A law of attraction

Life attracts life.

        Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

 

 

 

 

 

Help?

We are all here on earth to help others;
what on earth the others are here for, I don’t know.

John Foster Hall, known as The Revd. Vivian Foster, the Vicar of Mirth
Commonly mis-attributed to W. H. Auden 

 

 

 

 

Activating the Common Good

From Peter Block's new book, on sale today:

Our well-being cannot be purchase or healed by more professionals or programs.
What we have and what we are is enough.
Economically. Politically. Socially. Personally.
This is the foundation of the common good narrative.

 

 

 

 

 

Sleep late

It's better to oversleep and miss the boat than get up early and sink.

                Elizabeth Jane Howard, Mr. Wrong

 

 

 

 

 

Giving

At its Greek root, "to believe" simply means "to give one's heart to."
Thus, if we can determine what it is we give our heart to,
then we will know what it is we believe.

            Kathleen Norris, Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith

 

 

Poem: When Giving Is All We Have

 

                                              One river gives
                                              Its journey to the next.

We give because someone gave to us.
We give because nobody gave to us.

We give because giving has changed us.
We give because giving could have changed us.

We have been better for it,
We have been wounded by it—

Giving has many faces: It is loud and quiet,
Big, though small, diamond in wood-nails.

Its story is old, the plot worn and the pages too,
But we read this book, anyway, over and again:

Giving is, first and every time, hand to hand,
Mine to yours, yours to mine.

You gave me blue and I gave you yellow.
Together we are simple green. You gave me

What you did not have, and I gave you
What I had to give—together, we made

Something greater from the difference.

                                Alberto Rios 

Pound the table

Let us think of the entire earth
And pound the table with love.

    Pablo Neruda, Let the Rail Splitter Awake

 

 

 

 

Thanksgiving

They eat, they drink, and in communion sweet
        Quaff immortality and joy. 

                        John Milton, Paradise Lost

 

 

 

 

Renewable energy

The soul that walks in love     
        neither tires others nor grows tired

                St. John of the Cross, Sayings of Light and Love 

 

 

 

 

Success

Ever tried.
Ever failed.
No matter
Try again.
Fail again.
Fail better.

    Samuel Beckett, Westward Ho

 

 

 

 

Check, please

Milton Friedman used to argue
that there is no such thing as a free lunch
but at some level of the analysis this has to be false.
The universe exists and who had to pay for it?

            Tyler Cowen, Stubborn Attachments 

 

 

 

 

 

No expectations

My whole religion is this:
    do every duty, and expect no reward for it,
        either here or hereafter.

                Bertrand Russell, Childhood Diary 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Poem: Ode

 

We are the music makers,

    And we are the dreamers of dreams,

Wandering by lone sea-breakers,

    And sitting by desolate streams; —

World-losers and world-forsakers,

    On whom the pale moon gleams:

Yet we are the movers and shakers

    Of the world for ever, it seems.

With wonderful deathless ditties

We build up the world's great cities,

    And out of a fabulous story

    We fashion an empire's glory:

One man with a dream, at pleasure,

    Shall go forth and conquer a crown;

And three with a new song's measure

    Can trample a kingdom down.

We, in the ages lying,

    In the buried past of the earth,

Built Nineveh with our sighing,

    And Babel itself in our mirth;

And o'erthrew them with prophesying

    To the old of the new world's worth;

For each age is a dream that is dying,

    Or one that is coming to birth.

A breath of our inspiration

Is the life of each generation;

    A wondrous thing of our dreaming

    Unearthly, impossible seeming —

The soldier, the king, and the peasant

    Are working together in one,

Till our dream shall become their present,

    And their work in the world be done.

They had no vision amazing

Of the goodly house they are raising;

    They had no divine foreshowing

    Of the land to which they are going:

But on one man's soul it hath broken,

    A light that doth not depart;

And his look, or a word he hath spoken,

    Wrought flame in another man's heart.

And therefore to-day is thrilling

With a past day's late fulfilling;

    And the multitudes are enlisted

    In the faith that their fathers resisted,

And, scorning the dream of to-morrow,

    Are bringing to pass, as they may,

In the world, for its joy or its sorrow,

    The dream that was scorned yesterday.

But we, with our dreaming and singing,

    Ceaseless and sorrowless we!

The glory about us clinging

    Of the glorious futures we see,

Our souls with high music ringing:

    O men! it must ever be

That we dwell, in our dreaming and singing,

    A little apart from ye.

For we are afar with the dawning

    And the suns that are not yet high,

And out of the infinite morning

    Intrepid you hear us cry —

How, spite of your human scorning,

    Once more God's future draws nigh,

And already goes forth the warning

    That ye of the past must die.

