Bump in the night

From ghoulies and ghosties
And long-leggedy beasties
And things that go bump in the night,
Good Lord, deliver us!

              Scottish prayer 

What matters

As long as we wish for safety,
we will have difficulty pursuing what matters.

                    Peter Block 

 

 

 

 

 

Life

Life isn't about finding yourself.
Life is about creating yourself.

              George Bernard Shaw 

 

 

 

 

 

Be here now

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it.

             Edward Fitzgerald, Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam 

 

 

 

 

Certainty

How bold one gets when one is sure of being loved.

        Sigmund Freud, in a letter to his fiancée, Martha Bernays 

 

 

 

 

 

Attitude

Nobody goes right to work.
You might get there on time, but, screw the company,
those first twenty minute belong to you, right?
It's not an attitude in line with the American Spirit,
but there it is: we all screw around first.
"I just got here, man, you kiddin' me?"
Really. You never see a memo that says 9:01.

                  George Carlin, Occupation: Foole

Comfort for every sorrow

 
The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy is to go outside,
somewhere where they can be quiet, alone with the heavens, nature and God.
Because only then does one feel that all is as it should be
and that God wishes to see people happy, amidst the simple beauty of nature.
As long as this exists, and it certainly always will,
I know that then there will always be comfort for every sorrow,
whatever the circumstances may be.
And I firmly believe that nature brings solace in all troubles.

                              Anne Frank, diary entry 23 February 1944

 

 

 

 

The Three Ages of Man

The three true ages of man are
youth, middle age,
and how the fuck did I get old so soon?

                         Stephen King, Revival

 

 

 

 

 

Poem: Matins

You want to know how I spend my time?
I walk the front lawn, pretending
to be weeding. You ought to know
I'm never weeding, on my knees, pulling
clumps of clover from the flower beds: in fact
I'm looking for courage, for some evidence
my life will change, though
it takes forever, checking
each clump for the symbolic
leaf, and soon the summer is ending, already
the leaves turning, always the sick trees
going first, the dying turning
brilliant yellow, while a few dark birds perform
their curfew of music. You want to see my hands?
As empty now as at the first note.
Or was the point always
to continue without a sign?

                      Louise Gluck

 

 

 

 

 

Spiritual Practice

Here is a new spiritual practice:
Don't take your thoughts too seriously.

             Eckhart Tolle, on Twitter

What am I doing?

You wonder what I am doing?
Well, so do I, in truth.
Days seem to dawn, suns to shine,
evenings to follow, and then I sleep.
What I have done, what I am doing,
what I am going to do, puzzle and bewilder me.
Have you ever been a leaf
and fallen from your tree in autumn
and been really puzzled about it?
That's the feeling.

           T. E Lawrence, in a letter to Eric Kennington, 1935 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is it

Eternity isn't some later time.
Eternity isn't a long time.
Eternity has nothing to do with time.
Eternity is that dimension of here and now
which thinking and time cuts out.
This is it.
And if you don't get it here,
you won't get it anywhere.

And the experience of eternity
right here and now is the function of life.
There's a wonderful formula
that the Buddhists have for the Bodhisattva,
the one whose being (sattva) is illumination (bodhi),
who realizes his identity with eternity
and at the same time his participation in time.
And the attitude is not to withdraw from the world
when you realize how horrible it is,
but to realize that this horror
is simply the foreground of a wonder
and to come back and participate in it. 

              Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth 

 

 

 

 

Recognition

 A person is a person because he recognizes others as persons.

           Desmond Tutu, at his enthronement as Anglican archbishop of Cape Town 1986

 

 

 

 

Habits of life

 God does not demand that we give up our personal dignity, that we throw in our lot with random people, that we lose ourselves and turn from all that is not him. God needs nothing, asks nothing, and demands nothing, like the stars. It is a life with God which demands these things.

 Experience has taught the race that if knowledge of God is the end, then these habits of life are not the means but the condition in which the means operates. You do not have to do these things; not at all. God does not, I regret to report, give a hoot. You do not have to do these things–unless you want to know God. They work on you, not on him.

 You do not have to sit outside in the dark. If, however, you want to look at the stars, you will find that darkness is necessary. But the stars neither require nor demand it.

                             Annie Dillard, Teaching a Stone to Talk

 

 

 

 

 

Begging the answer

The face forgives the mirror
The worm forgives the plow
The questions begs the answer
Can you forgive me somehow?

            Tom Waits, All the World is Green 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Common denominator

Among those whom I like or admire,
I can find no common denominator,
but among those whom I love, I can:
all of them make me laugh. 

               W. H. Auden, The Dyer's Hand

 

 

 

 

 

Poem: Come In

Far in the pillared dark
Thrush music went –
Almost like a call to come in
To the dark and lament.

But no, I was out for stars:
I would not come in.
I meant not even if asked,
And I hadn’t been. 

               Robert Frost

 

 

 

 

Doing my best

I am doing my best to not become a museum
of myself. I am doing my best to breathe in and out.

