The drama of life

What is drama but life with the dull bits cut out?

        Alfred Hitchcock, Newsweek magazine

Goosed

The goose that lays golden eggs has been considered a most valuable possession. But even more profitable is the privilege of taking the golden eggs laid by somebody else's goose. The investment bankers and their associates now enjoy that privilege.

Louis Brandeis, The Brandeis guide to the modern world

Existence

Man does not exist prior to language,
    either as a species or as an individual.

                Roland Barthes, The Rustle of Language

 

 

 

Predicting change

History can predict nothing
except that great changes in human relationships
will never come about in the form in which they have been anticipated.

        Johan Huizinga, In the Shadow of Tomorrow

 

 

 

 

Prayer

I’ll tell you a secret about prayer.
If you complete your prayer
and you are a better person than when you began,
your prayer was answered.

    Rabbi Davie Wolpe, Facebook post

 

 

 

Poem: Be empty of worrying

Be empty of worrying,
Think of who created thought.
Move outside the tangle of
fear-thinking,
Live in silence.
Flow down and down in always
widening rings of being.

        Jalal-a-Din Rumi

What's next

When someone asked Abraham Lincoln, after he was elected president,
what he was going to do about his enemies, he replied,
"I am going to destroy them. I am going to make them my friends."

        Attributed to Abraham Lincoln, Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations 

 

 

 

 

 

Lesson #23

When trouble arises and things look bad,
    there is always one individual who perceives a solution
        and is willing to take command.
            Very often, that individual is crazy.

                        Dave Barry, 25 Things I Have Learned In 50 Years, #23 

Integrity

Difficult though integrity may be to achieve,
the test for it is deceptively simple.
If you wish to discern either the presence or absence of integrity,
you need to ask only one question.
What is missing?
Has anything been left out?

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

 

 

 

 

 

Voting

It is not decided by votes what is true; otherwise we could never come to any truth, ever. People will vote for what is comfortable — and lies are very comfortable because you don't have to do anything about them, you just have to believe. Truth needs great effort, discovery, risk, and it needs you to walk alone on a path that nobody has traveled before.

Osho (Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh), Your Answers Questioned 

 

 

 

 

 

Don't go there

Despair is deadly sin,
    but worse, it is mortal folly.

                Edith Pargeter, The Devil's Novice

 

 

 

 

 

Foundations

You aspire to great things?
Begin with little ones.
You desire to erect a very high building?
Think first of the foundation of humility.
The higher one intends it, the deeper must the foundation be laid.

        St. Augustine, De Verbis Domini, Sermon X

Poem: November

Show's over, folks. And didn't October do
A bang-up job? Crisp breezes, full-throated cries
Of migrating geese, low-floating coral moon.

Nothing left but fool's gold in the trees.
Did I love it enough, the full-throttle foliage,
While it lasted? Was I dazzled? The bees

Have up and quit their last-ditch flights of forage
And gone to shiver in their winter clusters.
Field mice hit the barns, big squirrels gorge

On busted chestnuts. A sky like hardened plaster
Hovers. The pasty river, its next of kin,
Coughs up reed grass fat as feather dusters.

Even the swarms of kids have given in
To winter's big excuse, boxed-in allure:
TVs ricochet light behind pulled curtains.

The days throw up a closed sign around four.
The hapless customer who'd wanted something
Arrives to find lights out, a bolted door.

                         Maggie Dietz

 

 

 

 

All Saints Day

We are not saints,
    but we have kept our appointment.
        How many people can boast as much?

                 Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Poem: All Hallows' Eve

Be perfect, make it otherwise.
Yesterday is torn in shreds.
Lightning’s thousand sulfur eyes
Rip apart the breathing beds.
Hear bones crack and pulverize.
Doom creeps in on rubber treads.
Countless overwrought housewives,
Minds unraveling like threads,
Try lipstick shades to tranquilize
Fears of age and general dreads.
Sit tight, be perfect, swat the spies,
Don’t take faucets for fountainheads.
Drink tasty antidotes. Otherwise
You and the werewolf: newlyweds.

                Dorothea Tanning

 

 

 

 

Giving back

Most people think witches are a coven of lesbians
dancing naked in the forest celebrating the semen
stolen from imprisoned hypnotized males,
which they then use to inseminate one another
using turkey basters in order to create a legion of demon babies.
Well, that's only part of it.
We are also active in community outreach programs.

Amy Sedaris, Paul Dinello, Stephen Colbert, Wigfield: The Can-Do Town That Just May Not

So true

There's a little witch in all of us.

    Alice Hoffman, Practical Magic

 

 

 

 

 

It figures. And no, we don't.

Most books on witchcraft will tell you that witches work naked.
This is because most books on witchcraft are written by men.

