Here and now

This is what you must be like.
Grow wherever life puts you down.

            Ben Okri, The Famished Road

 

 

 

 

Change starts here

If you want to change the world, change yourself.

                    Tom Robbins, Even Cowgirls Get the Blues 

 

 

 

 

 

Pay attention

The key to a Christian conception of studies is the realization that prayer consists of attention. It is the orientation of all the attention of which the soul is capable toward God. The quality of the attention counts for much in the quality of the prayer. Warmth of heart cannot make up for it.

            Simone Weil, Waiting on God

 

 

 

 

 

Poem: Tornado Imagined from Far Away

Up from the south it came, out of the
west, at a diagonal,
fifty miles in its full course,
once it was done—and in its body length, each
time it touched down, from a mile long
to twenty miles. “All we could see
was a lot of gray and stuff.” “It was like
a train, but much louder.” “All we saw was this
white wall of water, if you will.”
Witnesses reported funnel
clouds setting down eleven times, like
anteater noses looking for something,
or a grayish teat growing down
to search out and eat,
but of course it was just cold and heat,
wet and dry, wind, counter-
clockwise force. One life
ended, within a collapsed home,
curled around her stepson’s infant son.
Some homes almost disappeared,
as if the atoms that had made them were gone,
and many homes now partially stand, as if
gored, or chewed on. And how many trees,
how many hairs on a head, torn out,
how many plants turned back from discrete
beings into wads of matter.
Pine, oak, maple, beech,
hemlock, witch hazel, lady’s slipper,
pitcher plant, trillium,
Indian pipe. Gardens, trails—
by a waterfall, a bench, gone in one
bite, dissolved like a grain of salt, as if
thousands of years passed in a minute,
as if we jumped the Pleistocene
to the Hiroshimal. But it’s just weather.
Friend, let us be good to one another.

                   Sharon Olds

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wisdom Art

Stevie Van Zandt, who has been playing guitar in Springsteen’s E Street Band since the early seventies, said, “The rock generation has changed the concept of chronological time. I personally know seven artists in their eighties still working. And the entire British Invasion is turning eighty in the next few years. Nobody’s grandparents made it past their sixties when we grew up.” He sees the “the birth of something I call ‘wisdom art’ – art that the artist could not have created when they were young…so there is a legitimate justification for continuing to create.”

        David Remnick, The New Yorker, 2021

Nothing in life is as important as you think it is
        while you are thinking about it.

                     Sonja Lyubomirsky, The Myths of Happiness

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

First love

I was in love with New York.
I do not mean 'love' in any colloquial way,
I mean that I was in love with the city,
the way you love the first person who ever touches you
and never love anyone quite that way again.

            Joan Didion, Slouching Towards Bethlehem

 

 

 

 

Happiness

Getting what you go after is success;
but liking it while you are getting it is happiness.

        Bertha Damon, A Sense of Humus

 

 

 

 

 

 

Memorial Day

England
Tuesday Night
May 30, 1944

My Dearest Sweet Darling Bette:
        (Good-I like it)

Sweetheart this isn’t going to be much of a letter. Surprise, I said I wasn’t going to write tonight but the situation changed. So I will keep up my good record.

I am writing this by flashlight so it probably won’t look like much as it is turning out to be a quite difficult job.

Surprise, it’s raining, and I happen to be wet from my feet up to my waist. It isn’t bad, though, after you get used to it. It’s the easy way to take a bath I guess.

The packages are starting to roll in. So I should be getting one before long. Will that ever be a happy day.

If I remember correct, today is Memorial Day. It hasn’t seemed like it here, but I suppose you had the day off today. That was one holiday I always enjoyed. I wish that I could have been there to spend it with you darling.

Gosh, but I am lonesome tonight. I don’t know what I would do or give to see you or be with you tonight. I guess anything in the world. Even swim the ocean for you. Do you know something honey – I love you.

Darling, this probably won’t make sense, but I have thought of you so much that I had to write whether it makes sense or not.