              Natalie Diaz, from the poem American Arithmetic

 

 

 

 

Watch

Above all,
watch with glittering eyes
the whole world around you
because the greatest secrets
are always hidden
in the most unlikely places.
Those who don't believe in magic
will never find it.

                 Roald Dahl, The Minpins

 

 

 

 

 

Three things

Life is complicated,
we can’t see the future,
and we certainly can’t see
the alternate realities we would be living
if we hadn’t made this or that faulty choice.
There’s only:
    1. What we choose;
    2. What we actually get;
    3. How we handle it.
Save your strength for number 3,
where the real work of contentment gets done.

                 Carolyn Hax, Washington Post advice columnist

 

 

 

Destiny

I think the destiny of all men
is not to sit in the rubble of their own making
but to reach out for an ultimate perfection which is to be had.
At the moment, it is a dream.
But as of the moment we clasp hands with our neighbor,
we build the first span to bridge the gap between the young and the old.
At this hour, it’s a wish.
But we have it within our power to make it a reality.
If you want to prove that God is not dead, first prove that man is alive.

                                 Rod Serling, 1968 speech

So?

From a conversation between Yogi Berra and his granddaughter Lindsay
after she interviewed a handsome tennis player for ESPN Magazine.

"You should date him," Yogi said.
"Gramps, he dates a swimsuit model," Lindsay replied.
"You have swimsuits," Yogi said.

                              Reported in MLB News

 

 

 

 

Lover of Dragons

In ancient times there once was a lover of dragons.
He was so fond of dragons
that all his clothes had embroidered dragons,
and his columns and pillars also had engraved dragons.
His love of dragons was widely known,
so one day a real dragon decided to visit this dragon lover.
He poked his head into his home
and dragged his long tail down the hall.
The dragon lover saw the head and was frightened out of his wits.
Turning, he ran.
The real dragon finally understood that this dragon lover
loved only the images of dragons but not real dragons.

                    Chinese Fable

 

 

 

 

 

I May Be Wrong

When I meet people who say,
"Oh, there's no hope, Peter,
look at the things that are going wrong,
and those stupid people in Bosnia,
there are going to be things like that all around the world,
power-hungry people say I know how to handle this,
just give me the bomb. There's no hope."
But I say to them,
"Did you ever think that our great Watergate president
would leave office the way he did?"
"No, I guess I didn't think that."
I said, "Did you think that the Berlin Wall
would come down so peacefully?"
"No, I didn't think that would happen.
"Did you think Mandela would be president of South Africa?"
"No, I didn't predict that."
"Well, if you couldn't predict those three things,
then don't be so confident that there's no hope." 

And I give them a bumper sticker. It says,
"There's No Hope, But I May Be Wrong."

                   Pete Seeger

Second Fig

Safe upon the solid rock the ugly houses stand;
Come and see my shining palace built upon the sand!

         Edna St. Vincent Millay, A Few Figs from Thistles 

 

 

 

First Fig

My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But, ah, my foes, and, oh, my friends —
It gives a lovely light.

     Edna St. Vincent Millay,  A Few Figs from Thistles 

 

 

 

 

Poem: Everything Is Going to Be All Right

How should I not be glad to contemplate
the clouds clearing beyond the dormer window
and a high tide reflected on the ceiling?
There will be dying, there will be dying,
but there is no need to go into that.
The poems flow from the hand unbidden
and the hidden source is the watchful heart.
The sun rises in spite of everything
and the far cities are beautiful and bright.
I lie here in a riot of sunlight
watching the day break and the clouds flying.
Everything is going to be all right.

              Derek Mahon, 1941-2020

 

 

 

 

Fourth and Walnut

In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all these people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. It was like waking from a dream of separateness, of spurious self-isolation in a special world. . . .

This sense of liberation from an illusory difference was such a relief and such a joy to me that I almost laughed out loud. . . . I have the immense joy of being man, a member of a race in which God Himself became incarnate. As if the sorrows and stupidities of the human condition could overwhelm me, now that I realize what we all are. And if only everybody could realize this! But it cannot be explained. There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun.

               Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander

 

 

 

 

Perfection

Out of perfection nothing can be made. 

          Joseph Campbell, Reflections on the Art of Living

 

 

 

 

Imagination

Imagination is a force that can actually manifest a reality. …
Don’t put limitations on yourself.
Other people will do that for you.
Don’t do that to yourself.
Don’t bet against yourself.
And take risk.
NASA has this phrase that they like,
"Failure is not an option."
But failure has to be an option.
In art and exploration, failure has to be an option.
Because it is a leap of faith.
And no important endeavor that required innovation was done without risk.
You have to be willing to take those risks. …
In whatever you are doing, failure is an option.
But fear is not.

                          James Cameron 

 

 

 

 

Ready to fall

The house of delusions is cheap to build,
but draughty to live in,
and ready at any instant to fall.

                  A. E. Housman