Juneteenth

I'm not gonna help nobody get something my negroes don't have.
If I'm gonna die, I'll die now right here fighting you, if I'm gonna die.
You my enemy.
My enemies are white people, not Viet Congs or Chinese or Japanese.
You my opposer when I want freedom.
You my opposer when I want justice.
You my opposer when I want equality.
You won't even stand up for me in America for my religious beliefs,
and you want me to go somewhere and fight,
but you won't even stand up for me here at home.

        Muhammad Ali in 1967 statement on television,
        on refusing to register for the draft and fight in the Vietnam War 

In pursuit of the profound

Transformation comes more from pursuing
        profound questions than seeking practical answers.

                    Peter Block, The Answer to How is Yes

 

 

 

 

 

All the world's a stage

New York is the city where the future comes to rehearse.

       Mayor Ed Koch, New York Times, 1986

 

 

 

 

Bloomsday

James Joyce’s friends used to say
that even though he had lost his faith,
he never ceased to be a Jesuit.

        Leo Damrosch, Storyteller: The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson

 

 

 

 

 

Harder than you think

It requires a very unusual mind to undertake the analysis of the obvious.

            Alfred North Whitehead, Science and the Modern World

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Grace

Imperfection is the prerequisite for grace.
Light only gets in through the cracks.

           Philip Yancey, What's So Amazing About Grace?

 

 

 

 

 

Poem: The Waking

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go.

We think by feeling. What is there to know?
I hear my being dance from ear to ear.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Of those so close beside me, which are you?
God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,
And learn by going where I have to go.

Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?
The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Great Nature has another thing to do
To you and me; so take the lively air,
And, lovely, learn by going where to go.

                Theodore Roethke