Tempus fugit

'The moving finger writes, and having writ, moves on' —
    and only then do you find out if it goosed you in passing.

                Robert A. Heinlein, Farnham’s Freehold

 

 

 

 

Play on

Humanity has advanced, when it has advanced,
    not because it has been sober, responsible and cautious,
        but because it has been playful, rebellious, and immature.

                    Tom Robbins, Still Life with Woodpecker 

 

 

 

 

 

Noblese oblige

The only thing in the world worth a damn is the strange,
touching, pathetic, awesome nobility of the individual human spirit.

            John D. MacDonald, A Deadly Shade of Gold

 

 

 

 

 

 

You can't take it with you

Life is ours to be spent, not to be saved.

        D. H. Lawrence, The Captain's Doll

 

 

 

 

Preparation

The fool, with all his other faults, has this also,
        he is always getting ready to live.

                 Seneca, Letters from a Stoic

 

 

 

 

 

God is love

“God is love,” as Scripture says, and that means the revelation is in the relationship.
“God is love” means God is known devotionally, not dogmatically.
“God is love” does not clear up old mysteries; it discloses new mystery.
“God is love” is not a truth we can master; it is only one to which we can surrender.
Faith is being grasped by the power of love.

                William Sloane Coffin, Jr, Emmanuel sermon 

 

 

 

 

 

Poem: When I have fears that I may cease to be

When I have fears that I may cease to be

   Before my pen has gleaned my teeming brain,

Before high-pilèd books, in charactery,

   Hold like rich garners the full ripened grain;

When I behold, upon the night’s starred face,

   Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,

And think that I may never live to trace

   Their shadows with the magic hand of chance;

And when I feel, fair creature of an hour,

   That I shall never look upon thee more,

Never have relish in the faery power

   Of unreflecting love—then on the shore

Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
Till love and fame to nothingness do sink.

                            John Keats

Misdiagnosis

Before you diagnose yourself with depression or low self esteem,
first make sure you are not, in fact, just surrounded by assholes.

            2010 Twitter post, Notorious d.e.b. @debihope

 

An age-old question

How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you are?

        Satchel Paige, It Takes a Long Time to Become Young

 

 

 

 

 

 

Old is good

I love everything that's old —
old friends, old times, old manners, old books, old wine.

        Oliver Goldsmith, She Stoops to Conquer

 

 

 

 

 

This is it

 

 

 

                    Waylon Jennings bumper sticker

Not Yet Tickled

How did those priests ever get so serious
              and preach all that
                     gloom?

            I don't think God
               tickled them
                     yet.

            Beloved -- hurry.

St. Teresa of Avila, Love Poems from God

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Poem: Love is Not All (Sonnet XXX)

Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink
Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain;
Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink
And rise and sink and rise and sink again;
Love can not fill the thickened lung with breath,
Nor clean the blood, nor set the fractured bone;
Yet many a man is making friends with death
Even as I speak, for lack of love alone.
It well may be that in a difficult hour,
Pinned down by pain and moaning for release,
Or nagged by want past resolution’s power,
I might be driven to sell your love for peace,
Or trade the memory of this night for food.
It well may be. I do not think I would.

                Edna St. Vincent Millay 

Online banking

Cyberspace is where the bank keeps your money.

        William Gibson, 1995 New York Times interview

 

 

 

 

 

Happy 460th birthday

If you could see the earth illuminated when you were in a place as dark as night,
        it would look to you more splendid than the moon.

            Galileo Galilei, Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems

 

 

 

 
 

 

Poem: I Love Thee

I love thee’€”I love thee!
’Tis all that I can say;'€”
It is my vision in the night,
My dreaming in the day;
The very echo of my heart,
The blessing when I pray:
I love thee’€”I love thee!
Is all that I can say.

I love thee’€”I love thee!
Is ever on my tongue;
In all my proudest poesy
That chorus still is sung;
It is the verdict of my eyes,
Amidst the gay and young:
I love thee’€”I love thee!
A thousand maids among.

I love thee’€”I love thee!
Thy bright hazel glance,
The mellow lute upon those lips,
Whose tender tones entrance;
But most, dear heart of hearts, thy proofs
That still these words enhance,
I love thee’€”I love thee!
Whatever be thy chance.

                     Thomas Hood

 

 

 

 

 

Major error explained

Theology being the work of males,
        original sin was traced to the female.

