringing the limit closer to you, and the heroes are the

     ones who initiate their actions no matter what destiny

     may result. ... your own life course is the secret cause of

     your death.

       Joseph Campbell, Thou Art That: Transforming Religious Metaphor

Togetherness

RIC_9775-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

Togetherness depends on authentic aloneness. 

Joshua Boettiger

Heart

RIC_0075-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

Wherever I am,

my heart is, and

that is where I will meet the Divine.

Tom Maddix,

Running Scared: The Call of Pilgrimage

Spiritual Journey

RIC_7946-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.


Much of the spiritual journey is about waiting, trusting and hoping that an invisible God will continually guide, direct, and transform us and our lives.

Tom Maddix, Running Scared: The Call of Pilgrimage

How to live

RCC_9941, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.



This is our constant problem – how to live with people and remain free,
how to live with things and remain independent.

Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Sabbath

What we left behind

RIC_7206-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

The significance of the desert and mountain

is not who resides here,

but what we ourselves have left behind in coming.

David Douglas, Wilderness Sojourn: Notes in the Desert Silence

Finding God

RIC_0052-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

To find God, it is necessary to find one's heart. 

Michael Casey,

The Undivided Heart: The Western Monastic Approach to Contemplation

Concrete Changes

RIC_0108-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

We cannot move forward

until we resolve to make concrete changes

in the images of who we are

and who we are invited to become.

Tom Maddix, Running Scared: The Call of Pilgrimage

Heart

RCC_6054-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

In each human being there is a meeting with the divine.

That intersection is the heart.

Coleman Barks, Rumi: Book of Love

Religion and Art

RIC_3640-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

Religion and art share the capacity to help us renew our awareness of the ultimate questions:

who we are , where we have come from, and where we are going.

Gregory Wolfe,

"Intruding Upon the Timeless,"

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

Breathe

RIC_9789-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

     Breathe in Love

       F                  F   G

     Breathe in Light

       F                  F   G AGF

     Breathe in Light

     Breathe in Love

       Debbie Danbrook   

       http://www.healingmusic.com/

Peace within

RIC_8279-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

When you find peace within yourself, you become

the kind of person who can live at peace with others.

Peace Pilgrim

Love me

RIC_6571-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr

Love me when I least deserve it,
because that's when I really need it. 

Swedish Proverb 

Forgiveness

RIC_8653-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

Forgiveness is giving up the hope that

past could be any different.

Oprah Winfrey

New Eyes

RCC_6074-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

     The purpose of art is not to strand us in an

     alternate world, but to return us to the

     realm of the ordinary, only with new eyes.

       Gregory Wolfe,

       "Transfiguration," Intruding Upon the Timeless: Meditations on

       Art, Faith, and Mystery

Question

RIC_9671-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

When your life looks back— 

as it will, at itself, at you—what will it say?

...

Mortal, your life will say,

As if tasting something delicious, as if in envy.

Your immortal life will say this, as it is leaving.

Jane Hirshfield, When Your Life Looks Back

Suffering Servants

RIC_4211-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

     Weathered rocks and weathered faces remind us that we

     should not move through time as conquerors, but as

     suffering servants.

       Gregory Wolfe, 

       "A Theology of Erosion," Intruding Upon the Timeless: Meditations on Art, Faith, and

       Mystery

Love

RIC_9029-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

Love means to look at yourself
The way one looks at distant things
For you are only one thing among many.

Czeslaw Milosz, Love

What We Seek

RIC_9396-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

We have what we seek.

We don't have to rush after it.

It was there all the time,

and if we give it time,

it will make itself known to us.

Thomas Merton

Thanksgiving

RIC_9117-2, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

Better than any argument is to rise at dawn

and pick dew-wet red berries in a cup.

Wendell Berry

Silence

RCC_6060-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

The soul always knows what to do to heal itself. 

The challenge is to silence the mind. 

Caroline Myss