Proper balance

It occurs to me that there is a proper balance
between not asking enough of oneself and asking or expecting too much.
It may be that I set my sights too high and so repeatedly end a day in depression.
Not easy to find the balance, for if one does not have wild dreams of achievement,
there is no spur even to get the dishes washed.
One must think like a hero to behave like a merely decent human being.

        May Sarton, Journal of a Solitude

Don't give up

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

        W. S. Gilbert, Bab Ballads And Savoy Songs

Yom Kippur

Should I not atone for the sins I have committed,
All that I have ever said will be a lie.

        Milarepa, The Hundred Thousand Songs of Milarepa

 

 

 

 

 

Check it out

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

 

 

' 

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 

God's friend

For prayer is nothing else than being on terms of friendship with God.

        Teresa of Ávila, Life of Prayer

 

 

 

 

 

Poem: Blackberry-Picking

for Philip Hobsbaum

Late August, given heavy rain and sun
For a full week, the blackberries would ripen.
At first, just one, a glossy purple clot
Among others, red, green, hard as a knot.
You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet
Like thickened wine: summer's blood was in it
Leaving stains upon the tongue and lust for
Picking. Then red ones inked up and that hunger
Sent us out with milk cans, pea tins, jam-pots
Where briars scratched and wet grass bleached our boots.
Round hayfields, cornfields and potato-drills
We trekked and picked until the cans were full,
Until the tinkling bottom had been covered
With green ones, and on top big dark blobs burned
Like a plate of eyes. Our hands were peppered
With thorn pricks, our palms sticky as Bluebeard's.

We hoarded the fresh berries in the byre.
But when the bath was filled we found a fur,
A rat-grey fungus, glutting on our cache.
The juice was stinking too. Once off the bush
The fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour.
I always felt like crying. It wasn't fair
That all the lovely canfuls smelt of rot.
Each year I hoped they'd keep, knew they would not.

                            Seamus Heaney

 

 

 

 

 

Sounds of silence

There is a wonderful stillness here. Especially I love the evenings, when I linger on my verandah and revel in the complete absence of all sound. That is strange, you will say; how can one enjoy sound that is absent, or indeed anything that does not exist! But if you were a musician perhaps you too would be permitted to hear, in the night stillness a sound, as though the earth in its flight through space intoned a deep bass note. 

Pyotr Illych Tchaikovsky,
To My Best Friend: Correspondence Between Tchaikovsky and Nadezhda von Meck 

 

 

 

Preference

To know what you prefer,
    instead of humbly saying Amen
        to what the world tells you you ought to prefer,
            is to have kept your soul alive.

                         Robert Louis Stevenson, An Inland Voyage 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Uplifted

The effort to understand the universe
    is one of the very few things
        which lifts human life a little above the level of farce
            and gives it some of the grace of tragedy.

                    Steve Weinberg, Dreams of a Final Theory

 

 

 

 

Metaphysical outlaws

If you're honest, you sooner or later have to confront your values. Then you're forced to separate what is right from what is merely legal. This puts you metaphysically on the run. America is full of metaphysical outlaws.

Tom Robbins, Still Life with Woodpecker

 

 

 

 

Great inventions

The sentence is the greatest invention of civilization.

        John Banville, Paris Review interview

 

 

 

 

An appreciation

The Biblical words about the genesis of heaven and earth are not words of information but words of appreciation. The story of creation is not a description of how the world came into being but a song about the glory of the world's having come into being. 

Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Wisdom of Heschel

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

Poem: How Many, How Much

How many slams in an old screen door?
    Depends how loud you shut it.
How many slices in a bread?
    Depends how thin you cut it.
How much good inside a day?
    Depends how good you live 'em.
How much love inside a friend?
     Depends how much you give 'em.

            Shel Silverstein 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Making it up as you go along

Even non-human animals mostly follow the instincts and behaviours that characterize their species, Sarte believed. But as a human being, I have no predefined nature at all. I create that nature through what I choose to do. Of course I may be influenced by my biology, or by aspects of my culture and personal background, but none of this adds up to a complete blueprint for producing me. I am always one step ahead of myself, making myself up as I go along. 

Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café 

 

 

 

 

 

Eight million stories

It is ridiculous to set a detective story in New York City.
    New York City is itself a detective story.

                Agatha Christie, Life magazine 1956

 

 

 

 

 

Redemption now

Past and future exist only in our memory.
The present moment, though, is outside of time, it’s Eternity.
In India, they use the word ‘karma,’ for lack of any better term.
It isn’t what you did in the past that will affect the present.
It’s what you do in the present that will redeem the past and thereby change the future.

Paulo Coelho, Aleph

 

 

 

 

 

 

Returning

In a few hours one could cover that incalculable distance;
from the winter country and homely neighbours,
to the city where the air trembled like a tuning-fork
with unimaginable possibilities.

        Willa Cather, Lucy Gayheart

 

 

 

One day at a time

One made a climate; one made the days —
    the complexion, the special flavor,
        the special happiness of every day as it passed;
            one made life.

                    Willa Cather, Shadows on the Rock