What's happening?

 In Ireland the inevitable never happens and the unexpected constantly occurs.

        Sir John Pentland Mahaffy, Mahaffy: A Biography of an Anglo-Irishman

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Breakfast in heaven

If you’ve never eaten toasted Ormeau Veda bread
with Dromona butter and homemade lemon curd,
do not despair, because this is the breakfast food
that you will be served in heaven.

        Adrian McKinty, Hang on St. Christopher

 

 

 

 

Let's face it

In a time of drastic change one can be too preoccupied
with what is ending or too obsessed with what seems to be beginning.
In either case one loses touch with the present
and with its obscure but dynamic possibilities.
What really matters is openness, readiness, attention, courage to face risk.
You do not need to know precisely what is happening,
or exactly where it is all going.
What you need is to recognize the possibilities
and challenges offered by the present moment,
and to embrace them with courage, faith, and hope.
In such an event, courage is the authentic form taken by love.

            Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander

 

 

 

 

Poem: May

I cannot tell you how it was,
But this I know: it came to pass
Upon a bright and sunny day
When May was young; ah, pleasant May!
As yet the poppies were not born
Between the blades of tender corn;
The last egg had not hatched as yet,
Nor any bird foregone its mate.

I cannot tell you what it was,
But this I know: it did but pass.
It passed away with sunny May,
Like all sweet things it passed away,
And left me old, and cold, and gray.

                    Christina Rossetti 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sisterhood

I think the important thing about sisters is that they share the same minute, familiar life-style, the same little sets of rules. Therefore they can keep house with each other late in life, because they share the same bunch of housewifely prejudices. The important thing about women today is, as they get older, they still keep house. It's one reason they don’t die, but men die when they retire. Women just polish the teacups.

                    Margaret Mead, Sisters by Elizabeth Fishel

High cost of living

Anyone who has ever struggled with poverty
knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor.

        James Baldwin, Nobody Knows My Name

 

 

 

 

Unintended consequences

When people say clean as a whistle,
    they forget that a whistle is full of spit.

            George Carlin, Napalm & Silly Putty