Blessings

Bloor & Avenue #1 (2012,11.7), a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

Like a star should your love be constant.

Like a stone should your love be firm.

Be close, yet not too close.

Possess one another, yet be understanding.

Have patience each with the other.

For storms will come but they will go quickly.

Be free in giving of affection and warmth.

Have no fear and let not the ways of words

Of the unenlightened give you unease.

For the spirit is with you.

Now and always.

Source unknown,

Courage to Love: Liturgies for the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual And Transgender Community, edited by Geoffrey Duncan

Lock & Key

RCC_2263, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.


The Friend is the key and I am the lock.

Jalil al-Din Rumi

Never too late

Angel 14, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

It is never too late to be what you might have been.

George Eliot

True Civilization

Masjid 1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.


We will never have true civilization until we have learned to recognize the rights of others.

Will Rogers, A Cherokee, 
Quoted in The Inconvenient Indian by Thomas King

God's Paintbrush

RIC_3297, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

     Sometimes on a bright day 
     when I close my eyes real tight,
     I see all kinds of colours —
     green and purple and red and blue.
     I think these are just like God's colours.

     I know God's colours are in me, too.
     And I can paint with God's paintbrush. 

        Sandy Eisenberg Sasso, God's Paintbrush

Christmas Lessons

RC1_0082, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

My name is Francis Tolliver, in Liverpool I dwell

Each Christmas come since World War I I've learned its lessons well

That the ones who call the shots won't be among the dead and lame

And on each end of the rifle we're the same.

John McCutcheon, Christmas in the Trenches

Birthing

_DSC5275, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.


What good is it to me,
if the son of God was born to Mary 1,400 years ago
but is not born in my person and in my culture and in my time?

Meister Eckhart

Haitian Angels

Haitian Angels, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

The Church – the body of Christ.

Christ who dined with tax gatherers and prostitutes.

Christ who affirmed women and respected them.

Christ who praised the Samaritan and the Roman.

Christ who stretched out his hand to the lame.

Two Thousand years later, when will we learn?

Jean Mayland,

Courage to Love: Liturgies for the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual And Transgender Community, edited by Geoffrey Duncan

To see heaven

Christmas Lights 12, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

To see

heaven one

wants a star. 

Cid Corman

Enthusiasm & Humility

Candle 1 at J&J, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.


No act of generosity was ever accomplished
without two things: enthusiasm and humility.

Michael Powell, A Thousand Paths to Generosity

To Love

RIC_9598-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

To Love another person is

to see the face of God.

Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

Generosity

Blue Christmas at KRU 5, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

Don't live through life,

give through life.

Michael Powell,

A Thousand Paths to Generosity

Service

Candle (12.14,'12), a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.


     You will truly serve only what you love
     because service is love made visible.

        Stephen Colbert

Growth

RIC_9796, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

Change is inevitable,

Growth is optional.

John C. Maxwell

Science

Star (12.12, '12), a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

Science cannot take away the ultimate mystery of life,

nor can it detract from the spiritual component of healing. 

James Oschman

The Universe Story

RCC_9953, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.


Everything tells the story of the universe.
The winds tell the story, literally, not just imaginatively. The story has its imprint everywhere, and that is why it is so important to know the story. 
If you do not know the story, in a sense you do not know yourself; you do not know anything. 

Thomas Berry, The Universe Story

The Book to read

Books, office, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.


     The book to read is not the one that thinks for you
     but the one which makes you think.

        Harper Lee

As it is

RIC_1854-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

We cannot change the world as it is,

but by opening ourselves to the world as it is,

we may find that gentleness, decency and bravery are available – 

not only to us but to all human beings.

Chögyam Trungpa, Shambhala: The Sacred path of the Warrior

Cry of my heart

RIC_1837-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.


     My Lord,
     You have heard the cry of my heart
     because it was
     You Who cried out within my heart.

        Thomas Merton, Dialogue with Silence

Hope

RIC_1847-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.


     Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well,
     but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of
     how it turns out. 

        Václav Havel