             Barbara W. Tuchman, A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century

 

 

 

 

 

Happy birthday, Abe

Abraham Lincoln
his hand and pen
he will be good but
god knows When

Written by Abraham Lincoln as a teenager
The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln

 

 

 

 

 

 

Compassion

Why is compassion not part of our established curriculum,
an inherent part of our education?
Compassion, awe, wonder, curiosity, exaltation, humility–
these are the very foundation of any real civilisation,
no longer the prerogatives, the preserves of any one church,
but belonging to everyone, every child in every home, in every school.

        Yehudi Menuhin, Compassion: The Ultimate Ethic

 

 

 

 

 

Poem: American Names

 I have fallen in love with American names,
The sharp names that never get fat,
The snakeskin-titles of mining-claims,
The plumed war-bonnet of Medicine Hat,
Tucson and Deadwood and Lost Mule Flat.

Seine and Piave are silver spoons,
But the spoonbowl-metal is thin and worn,
There are English counties like hunting-tunes
Played on the keys of a postboy’s horn,
But I will remember where I was born.

I will remember Carquinez Straits,
Little French Lick and Lundy’s Lane,
The Yankee ships and the Yankee dates
And the bullet-towns of Calamity Jane.
I will remember Skunktown Plain.

I will fall in love with a Salem tree
And a rawhide quirt from Santa Cruz,
I will get me a bottle of Boston sea
And a blue-gum nigger to sing me blues.
I am tired of loving a foreign muse.

Rue des Martyrs and Bleeding-Heart-Yard,
Senlis, Pisa, and Blindman’s Oast,
It is a magic ghost you guard
But I am sick for a newer ghost,
Harrisburg, Spartanburg, Painted Post.

Henry and John were never so
And Henry and John were always right?
Granted, but when it was time to go
And the tea and the laurels had stood all night,
Did they never watch for Nantucket Light?

I shall not rest quiet in Montparnasse.
I shall not lie easy at Winchelsea.
You may bury my body in Sussex grass,
You may bury my tongue at Champmedy.
I shall not be there. I shall rise and pass.
Bury my heart at Wounded Knee.

             Stephen Vincent Benet

Welcome, Year of the Dragon

No, I would not want to live in a world without dragons,
as I would not want to live in a world without magic,
for that is a world without mystery,
and that is a world without faith.

            R.A. Salvatore, Streams of Silver

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Getting to the bottom of it

At the bottom of every social problem we will find a social wrong. 

                Henry George, Social Problems

 

 

 

 

 

 

Technology

I’ve come up with a set of rules that describe our reactions to technologies:

1. Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works.

2. Anything that’s invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it.

3. Anything invented after you’re thirty-five is against the natural order of things.

                                Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt

 

 

 

 

 

Imagine that

The past is really almost as much a work of the imagination as the future. 

                        Jessamyn West, A Matter of Time 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Food for thought

I think I exist,
    therefore I exist.
        I think.

    David Gerrod, The Man Who Folded Himself

 

 

 

 

 

All God's Children

We all have the same God, we just serve him differently.
Rivers, lakes, ponds, streams, oceans all have different names,
        but they all contain water.
So do religions have different names, and they all contain truth,
        expressed in different ways forms and times.
It doesn’t matter whether you’re a Muslim, a Christian, or a Jew.
When you believe in God, you should believe
        that all people are part of one family.
If you love God, you can’t love only some of his children.

    Muhammad Ali, The Soul of a Butterfly: Reflections on Life’s Journey 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Poems: Two views of hope

254

"Hope" is the thing with feathers --
That perches in the soul --
And sings the tune without the words --
And never stops -- at all --

And sweetest -- in the Gale -- is heard --
And sore must be the storm --
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm --

I've heard it in the chillest land --
And on the strangest Sea --
Yet, never, in Extremity,
It asked a crumb -- of Me.


1547

Hope is a subtle Glutton --
He feeds upon the Fair --
And yet -- inspected closely
What Abstinence is there --

His is the Halcyon Table --
That never seats but One --
And whatsoever is consumed
The same amount remain --

        Emily Dickinson

Once again...

Phil: Do you know what today is?

Rita: No, what?

Phil: Today is tomorrow. It happened.
 

        From the movie Groundhog Day

 

 

 

February

The most serious charge
which can be brought against New England
is not Puritanism but February.

    Joseph Wood Krutch, The Twelve Seasons