Family

If I had to preach a sermon on the family I would take for my text this phrase of Paul Valery's: In every family there is concealed a specific interior boredom which causes its members to escape and live their own lives. There is also in every family an ancient and powerful force which manifests itself when the group is gathered in the dining-room for its evening meal, when its members feel free to be completely themselves.

            André Maurois, Un Art de Vivre (The Art of Living) 

 

 

 

 

 

Poem: Bless Their Hearts

At Steak ‘n Shake I learned that if you add

“Bless their hearts” after their names, you can say

whatever you want about them and it’s OK.

My son, bless his heart, is an idiot,

she said. He rents storage space for his kids’

toys—they’re only one and three years old!

I said, my father, bless his heart, has turned

into a sentimental old fool. He gets

weepy when he hears my daughter’s greeting

on our voice mail. Before our Steakburgers came

someone else blessed her office mate’s heart,

then, as an afterthought, the jealous hearts

of the entire anthropology department.

We bestowed blessings on many a heart

that day. I even blessed my ex-wife’s heart.

Our waiter, bless his heart, would not be getting

much tip, for which, no doubt, he’d bless our hearts.

In a week it would be Thanksgiving,

and we would each sit with our respective

families, counting our blessings and blessing

the hearts of family members as only family

does best. Oh, bless us all, yes, bless us, please

bless us and bless our crummy little hearts.

 

                     Richard Newman 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Just joking

The joke of the world is less like a banana peel than a rake, the old rake in the grass, the one you step on, foot to forehead. It all comes together. In a twinkling. You have to admire the gag for its symmetry, accomplishing all with one right angle, the same right angle which accomplishes all philosophy. One step on the rake and its mind under matter once again. You wake up with a piece of tree in your skull. You wake up with fruit on your hands. You wake up in a clearing and see yourself, ashamed. You see your own face and it’s seven years old and there’s no knowing why, or where you’ve been since. We’re tossed broadcast into time like so much grass, some ravening god’s sweet hay.   

Annie Dillard, Holy the Firm

Revelation

The truth is revealed by removing things that stand in its light,
an art not unlike sculpture, in which the artist creates,
not by building, but by hacking away.

            Alan Watts, The Wisdom of Insecurity

 

 

 

 

Carry on

Sometimes, carrying on,
    just carrying on,
        is the superhuman achievement.

                Albert Camus, The Fall 

 

 

 

 

 

Don't be a potato

The man who has nothing to boast of but his illustrious ancestry,
is somewhat like a potato, the only good thing is under ground.

        Thomas Overbury, Characters

 

 

 

What are you building?

In the moment of crisis,
    the wise build bridges
        and the foolish build dams.

                Nigerian proverb

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Don't fight the future

You cannot fight against the future.
         Time is on our side.

            William Gladstone, 1866 Speech to the House of Commons

 

 

 

 

 

Perfection

What is love's perfection?
To love our enemies,
and to love them to the end that they may be our brothers.

        St. Augustine of Hippo, Ten Homilies of the First Epistle of John

 

 

 

 

 

Ask for a better room

I wish I could show you
when you are lonely or in darkness
the astonishing light of your own being.
Even after all this time
the Sun never says to the Earth,
"You owe me."
Look what happens
With a love like that,
It lights the whole sky.
Fear is the cheapest room in the house.
I would like to see you living in better conditions.

        Daniel Ladinsky, writing as the Persian poet Hafez

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Choose your stories

Be careful of the stories on offer;
test them for who they tell you
you can be and we can be.
Look for the liberatory ones,
the ones that open doors and
take you through the gates,
not the ones that slam them.
The ones that invite you to expand,
not contract, to expand in care,
in awareness, in connection.

    Rebecca Solnit, We Were Made for This, Meditations in an Emergency

 

 

 

Anxiety

I define anxiety as experiencing failure in advance.

        Seth Godin, Poke the Box 

 

 

 

 

 

Good questions

I want to know what’s real.
I want to know what’s true.
And I also want to know why the world is going mad.