            Terry Pratchet, Good Omens

The fight

For we wrestle not against flesh and blood,
but against principalities, against powers,
against the rulers of the darkness of this world,
against spiritual wickedness in high places.

        Paul's letter to the Ephesians 6:12

Poem: The Man Watching

I can tell by the way the trees beat, after
So many dull days, on my worried windowpanes
That a storm is coming,
And I hear the far‑off fields say things
I can't bear without a friend,
I can't love without a sister.
The storm, the shifter of shapes, drives on
Across the woods and across time,
And the world looks as if it had no age;
The landscape, like a line in the psalm book,
Is seriousness and weight and eternity.
What we choose to fight is so tiny!
What fights with us is so great!
If only we would let ourselves be dominated
As things do by some immense storm,
We would become strong too, and not need names.
When we win it's with small things,
And the triumph itself makes us small.
What is extraordinary and eternal
Does not want to be bent by us.
I mean the Angel who appeared
To the wrestlers of the Old Testament:
When the wrestlers' sinews
Grew long like metal strings,
He felt them under his fingers
Like chords of deep music.
Whoever was beaten by this Angel
(who often simply declined the fight)
Went away proud and strengthened
And great from that harsh hand,
That kneaded him as if to change his shape.
Winning does not tempt that man.
This is how he grows: by being defeated, decisively,
By constantly greater beings.

        Rainer Maria Rilke, translated by Robert Bly 

 

 

 

 

 

A beautiful thank you

Once after a dinner party, Gregory Peck and I drove Fred Astaire home.
Fred lived in a colonial house that had a long porch with many pillars.
When we dropped him off, he danced along the whole front porch,
then opened the door, tipped his hat to us, and disappeared.
Wow! Greg and I couldn't speak for a few minutes.
It was a beautiful way to say thank you.

            Kirk Douglas, Let's Face It

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Job satisfaction

It’s just a job.
    Grass grows,
        birds fly,
            waves pound the sand.
                I beat people up.

                            Muhammad Ali, New York Times interview

Carpe diem

Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.

    Marthe Troly-Curtin, Phrynette Married

 

 

 

 

 

 

Attribution error

You have attributed conditions to villainy that simply result from stupidity.

    Robert A. Heinlein, The Logic of Empire

 

 

 

 

 

 

October afternoons

And so many orchards circled the village
        that on some crisp October afternoons
                the whole world smelled like pie.

                                        Alice Hoffman, Here On Earth

 

 

 

 

 

Limping along

It is often said that the Church is a crutch.
Of course it’s a crutch.
What makes you think you don’t limp?

William Sloane Coffin Jr., Credo 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Poem: On Faith

There is no map for how the apples fall.
The tree feels nothing letting go.
Along the crumbling wall that holds the sun-
Baked orchard, shadows ease their way.

There is no map for how the apples
Fall. Silence in the house. The tree sees
Nothing looking out, lets go. I’m more
At ease among shadows than the wall

Of sun stalled above the house. I hold
The orchard, its walls, this silence.
Seasonal, it comes and goes, easing itself
Back into shadows. There’s sweetness

In the crumbling, letting go, the how and why,
This sunbaked nothingness I feel
That comes, goes. What’s sweet is sweet
In so many varieties, becomes nothing

After all. A wall is just a wall in wind
Or rain. A tree a tree. Silence in the house.
The apples fall. There is no map for how.

Shara Lessley 

 

 

 

 

 

Remember

Children, you must remember something.
A man without ambition is dead.
A man with ambition but no love is dead.
A man with ambition and love for his blessings here on earth is ever so alive.
Having been alive, it won't be hard in the end to lie down and rest.

            Pearl Bailey, Talking to Myself

 

 

 

Help!

We just wanted to help,
but help is the sunny side of control...

    Anne Lamot, Washington Post column August 2024

Homecoming

“Do you know what the luckiest thing is?’

‘No.’

‘It is to be at home everywhere.”

             Ben Okri, The Age of Magic

 

 

 

The best is yet to come

To work — to work!
It is such infinite delight to know
that we still have the best things to do.

Katherine Mansfield, The Collected Letters of Katherine Mansfield

Columbus Day

The Earth does not want new continents, but new men.

        Jules Verne, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

While my days go on

I praise Thee while my days go on;
I love Thee while my days go on!
Through dark and dearth, through fire and frost,
With emptied arms and treasure lost,
I thank Thee while my days go on.

        Elizabeth Barrett Browning, De Profundis, stanza 23

Life isn’t fair but it’s all good!