Great hail! we cry to the comers

    From the dazzling unknown shore;

Bring us hither your sun and your summers;

    And renew our world as of yore;

You shall teach us your song's new numbers,

    And things that we dreamed not before:

Yea, in spite of a dreamer who slumbers,

    And a singer who sings no more.

                                Arthur O'Shaughnessy

 

Art

Art is anything you can get away with.

        Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media:The Extensions of Man

 

 

 

 

 

 

Time to shine

California, I'll be knocking on the golden door
Like an angel, standing in a shaft of light
Rising up to paradise, I know I'm going to shine. 

    John Perry Barlow, "Estimated Prophet" lyrics, Grateful Dead album Terrapin Station

A trifecta

I love the man that can smile in trouble,
    that can gather strength from distress,
        and grow brave by reflection.

                Thomas Paine, The American Crisis

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A formula for confidence

Confidence is 10 percent hard work
            and 90 percent delusion.

                                Tina Fay, Vogue magazine

Pieces

On earth there is no heaven,    
        but there are pieces of it.

                 Jules Renard, Journal

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Faith and Sense

The opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty.
Certainty is missing the point entirely.
Faith includes noticing the mess,
the emptiness and discomfort,
and letting it be there until some light returns.
Faith also means reaching deeply within,
for the sense one was born with,
the sense, for example, to go for a walk.

                Annie Lamott, Plan B

 

 

 

 

 

Poem: Adios

It is a good word, rolling off the tongue
no matter what language you were born with.
Use it. Learn where it begins,
the small alphabet of departure,
how long it takes to think of it,
then say it, then be heard.

Marry it. More than any golden ring,
it shines, it shines.
Wear it on every finger
till your hands dance,
touching everything easily,
letting everything, easily, go.

Strap it to your back like wings.
Or a kite-tail. The stream of air behind a jet.
If you are known for anything,
let it be the way you rise out of sight
when your work is finished.

Think of things that linger: leaves,
cartons and napkins, the damp smell of mold.

Think of things that disappear.

Think of what you love best,
what brings tears into your eyes.

Something that said adios to you
before you knew what it meant
or how long it was for.

Explain little, the word explains itself.
Later perhaps. Lessons following lessons,
like silence following sound.

                     Naomi Shihab Nye 

 

 

 

 

 

The best leader

A leader is best when people barely know that he exists,
not so good when people obey and acclaim him,
worst when they despise him.
Fail to honor people, They fail to honor you.
But of a good leader, who talks little,
when his work is done, his aims fulfilled,
they will all say, ‘We did this ourselves.’

Tao Te Ching or The Classic of the Way and its Power

 

 

 

 

Pseudocommunity or true community

An unconscious, gentle process
whereby people who want to be loving
attempt to be so by telling little white lies,
by withholding some of the truth about themselves
and their feelings in order to avoid conflict.
Pseudocommunity is conflict-avoiding;
true community is conflict-resolving.

    M. Scott Peck, The Different Drum: Community-making and Peace

 

 

 

 

 

A hard won education

You always learn a lot more
        when you lose than when you win.

                        African Proverb

 

 

 

 

Love and service

You can't lead the people if you don't love the people.
You can't save the people, if you don't serve the people.

        Cornell West, Hope on a Tightrope: Words and Wisdom

 

 

 

Learning how to learn

Once you learn how to learn,
you have only to discover what is worth learning.

        Timothy Gallwey, The Inner Game of Tennis

 

 

 

Silence

A man cannot understand the true value of silence
unless he has a real respect for the validity of language:
for the reality which is expressible in language is found,
face to face and without any medium, in silence.

                Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude

 

 

 

 

 

 

Power and responsibility

Power is little pieces of paper on the floor.
No one picks them up.
Ten people walk by and no one picks up the piece of paper on the floor.
The eleventh person walks by and is tired of looking at it,
and so he bends down and picks it up.
The next day he does the same thing.
And soon he’s in charge of picking up the paper.
Now – think of those pieces of paper as standing for responsibility.
This man or woman who is picking up the pieces of paper is,
by being responsible, acquiring more and more power…
All power is the willingness to accept responsibility.

        Larry Kramer, Reports from the Holocaust: The Making of an AIDS Activist

 

 

 

 

 

Good times

To love what you do and feel that it matters —
        how could anything be more fun?

                Katharine Graham, Ms. Magazine

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All Soul's Day

Let us be grateful to people who make us happy;
    they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.

                            Marcel Proust, Pleasures and Regrets 

 

 

 

 

 

All Saints' Day

From foolish devotions
        and sour-faced saints
                may God deliver us!

                       Teresa of Ávila, Autobiography