Dear I must stop and hit the bedroll. I do miss you darling very, very much, and I love you more than anyone else in the world. Take care of yourself & write soon. I Love You Darling.

All My Love & Kisses,
Goodnight
Larry

I Love You Sweetheart.

Reasons to meditate, if you need them

Meditation is always becoming. Meditation is always transformation. Meditation always moves us from one place to another; from unconsciousness to awareness, from tension to relaxation, from being scattered to being centered, from a shallow relationship with our environment and ourselves to a deeper one, from sleep to wakefulness, from a sense of God’s absence to the sense that God was in this place all along and I didn’t know it!

Alan Lew, Be Still and Get Going: A Jewish Meditation Practice for Real Life

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Poem: Most of the Warriors

Most of the warriors I knew
Have settled down to gardening, and the morning Times,
Tired of stalking ghosts
and the melody of secret rhythms
above the sound of traffic
and other monotonous voices,
Finally content to stare and wonder.

Most of the warriors I knew
Have unsaddled stallions and built a fence in the backyard,
Weary of studying the clouds
And the shadows creeping across mountains
beyond the flash of neon
and other pretentious symbols,
Finally content to stare and wonder.

Most of the warriors I knew
Have died before their time and are forgotten
Save in the memory of their sons
And the dreams they seldom share
beyond the taint of time
and other unimportant measures

Finally content to stare and wonder.

                        James Kavanaugh 

 

 

 

 

From up there

There is a famous story that you and Springsteen were invited to a dinner party at Sinatra’s house around the time you did that TV tribute to him. Had you met him before? Did you feel like he knew your stuff?

Not really. I think he knew “The Times They Are a-Changin’” and “Blowin’ In the Wind.” I know he liked “Forever Young,” he told me that. He was funny, we were standing out on his patio at night and he said to me, “You and me, pal, we got blue eyes, we’re from up there,” and he pointed to the stars. “These other bums are from down here.” I remember thinking that he might be right.

        Bob Dylan, Q&A with Bill Flanagan, March 2017

 

 

 

 

 

 

Small steps

People seldom see the halting and painful steps
by which the most insignificant success is achieved.

        Anne Mansfield Sullivan, Helen Keller: The Story of My Life

 

 

 

 

One reason to wake up

That of which we are not aware, owns us.

        James Hollis, Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life

 

 

 

The risk

Where there is danger,
that which will save us also grows.

        Friedrich Hölderlin, Patmos

 

 

 

Great artists

I have come to believe that a great teacher is a great artist
and that there are as few as there are any other great artists.
It might even be the greatest of the arts
since the medium is the human mind and spirit.

        John Steinbeck, America and Americans and Selected Nonfiction

An Irish story of everlasting friendship

St. Ciaran of Clonmacnoise was St. Kevin's soul-friend, and they were very close. When Ciaran approached death, he said: "Let me be carried to a small height."  Then angels went to meet his soul, filling as they did all the space between heaven and earth. He was carried back into the little church, and raising his hands, he blessed his people. Then he told the brethren to shut him up in the church until Kevin should come from Glendalough. 

Kevin arrived three days after Ciaran's death, having left his monastery as soon as he heard that his closest friend was dying, but he had been very delayed. At once Ciaran's spirit returned from heaven and reentered his body so that he could commune with Kevin and welcome him. The two friends stayed together for a long time, engaged in mutual conversation, and strengthening their friendship. 

 Excerpted from: https://orthodoxwiki.org/Kevin_of_Glendalough  

Poem: Remorse for Intemperate Speech

I ranted to the knave and fool,
But outgrew that school,
Would transform the part,
Fit audience found, but cannot rule
My fanatic heart.

I sought my betters: though in each
Fine manners, liberal speech,
Turn hatred into sport,
Nothing said or done can reach
My fanatic heart.

Out of Ireland have we come.
Great hatred, little room,
Maimed us at the start.
I carry from my mother's womb
A fanatic heart.

