What matters

If you have integrity, nothing else matters.
If you don’t have integrity, nothing else matters.

    Alan Simpson, in Eyewitness to Power, by David Gergen

 

 

 

 

 

Just one thing

If you can do a single thing towards a just, durable, and creative peace,
you will have fulfilled your major obligation to the world.

    Dr. Kenneth I. Brown, speech June 1948 to Morehouse College graduates 

 

 

 

 

Speaking and listening

I speak and speak,
but the listener retains only the words he is expecting.
It is not the voice that commands the story:
it is the ear.

        Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities

 

 

 

 

The identity problem

A strong sense of identity
    gives man an idea he can do no wrong;
        too little accomplishes the same.

                Djuna Barnes, Nightwood 

 

 

 

 

 

All mothers, all the time

We are all meant to be mothers of God,
        for God is always needing to be born.

                 Meister Eckhart, in Christianity by Joe Jenkins

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Poem: Rain

Woke up this morning with
a terrific urge to lie in bed all day
and read. Fought against it for a minute.

Then looked out the window at the rain.
And gave over. Put myself entirely
in the keep of this rainy morning.

Would I live my life over again?
Make the same unforgivable mistakes?
Yes, given half a chance. Yes.

        Raymond Carver 

 

 

 

 

 

Tell me a story

Anecdotes, personal stories,
reminiscences, like biblical parables,
are the medium through which faith is restored.
Stories are a form of poetry,
and give us a saving image to personally relate to.

        Peter Block, The Answer to How is Yes

 

 

 

 

Celebrate anyway

There is still no cure for the common birthday.

        John Glenn, announcing his retirement from the U. S. Senate 

 

 

 

 

 

Unbearably bearable

Life is bearable even when it's unbearable:
that is what's so terrible, that is the unbearable thing about it.

    Geoff Dyer, Out of Sheer Rage: Wrestling With D.H. Lawrence

 

 

 

 

A blessing for the jet lagged

Blessed be he that invented sleep.

        Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote

 

 

 

 

 

Prerequisite

It is impossible to enjoy idling thoroughly
        unless one has plenty of work to do.

                Jerome K. Jerome, Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow 

 

 

 

 

Lessons for Cinco de Mayo

My grandmother—God bless her soul—
a Yaqui Indian from northern Mexico,
was the greatest teacher I’d ever had!
And do you know what she taught me,
she taught me that each and every day
is un milagro [a miracle] given to us by God,
and that work, that planting corn and squash
with our two hands is holy.
She taught me all this with kindness and invitation.

        Victor Villasenor, Burro Genius: A Memoir

 

 

 

 

 

Poem: May Night

The spring is fresh and fearless
And every leaf is new,
The world is brimmed with moonlight,
The lilac brimmed with dew.

Here in the moving shadows
I catch my breath and sing--
My heart is fresh and fearless
And over-brimmed with spring.

            Sara Teasdale 

 

 

 

 

Do one thing

When I'm on stage, I'm trying to do one thing:
        bring people joy.
Just like church does. People don't go to church to find trouble,
        they go there to lose it.

                James Brown, James Brown: The Godfather of Soul

 

 

Sisters

We were a club, a society, a civilization all our own.

        "We Were Five": The Dionne Quintuplets' Story

 

 

 

 

Fame

Every man who deserves to be famous
     knows it is not worth the trouble.

            Fernando Pessoa, A Celebridade