World seen clearly

RCC_9056
Originally uploaded by rchoephoto

The facts of this world seen clearly
are seen through tears;
why tell me then
there is something wrong with my eyes?

Margaret Atwood, Notes towards a Poem that can never be Written (For Carolyn Forché)

Defeats

RIC_4495
Originally uploaded by rchoephoto

We may encounter many defeats – maybe it’s imperative that we encounter the defeats – but we are much stronger than we appear to be and maybe much better than we allow ourselves to be.

Maya Angelou, The Art of Fiction, The Paris Review Interviews, vol. IV

Three questions

RIC_6036
Originally uploaded by rchoephoto

If I am not for myself, who will be for me?
If I am only for myself, what am I?
If not now, when?

Rabbi Hillel

Love

RIC_4728
Originally uploaded by rchoephoto

Love is the big booming beat which covers up the noise of hate.

Margaret Cho

Spirituality

RCC_9181
Originally uploaded by rchoephoto

Spirituality is what takes us beyond religious practice to the purpose of religion: the awareness of the sacred in the mundane, the consciousness of God everywhere, in everyone.

Joan Chittister, Welcome to the Wisdom of the World and Its Meaning for You

Writing & Reading

RCC_9068
Originally uploaded by rchoephoto

Writing and reading decrease our sense of isolation. They deepen and widen and expand our sense of life: they feed the soul.

Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

Welcoming strangers

RIC_4313
Originally uploaded by rchoephoto

The other must always must have precedence over myself, not because she or he is necessarily congenial or shares my opinions, but simply because she or he is there and needs me.

Emmanuel Levinas
quoted and paraphrased by Dow Marmur, rabbi emeritus, Holy Blossom Temple, Our duty to welcome strangers, Toronto Star, September 6, 2010, A13

Identity

RIC_4302
Originally uploaded by rchoephoto

One can't talk about a sense of place without acknowledging where one comes from.

Joseph Boyden, From Mushkegowuk to New Orleans: A Mixed Blood Highway

A Sign of health in the mind

RIC_4772
Originally uploaded by rchoephoto

A sign of health in the mind is the ability of one individual to enter imaginatively and accurately into the thoughts and feelings and hopes and fears of another person; also to allow the other person to do the same to us.

Donald Winnicott

All that has ever mattered

RIC_4805
Originally uploaded by rchoephoto

I love you, I love you.
That is all that has ever mattered.
Live your full life and I will always be with you.

cell phone call, September 11, 2001

Painting portraits

RIC_5903
Originally uploaded by rchoephoto

There is still something to be said for painting portraits of the people we have loved, for trying to express those moments that seem so inexpressibly beautiful, the ones that change us and deepen us.

Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

Illness

RCC_6434
Originally uploaded by rchoephoto

The value of money evaporates when you're ill.

Naguib Mahfouz, Arabian Nights & Days

Children & War

DSC_3938
Originally uploaded by rchoephoto

The time has come to make the protection of children – all our children – a common cause that can unite us across the boundaries of our political orientation, religious affiliation and cultural traditions. We must reclaim our lost taboos, and make the abuse and brutalization of children simply unacceptable.

*   *   *

But today, to paraphrase the poet W.B. Yeats, things have fallen apart, the moral centre is no longer holding. In so many conflicts today, anything goes. Children, women, the elderly, granary stores, crops, livestock – all have become fair game in the single-minded struggle for power, in an attempt not just to prevail but to humiliate, not simply to subdue but to annihilate the “enemy community” altogether. This is the phenomenon of total war.

Olara Otunnu, Ugandan 2011 Presidential Candidate

Question to ponder

RIC_4597
Originally uploaded by rchoephoto

What did you do when the poor
suffered, when tenderness
and life
burned out in them?

Otto René Castillo
Robert Márquez, ed. Latin American Revolutionary Poetry

Saving the world

RCC_0736
Originally uploaded by rchoephoto

Before we move from recklessness to responsibility, from selfishness to a decent happiness, we must want to save our world. And in order to save our world we must learn to love it – and in order to love it we must become familiar with it again. That is where my work begins, and why I keep walking, and looking.

Mary Oliver

On a path

RC1_5170
Originally uploaded by rchoephoto

We are not going to sainthood here, we are just on a path.

Sara Miles, Take This Bread: A Radical Conversion

Life is energy

RIC_4457
Originally uploaded by rchoephoto

Life is energy, and energy is creativity. And even when individuals pass on, the energy is retained in the work of art, locked in it and awaiting release if only someone will take time and the care to unlock it.

Marianne Moore

Experiential Understanding

RIC_4128
Originally uploaded by rchoephoto

Wisdom does not mean knowledge but experiential understanding. Wisdom helps you to change radically your habits and perceptions, as you discover the constantly changing, interconnected nature of the whole existence.

Matine Batchelor

Caring

RIC_4151
Originally uploaded by rchoephoto

Caring about others is what makes us fully human.

Jean-Jacque Rousseau

Spiritual transformation

RIC_3642
Originally uploaded by rchoephoto

The naked truth of spiritual transformation is that if we don’t change our lives ourselves, nothing will change them for us. That’s the secret of spiritual self-mastery. No one can do it for us. Although help is available, we need to take it upon ourselves to find and utilize it.

Lama Surya Das, Buddha Is As Buddha Does