            William Butler Yeats 

Burning silence

When something is festering
in your memory or your imagination,
laws of silence don’t work,
it’s like shutting a door and locking it
on a house on fire
in hope of forgetting that the house is burning.
But not facing a fire doesn’t put it out.
Silence about a thing just magnifies it.
It grows and festers in silence, becomes malignant.

            Tennessee Williams, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Good stories

Some of these things are true
and some of them lies.
But they are all good stories.

        Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stay out

True happiness, we are told,
consists in getting out of one's self;
but the point is not only to get out -
you must stay out;
and to stay out
you must have some absorbing errand.

             Henry James, Roderick Hudson

 

 

 

 

The era of tea

The joy of the new, hip, happening, double-espresso Dublin
is that you can blame any strange mood on coffee deprivation.
This never worked in the era of tea,
at least not at the same level of street cred.

            Tana French, In the Woods

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dangerous inclinations

The spiritual disposition of a poet inclines to catastrophe.

        Osip Mandelstam, Selected Essays

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well played

Whereas elsewhere in Europe,
no educated man would be caught dead speaking a vernacular,
the Irish thought that all language was a game.

            Thomas Cahill, How the Irish Saved Civilization 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Anyone can do it

Repentance need not be multilateral.

Bayard Rustin as quoted by Andrew Young,
The Free Press Interview, March 2026

Poem: Long Thoughts - Short Walks

some believe in general motors,
others in market purity;
some believe in earnings per share
and their financial security-
still more believe in politics,
and everything they've read;
but i believe the sun
when its shining on my head.

                A. Cohen

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Irish way

In Ireland, you go to someone's house, and she asks you if you want a cup of tea. You say no, thank you, you're really just fine. She asks if you're sure. You say of course you're sure, really, you don't need a thing. Except they pronounce it ting. You don't need a ting. Well, she says then, I was going to get myself some anyway, so it would be no trouble. Ah, you say, well, if you were going to get yourself some, I wouldn't mind a spot of tea, at that, so long as it's no trouble and I can give you a hand in the kitchen. Then you go through the whole thing all over again until you both end up in the kitchen drinking tea and chatting.

In America, someone asks you if you want a cup of tea, you say no, and then you don't get any damned tea.

I liked the Irish way better.

             C.E. Murphy, Urban Shaman

 

 

 

 

Happy Birthday, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

The only winner in the War of 1812 was Tchaikovsky.

        David Gerrold, The War Against the Chtorr

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's in the details

The true secret of happiness lies in taking
a genuine interest in all the details of daily life.

            William Morris, The Beauty of Life

 

 

 

 

 

What's happening?

 In Ireland the inevitable never happens and the unexpected constantly occurs.

        Sir John Pentland Mahaffy, Mahaffy: A Biography of an Anglo-Irishman

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Breakfast in heaven

If you’ve never eaten toasted Ormeau Veda bread
with Dromona butter and homemade lemon curd,
do not despair, because this is the breakfast food
that you will be served in heaven.

        Adrian McKinty, Hang on St. Christopher

 

 

 

 

Let's face it

In a time of drastic change one can be too preoccupied
with what is ending or too obsessed with what seems to be beginning.
In either case one loses touch with the present
and with its obscure but dynamic possibilities.
What really matters is openness, readiness, attention, courage to face risk.
You do not need to know precisely what is happening,
or exactly where it is all going.
What you need is to recognize the possibilities
and challenges offered by the present moment,
and to embrace them with courage, faith, and hope.
In such an event, courage is the authentic form taken by love.

            Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander

 

 

 

 

Poem: May

I cannot tell you how it was,
But this I know: it came to pass
Upon a bright and sunny day
When May was young; ah, pleasant May!
As yet the poppies were not born
Between the blades of tender corn;
The last egg had not hatched as yet,
Nor any bird foregone its mate.

I cannot tell you what it was,
But this I know: it did but pass.
It passed away with sunny May,
Like all sweet things it passed away,
And left me old, and cold, and gray.