        Paul Kingsnorth, New York Times interview, October 2025

 

 

 

 

Poem: Armistice

The water sings along our keel,   

   The wind falls to a whispering breath;

I look into your eyes and feel

   No fear of life or death;   

So near is love, so far away   

The losing strife of yesterday.

We watch the swallow skim and dip;

   Some magic bids the world be still;   

Life stands with finger upon lip;

   Love hath his gentle will;

Though hearts have bled, and tears have burned,

The river floweth unconcerned.

We pray the fickle flag of truce

   Still float deceitfully and fair;

Our eyes must love its sweet abuse;   

   This hour we will not care,

Though just beyond to-morrow's gate,   

Arrayed and strong, the battle wait.

 

                     Sophie Jewett 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I led three lives

All human beings have three lives:
        public, private, and secret.

                 Gabriel García Márquez, Gabriel García Márquez: a Life

 

 

 

 

Tolerance

The highest result of education is tolerance. Long ago men fought and died for their faith; but it took ages to teach them the other kind of courage — the courage to recognize the faiths of their brethren and their rights of conscience. Tolerance is the first principle of community; it is the spirit which conserves the best that all men think.

        Helen Keller, Optimism

 

 

 

 

 

Poem: Break of Day

‘Tis true, ‘tis day, what though it be?

O wilt thou therefore rise from me?

Why should we rise because ‘tis light?

Did we lie down because ‘twas night?

Love, which in spite of darkness brought us hither,

Should in despite of light keep us together.

Light hath no tongue, but is all eye;

If it could speak as well as spy,

This were the worst that it could say,

That being well I fain would stay,

And that I loved my heart and honour so,

That I would not from him, that had them, go.

Must business thee from hence remove?

Oh, that’s the worst disease of love,

The poor, the foul, the false, love can

Admit, but not the busied man.

He which hath business, and makes love, doth do

Such wrong, as when a married man doth woo.

                John Donne

 

 

 

 

Compassion

Picasso supposedly said he never saw a painting he didn’t like.
‘Oh come on, you’re not Will Rogers,’ people said to him,
but Picasso said: ‘No, I mean it, I’ll even go to a hotel someplace
and see a little painting of flowers, and I think,
just to get the paint from here to there, well,
my heart goes out to the artist who did it.’

            Wayne Thiebaud, New York Times interview, August 23, 1996

This explains almost everything

The world has the memory of a fish.

            Albanian proverb

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Enigma

I can teach a man to sail,
    but I can never teach him why.

            Timothy E. Thatcher, The American Scholar

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dream on

I’ll never stop dreaming,
because if you stop dreaming,
you’re just wasting eight hours a night.

        Moonlighting television series, Season 2, Episode 4

 

 

 

 

Daylight Savings Time

I object to being told that I am saving daylight
when my reason tells me that I am doing nothing of the kind...
At the back of the Daylight Saving scheme,
I detect the bony, blue-fingered hand of Puritanism,
eager to push people into bed earlier, and get them up earlier,
to make them healthy, wealthy, and wise in spite of themselves.

        Robertson Davies, The Papers of Samuel Marchbanks

 

 

 

 

Be happy

And the Messiah said unto them, "If a man told God that he wanted most of all to help the suffering world, no matter the price to himself, and God answered and told him what he must do, should the man do as he is told?"

"Of course, Master!" cried the many. "It should be pleasure for him to suffer the tortures of hell itself, should God ask it!"

"No matter what those tortures, no matter how difficult the task?"

"Honor to be hanged, glory to be nailed to a tree and burned, if so be that God has asked," said they.

"And what would you do," the Master said unto the multitude, "if God spoke directly to your face and said, 'I COMMAND THAT YOU BE HAPPY IN THE WORLD, AS LONG AS YOU LIVE.' What would you do then?"

And the multitude was silent, not a voice, not a sound was heard upon the hillsides, across the valleys where they stood.

                Richard Bach, Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah

 

 

 

 

 

 

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