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Librarian is a service occupation,
    gas station attendant of the mind.
        In an earlier age, I might have made things.
            Now I only make things available.

                        Richard Powers, Gold Bug Variations

 

 

 

 

 

FIne line

There’s a fine line between audacity and idiocy.

        Jim Butcher, Turn Coat

 

 

 

Walking wounded

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: In conversation with myself (2:49am)

I’d like to go back to sleep now.
Oh, I don’t think quite yet. We have things to talk about.
I don’t want to talk. I want to sleep.
Or we could play a fun game.
Or sleep.
Nope. Fun game time.
What’s the game?
It’s called “Your life is a complete failure.”
That’s not a fun game.
It is for me.
But aren’t you me?
Yes and no.
And can’t I control you?
Good luck with that. Let’s review your twenties.
Please don’t.
You poured a pitcher of beer on your head at a happy hour with your boss present.
Oh Christ.
Then you . . .
Nope . . .
C’mon. I love this one. You said, “Look at the rack on that waitress.”
I didn’t know she was his wife.
What about that time, in a meeting, you thought Arkansas ended with the letter “w” . . .
You suck.
And wrote it on a whiteboard in a staff meeting and everyone laughed. At you.
I’m going to sleep.
Fine. Good night.
Really?
Sure. Sleep well.
Oh. Okay.
Lyme disease.
What?
Nothing . . .

        John Kenney,  Love Poems for Anxious People

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's worse than we thought

Observations in animals have found that, for most, over 70% of waking life is spent being afraid, stressed or anxious. And in primates, where social conflict is a bigger part of the equation, this number rises to 85%. Research also suggests that negative feelings are felt twice as strongly as positive ones and that cortisol—the primary stress hormone—delivers effects that last thirty to sixty times longer than dopamine or serotonin, further exacerbating this hellish existence.

        Nick Lynch, The Bowling Broke Substack

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Just do it

So whatever you want to do, just do it.
Don’t worry about making a damn fool of yourself.
Making a damn fool of yourself is absolutely essential.
And you will have a great time.

            Gloria Steinem, Commencement address, 1987

Choice

We can believe what we choose.
We are answerable for what we choose to believe.

        Cardinal John Henry Newman, Letter to Mrs. William Froude

 

 

 

 

It's the little things

I could do great things, if I weren’t so busy doing little things.

        Ashleigh Brilliant, Pot-Shots

 

 

 

The Birthday Of The World - Meditation For Rosh Hashanah

God did not make the world according to my specs.
I was not on the planning committee
Nor did he take my bid
But he did use union labor
Even though it was hard to count time and a half
At the start of the job.
But the angels were well organized
And they got their due.

Someone must have negotiated Sabbath,
Hard to believe that it was a management decision,
Although God loves gardening,
And fair labor laws are someplace in Scripture.

I'm not sure that I would have done a better job,
But I would have stacked the odds differently,
Made nature a little easier to understand,
And made sure that the two day week-end
Was part of the primal plans.

I sometimes forget that creation is a kit
All the pieces are in the box,
And God gave us the directions,
And since the help line is always busy,
Perhaps it is time to read the instructions.

                 Lewis Eron 

 

 

 

 

 

Poem: Request

For a long time I was sure
it should be "Jumping Jack Flash," then
the adagio from Schubert's C major Quintet,
but right now I want Oscar Peterson's

"You Look Good to Me." That's my request.
Play it at the end of the service,
after my friends have spoken.
I don't believe I'll be listening in,

but sitting here I'm imaging
you could be feeling what I'd like to feel––
defiance from the Stones, grief
and resignation with Schubert, but now

Peterson and Ray Brown are making
the moment sound like some kind
of release. Sad enough
at first, but doesn't it slide into

tapping your feet, then clapping
your hands, maybe standing up
in that shadowy hall in Paris
in the late sixties when this was recorded,

getting up and dancing
as I would not have done,
and being dead, cannot, but might
wish for you, who would then

understand what a poem––or perhaps only
the making of a poem, just that moment
when it starts, when so much
is still possible––

has allowed me to feel.
Happy to be there. Carried away.

            Lawrence Raab

 

 

 

 

 

Our job in life

As human beings, our job in life is to help people realize how rare and valuable each one of us really is, that each of us has something that no one else has—or ever will have—something inside that is unique to all time. It's our job to encourage each other to discover that uniqueness and to provide ways of developing its expression.

        Fred Rogers, Mister Rogers' Neighborhood: Thoughts For All Ages 

 

 

 

 

 

Not on offer

I’m filled with a desire for clarity and meaning
    within a world and condition that offers neither.

            Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus

 

 

 

 

Give it a whack

Nonsense wakes up the brain cells. And it helps develop a sense of humor, which is awfully important in this day and age. Humor has a tremendous place in this sordid world. It’s more than just a matter of laughing. If you can see things out of whack, then you can see how things can be in whack.

        Dr. Seuss [Theodor Geisel], Los Angeles Times interview 1983

Ready or not

Action springs not from thought, but from a readiness for responsibility.

        Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letter to Renate and Eberhard Bethge

 

 

 

 

 

Direction

I may not have gone where I intended to go,
     but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.

            Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

 

 

 

 

 

Everything is holy

After one school shooting, my beloved rabbi friend Sydney Mintz told me a story from the Midrash (a collection of stories about what the Hebrew Bible teaches). When Moses smashed the original tablets with the Ten Commandments and stomped off back to Mount Sinai, someone swept up all the shards. They were eventually added to the ark alongside the replacement copy of the commandments. We drag around our brokenness in the same container as our holiness.

        Anne Lamott, NY Times editorial, September 1, 2025

 

 

Poem: we are running

         we are running

 running and

        time is clocking us

from the edge like an only

        daughter.

our mothers stream before us,

cradling their breasts in their

hands.

        oh pray that what we want

        is worth this running

        pray that what we’re running

toward

is what we want.

                     

                    Lucille Clifton

 

 

 

 

 

 

One and the same

There is not something or someone experiencing experience! You do not feel feelings, think thoughts, or sense sensations any more than you hear hearing, see sight, or smell smelling. “I feel fine” means that a fine feeling is present. It does not mean that there is one thing called an “I” and another separate thing called a feeling, so that when you bring them together this “I” feels the fine feeling. There are no feelings but present feelings, and whatever feeling is present is “I.” No one ever found an “I” apart from some present experience, or some experience apart from an “I”—which is only to say that the two are the same thing.

        Alan Watts, The Wisdom of Insecurity

 

 

 

 

Good advice

One should always have one’s boots on, and be ready to leave.

            Michel de Montaigne. Essays

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What to do?

Too many people merely do what they are told to do.

        Ansel Adams, The Camera

 

 

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Acceptance

It’s rarely the truth itself that people can’t accept.
         It’s how they feel about it.

                Karen Russell, The Antidote

 

 

 

 

 

Find a way or make one

If you have the words, 

    there's always a chance that you'll find the way.

                Seamus Heaney, Stepping Stones: Interviews with Seamus Heaney 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Acts of faith

Love is an act of faith,
    and whoever is of little faith
        is also of little love.

                Erich Fromm, The Art of Loving

 

 

 

 

Poem: At the Smithville Methodist Church

It was supposed to be Arts & Crafts for a week,
but when she came home
with the "Jesus Saves" button, we knew what art
was up, what ancient craft.

She liked her little friends. She liked the songs
they sang when they weren't
twisting and folding paper into dolls.
What could be so bad?

Jesus had been a good man, and putting faith
in good men was what
we had to do to stay this side of cynicism,
that other sadness.

OK, we said, One week. But when she came home
singing "Jesus loves me,
the Bible tells me so," it was time to talk.
Could we say Jesus

doesn't love you? Could I tell her the Bible
is a great book certain people use
to make you feel bad? We sent her back
without a word.

It had been so long since we believed, so long
since we needed Jesus
as our nemesis and friend, that we thought he was
sufficiently dead,

that our children would think of him like Lincoln
or Thomas Jefferson.
Soon it became clear to us: you can't teach disbelief
to a child,

only wonderful stories, and we hadn't a story
nearly as good.
On parents' night there were the Arts & Crafts
all spread out

like appetizers. Then we took our seats
in the church
and the children sang a song about the Ark,
and Hallelujah

and one in which they had to jump up and down
for Jesus.
I can't remember ever feeling so uncertain
about what's comic, what's serious.

Evolution is magical but devoid of heroes.
You can't say to your child
"Evolution loves you." The story stinks
of extinction and nothing

exciting happens for centuries. I didn't have
a wonderful story for my child
and she was beaming. All the way home in the car
she sang the songs,

occasionally standing up for Jesus.
There was nothing to do
but drive, ride it out, sing along
in silence.

                    Stephen Dunn

 

 

 

 

 

The biggest regret

So here’s something I know to be true, although it’s a little corny, and I don’t quite know what to do with it:

What I regret most in my life are failures of kindness.

Those moments when another human being was there, in front of me, suffering, and I responded . . . sensibly. Reservedly. Mildly.

Or, to look at it from the other end of the telescope: Who, in your life, do you remember most fondly, with the most undeniable feelings of warmth?

Those who were kindest to you, I bet.

It’s a little facile, maybe, and certainly hard to implement, but I’d say, as a goal in life, you could do worse than: Try to be kinder.

     George Saunders, 2013 commencement speech 

 

 

 

 

 

Take up arms

To enter into your own mind
        you need to be armed to the teeth.

                Paul Valery, Oeuvres 

 

 

 

 

 

The play's the thing

Life is a moderately good play 

        with a badly written third act.

                    Truman Capote, Tru

 

 

 

 

 

Never give up

Life's perhaps the only riddle
That we shrink from giving up.

        W. S. Gilbert, Bab Ballads And Savoy Songs

 

 

 

 

 

Bribery

Trees know when we are close by.
The chemistry of their roots and the perfumes of their leaves
pump out change when we're near...
when you feel good after a walk in the woods,
it may be that certain species are bribing you.

        Richard Powers, The Overstory

 

 

 

 

 

Labor day

My object in living is to unite
My avocation and my vocation
As my two eyes make one in sight.
Only where love and need are one,
And the work is play for mortal stakes,
Is the deed ever really done
For heaven and the future’s sakes.

     Robert Frost, from the poem Two Tramps in Mud Time