Perfection

What is love's perfection?
To love our enemies,
and to love them to the end that they may be our brothers.

        St. Augustine of Hippo, Ten Homilies of the First Epistle of John

 

 

 

 

 

Ask for a better room

I wish I could show you
when you are lonely or in darkness
the astonishing light of your own being.
Even after all this time
the Sun never says to the Earth,
"You owe me."
Look what happens
With a love like that,
It lights the whole sky.
Fear is the cheapest room in the house.
I would like to see you living in better conditions.

        Daniel Ladinsky, writing as the Persian poet Hafez

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Choose your stories

Be careful of the stories on offer;
test them for who they tell you
you can be and we can be.
Look for the liberatory ones,
the ones that open doors and
take you through the gates,
not the ones that slam them.
The ones that invite you to expand,
not contract, to expand in care,
in awareness, in connection.

    Rebecca Solnit, We Were Made for This, Meditations in an Emergency

 

 

 

Anxiety

I define anxiety as experiencing failure in advance.

        Seth Godin, Poke the Box 

 

 

 

 

 

Good questions

I want to know what’s real.
I want to know what’s true.
And I also want to know why the world is going mad.

        Paul Kingsnorth, New York Times interview, October 2025

 

 

 

 

Poem: Armistice

The water sings along our keel,   

   The wind falls to a whispering breath;

I look into your eyes and feel

   No fear of life or death;   

So near is love, so far away   

The losing strife of yesterday.

We watch the swallow skim and dip;

   Some magic bids the world be still;   

Life stands with finger upon lip;

   Love hath his gentle will;

Though hearts have bled, and tears have burned,

The river floweth unconcerned.

We pray the fickle flag of truce

   Still float deceitfully and fair;

Our eyes must love its sweet abuse;   

   This hour we will not care,

Though just beyond to-morrow's gate,   

Arrayed and strong, the battle wait.

 

                     Sophie Jewett 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I led three lives

All human beings have three lives:
        public, private, and secret.

                 Gabriel García Márquez, Gabriel García Márquez: a Life