1. Life isn’t fair, but it’s still good.
2. When in doubt, just take the next small step.
3. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone.
4. Your job won’t take care of you when you are sick. Your friends and parents will.
    Stay in touch.
5. Pay off your credit cards every month.
6. You don’t have to win every argument. Agree to disagree.
7. Cry with someone. It’s more healing than crying alone.
8. It’s OK to get angry with God. He can take it.
9. Save for retirement, starting with your first paycheck.
10. When it comes to chocolate, resistance is futile.
11. Make peace with your past so it won’t screw up the present.
12. It’s OK to let your children see you cry.
13. Don’t compare your life to others. You have no idea what their journey is all about.
14. If a relationship has to be a secret, you shouldn’t be in it.
15. Everything can change in the blink of an eye. But don’t worry; God never blinks.
16. Take a deep breath. It calms the mind.
17. Get rid of anything that isn’t useful, beautiful or joyful.
18. Whatever doesn’t kill you really does make you stronger.
19. It’s never too late to have a happy childhood.
      But the second one is up to you and no one else.
20. When it comes to going after what you love in life, don’t take no for an answer.
21. Burn the candles, use the nice sheets, wear the fancy lingerie.
      Don’t save it for a special occasion. Today is special.
22. Over prepare, then go with the flow.
23. Be eccentric now. Don’t wait for old age to wear purple.
24. The most important sex organ is the brain.
25. No one is in charge of your happiness but you.
26. Frame every so-called disaster with these words, ‘In five years, will this matter?’
27. Always choose life.
28. Forgive everyone everything.
29. What other people think of you is none of your business.
30. Time heals almost everything. Give time time.
31. However good or bad a situation is, it will change.
32. Don’t take yourself so seriously. No one else does.
33. Believe in miracles.
34. God loves you because of who God is, not because of anything you did or didn’t do.
35. Don’t audit life. Show up and make the most of it now.
36. Growing old beats the alternative — dying young.
37. Your children get only one childhood.
38. All that truly matters, in the end, is that you loved.
39. Get outside every day. Miracles are waiting everywhere.
40. If we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else’s, we’d grab ours back.
41. Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need.
42. The best is yet to come…
43. No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up.
44. Yield.
45. Life isn’t tied with a bow, but it’s still a gift.

                Regina Brett, written on her 90th birthday

 

 

 

 

 

 

Poem: Yom Kippur

You are asked to stand and bow your head,
consider the harm you've caused,
the respect you've withheld,
the anger misspent, the fear spread,
the earnestness displayed
in the service of prestige and sensibility,
all the callous, cruel, stubborn, joyless sins
in your alphabet of woe
so that you might be forgiven.
You are asked to believe in the spark
of your divinity, in the purity
of the words of your mouth
and the memories of your heart.
You are asked for this one day and one night
to starve your body so your soul can feast
on faith and adoration.
You are asked to forgive the past
and remember the dead, to gaze
across the desert in your heart
toward Jerusalem. To separate
the sacred from the profane
and be as numerous as the sands
and the stars of heaven.
To believe that no matter what
you have done to yourself and others
morning will come and the mountain
of night will fade. To believe,
for these few precious moments,
in the utter sweetness of your life.
You are asked to bow your head
and remain standing,
and say Amen.

                Philip Schultz

 

 

 

 

Reminder

Information on the Internet is subject to
the same rules and regulations as conversation at a bar.

George D. Lundberg, M.D., quoted in Alternative Medicine Online

 

 

 

On guard

Watch out for people who call themselves religious;
    make sure you know what they mean—
        make sure they know what they mean!

                John Irving, A Prayer for Owen Meany

 

 

 

Happy birthday Frank Herbert

The thing we must do intensely is be human together. People are more important than things. We must get together. The best thing humans can have going for them is each other. We have each other. We must reject everything which humiliates us. Humans are not objects of consumption. We must develop an absolute priority of humans ahead of profit — any humans ahead of any profit. Then we will survive. … Together.

Frank Herbert, Introduction to New World or No World

 

 

 

 

 

The object of life

The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority,
but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane

            Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

 

 

 

 

 

True healing

True healing, of deep connective tissue, takes place in community.
        Where is God when it hurts? Where God's people are.

                        Philip Yancey, What Good Is God?

 

 

 

 

 

Poem: Marks

My husband gives me an A
for lasts nights’s supper
an incomplete for my ironing,
a B plus in bed.
My son says I am average,
an average mother, but if
I put my mind to it
I could improve.
My daughter believes
in Pass/Fail and tells me
I pass. Wait ‘till they learn

I’m dropping out.

                    Linda Pastan 

Window cleaning

Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in a while, or the light won’t come in. If you challenge your own, you won’t be so quick to accept the unchallenged assumptions of others. You’ll be a lot less likely to be caught up in bias or prejudice or be influenced by people who ask you to hand over your brains, your soul, or your money because they have everything all figured out for you.

