Take me to the river

I love you like a river that creates the right conditions
for trees and bushes and flowers to flourish along its banks.
I love you like a river that gives water to the thirsty
and takes people where they want to go.

            Paulo Coelho, Aleph

 

 

 

 

Truth stands

An error does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation,
nor does truth become error because nobody sees it.
Truth stands, even if there be no public support.
It is self sustained.

            Mahatma Gandhi, Young India

 

 

 

 

 

Big difference

We think in generalities, but we live in detail.

        Alfred North Whitehead, The Education of an Englishman

 

 

 

 

It all counts

There is no act of love toward one’s neighbor that falls into the void.
Just because the act was realized blindly, it must appear somewhere as effect.
Somewhere.

                Franz Rosenzweig, The Star of Redemption

 

 

 

 

Family

If I had to preach a sermon on the family I would take for my text this phrase of Paul Valery's: In every family there is concealed a specific interior boredom which causes its members to escape and live their own lives. There is also in every family an ancient and powerful force which manifests itself when the group is gathered in the dining-room for its evening meal, when its members feel free to be completely themselves.

            André Maurois, Un Art de Vivre (The Art of Living) 

 

 

 

 

 

Poem: Bless Their Hearts

At Steak ‘n Shake I learned that if you add

“Bless their hearts” after their names, you can say

whatever you want about them and it’s OK.

My son, bless his heart, is an idiot,

she said. He rents storage space for his kids’

toys—they’re only one and three years old!

I said, my father, bless his heart, has turned

into a sentimental old fool. He gets

weepy when he hears my daughter’s greeting

on our voice mail. Before our Steakburgers came

someone else blessed her office mate’s heart,

then, as an afterthought, the jealous hearts

of the entire anthropology department.

We bestowed blessings on many a heart

that day. I even blessed my ex-wife’s heart.

Our waiter, bless his heart, would not be getting

much tip, for which, no doubt, he’d bless our hearts.

In a week it would be Thanksgiving,

and we would each sit with our respective

families, counting our blessings and blessing

the hearts of family members as only family

does best. Oh, bless us all, yes, bless us, please

bless us and bless our crummy little hearts.

 

                     Richard Newman 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Just joking

The joke of the world is less like a banana peel than a rake, the old rake in the grass, the one you step on, foot to forehead. It all comes together. In a twinkling. You have to admire the gag for its symmetry, accomplishing all with one right angle, the same right angle which accomplishes all philosophy. One step on the rake and its mind under matter once again. You wake up with a piece of tree in your skull. You wake up with fruit on your hands. You wake up in a clearing and see yourself, ashamed. You see your own face and it’s seven years old and there’s no knowing why, or where you’ve been since. We’re tossed broadcast into time like so much grass, some ravening god’s sweet hay.   

Annie Dillard, Holy the Firm