Awesome

Awe is more than an emotion; it is a way of understanding, insight into a meaning greater than ourselves. The beginning of awe is wonder, and the beginning of wisdom is awe.

Awe is an intuition for the dignity of all things, a realization that things not only are what they are but also stand, however remotely, for something supreme. Awe is a sense for transcendence, for the reference everywhere to mystery beyond all things. It enables us to perceive in the world intimations of the divine, to sense in small things the beginning of infinite significance, to sense the ultimate in the common and the simple: to feel in the rush of the passing the stillness of the eternal. What we cannot comprehend by analysis, we become aware of in awe.

                 Abraham Joshua Heschel, Who Is Man?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Poem: blessing the boats

may the tide
that is entering even now
the lip of our understanding
carry you out
beyond the face of fear
may you kiss
the wind then turn from it
certain that it will
love your back   may you
open your eyes to water
water waving forever
and may you in your innocence
sail through this to that 

                Lucille Clifton    

 

 

 

 

 

Choose

[Optimism] is not about providing a recipe for self-deception.
The world can be a horrible, cruel place,
and at the same time it can be wonderful and abundant.
These are both truths.
There is not a halfway point;
there is only choosing which truth to put in your personal foreground.

        Sonja Lyubomirsky, The How of Happiness

 

 

 

 

 

More is better

It takes something more than intelligence to act intelligently.

                Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment 

 

 

 

 

Isn't it obvious?

There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact.

        Arthur Conan Doyle, The Boscombe Valley Mystery 

 

 

 

 

 

Sleep in

Progress doesn't come from early risers—
progress is made by lazy men looking for easier ways to do things.

            Robert Heinlein, Time Enough For Love

 

 

 

 

The end?

Never think you've seen the last of anything

        Eudora Welty, The Optimist’s Daughter