            Alan Alda, Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself

 

 

 

 

Action!?

As a confirmed melancholic, I can testify that the best and maybe only antidote for melancholia is action. However, like most melancholics, I suffer also from sloth.

        Edward Abbey, A Voice Crying in the Wilderness

 

 

 

 

 

Birthday of the World: A Psalm for Rosh Hashanah

Today is the birthday of the world.
But the world knows nothing
of this invention.

The world just keeps moving about itself,
buzzing and humming, exulting and keening,
birthing and being born,

while the mind keeps on its own way—
form-craving, metaphor-making,
over and over, giving birth and being born.

                Marcia Falk 

Sunshine

The sun will shine on those who stand
before it shines on those who kneel under them.

        Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart             

 

 

 

 

 

Talent or genius

Talent hits a target no one else can hit;
    Genius hits a target no one else can see.

            Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation

 

 

 

 

Faith

Faith is not about finding meaning in the world,
there may be no such thing ―
faith is the belief in our capacity to create meaningful lives.

                Terry Tempest Williams, Leap

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Poem: A Ritual to Read to Each Other

If you don't know the kind of person I am
and I don't know the kind of person you are
a pattern that others made may prevail in the world
and following the wrong god home we may miss our star.

For there is many a small betrayal in the mind,
a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break
sending with shouts the horrible errors of childhood
storming out to play through the broken dike.

And as elephants parade holding each elephant's tail,
but if one wanders the circus won't find the park,
I call it cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty
to know what occurs but not recognize the fact.

And so I appeal to a voice, to something shadowy,
a remote important region in all who talk:
though we could fool each other, we should consider—
lest the parade of our mutual life get lost in the dark.

For it is important that awake people be awake,
or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep;
the signals we give — yes or no, or maybe —
should be clear: the darkness around us is deep.

                             William E. Stafford 

Integrity counts

When I was born, humanity was 95 per cent illiterate.
Since I've been born, the population has doubled
and that total population is now 65 per cent literate.
That's a gain of 130-fold of the literacy.
When humanity is primarily illiterate, it needs leaders
to understand and get the information and deal with it.
When we are at the point where the majority of humans themselves are literate,
able to get the information, we're in an entirely new relationship to Universe.
We are at the point where the integrity of the individual counts
and not what the political leadership or the religious leadership says to do.

                Buckminster Fuller, Critical Path

 

 

 

 

Continue on

Our business in this world is not to succeed,
        but to continue to fail, in good spirits.

                 Robert Louis Stevenson, Reflections and Remarks on Human Life

 

 

 

 

 

Old tricks

An old trick well done is far better than a new trick with no effect.

                Harry Houdini, The Right Way to Do Wrong

 

 

 

 

 

 

Success

Never be discouraged from being an activist
because people tell you that you'll not succeed.
You have already succeeded if you're out there
representing truth or justice or compassion or fairness or love.

        Doris Haddock, Granny D: Walking Across America in My Ninetieth Year

 

 

 

Don't worry...

Basically, there is simply nothing to worry about,
because you yourself are the eternal energy of the universe.

                Alan Watts, The Joyous Cosmology

 

 

 

 

A lesson in compassion

I was at a lunch with the Dalai Lama and five Buddhist teachers at Spirit Rock Meditation Center. We were sitting in a charming room with white carpets and many windows. The food was a delightful, fragrant, vegetarian Indian meal. There were lovely flower arrangements on the table.

We were discussing sexual misconduct among Western Buddhist teachers. A woman Buddhist from California brought up someone who was using his students for his own sexual needs. One woman said, ‘We are working with him with compassion, trying to get him to understand his motives for exploiting female students and to help him change his actions.’

The Dalai Lama slammed his fist on the table, saying loudly, ‘Compassion is fine, but it has to stop! And those doing it should be exposed!’ All the serving plates on the table jumped, the water glasses tipped precariously, and I almost choked on the bite of saffron rice in my mouth.

Suddenly I saw him as a fierce manifestation of compassion and realized that this clarity did not mean that the Dalai Lama had moved away from compassion. Rather, he was bringing compassion and manifesting it as decisive fierceness. His magnetism was glowing like a fire.

I will always remember that day, because it was such a good teaching on compassion and precision. Compassion is not a wishy-washy ‘anything goes’ approach. Compassion can say a fierce no!

Lama Tsültrim Allione, Wisdom Rising

Poem: Morning Bell

The eye opens like a curtain rising
In the dark, feet search for something real
Consciousness hasn’t happened yet
And the floorboards are skin temperature
A fresh repetition, today will be one more or one less
An impromptu concert strikes up in the kitchen
Maybe this black coffee is the morning bell-
the prize you win for returning safe from sleep.

                Iman Mersal, translated by Robyn Creswell