                    Christina Rossetti 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sisterhood

I think the important thing about sisters is that they share the same minute, familiar life-style, the same little sets of rules. Therefore they can keep house with each other late in life, because they share the same bunch of housewifely prejudices. The important thing about women today is, as they get older, they still keep house. It's one reason they don’t die, but men die when they retire. Women just polish the teacups.

                    Margaret Mead, Sisters by Elizabeth Fishel

High cost of living

Anyone who has ever struggled with poverty
knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor.

        James Baldwin, Nobody Knows My Name

 

 

 

 

Unintended consequences

When people say clean as a whistle,
    they forget that a whistle is full of spit.

            George Carlin, Napalm & Silly Putty

 

 

 

 

 

Discovery

One doesn't discover new lands
    without consenting to lose sight,
        for a very long time,
            of the shore.

                    Andre Gide, The Counterfeiters

 

 

 

 

Dream it out

You have to dream things out.
It keeps a kind of an ideal before you.
You see it first in your mind
and then you set about to try and make it like the ideal.
If you want a garden,
why, I guess you've got to dream a garden.

        Bess Streeter Aldrich, The Bess Streeter Aldrich Reader

 

 

 

 

Many mansions

I began to think of the soul as if it were a castle
made of a single diamond or of very clear crystal,
in which there are many rooms,
just as in Heaven there are many mansions.

            Teresa of Ávila, The Interior Castle

 

 

 

 

 

 

Poem: Spring

To what purpose, April, do you return again?
Beauty is not enough.
You can no longer quiet me with the redness
Of little leaves opening stickily.
I know what I know.
The sun is hot on my neck as I observe
The spikes of the crocus.
The smell of the earth is good.
It is apparent that there is no death.
But what does that signify?
Not only under ground are the brains of men
Eaten by maggots.
Life in itself
Is nothing,
An empty cup, a flight of uncarpeted stairs.
It is not enough that yearly, down this hill,
April
Comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers.

                    Edna St. Vincent Millay

 

 

 

 

 

 

Arbor Day

Until you dig a hole,
you plant a tree,
you water it
and make it survive,
you haven't done a thing.
You are just talking.

        Wangari Maathai, Unbowed, A Memoir

 

 

 

 

 

 

Danger!

A very dangerous state of mind: thinking one understands.

                Paul Valéry, The Collected Works of Paul Valery

 

 

 

Against mediocrity

But why diminish your soul being run-of-the-mill at something?
Mediocrity: now there is ugliness for you.
Mediocrity's a hairball coughed up on the Persian carpet of Creation.

            Tom Robbins, Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas

 

 

 

 

 

April showers

For after all, the best thing one can do
When it is raining, is to let it rain.

        Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Birds of Killingworth

 

 

 

Something and nothing

Because deep in my heart, I know there is always something to write about,
but there is also always nothing - and terrifyingly little air between.

                Nick Cave, Red Hand Files 286

 

 

 

 

 

Awesome

Awe is more than an emotion; it is a way of understanding, insight into a meaning greater than ourselves. The beginning of awe is wonder, and the beginning of wisdom is awe.

Awe is an intuition for the dignity of all things, a realization that things not only are what they are but also stand, however remotely, for something supreme. Awe is a sense for transcendence, for the reference everywhere to mystery beyond all things. It enables us to perceive in the world intimations of the divine, to sense in small things the beginning of infinite significance, to sense the ultimate in the common and the simple: to feel in the rush of the passing the stillness of the eternal. What we cannot comprehend by analysis, we become aware of in awe.

                 Abraham Joshua Heschel, Who Is Man?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Poem: blessing the boats

may the tide
that is entering even now
the lip of our understanding
carry you out
beyond the face of fear
may you kiss
the wind then turn from it
certain that it will
love your back   may you
open your eyes to water
water waving forever
and may you in your innocence
sail through this to that 

                Lucille Clifton    

 

 

 

 

 

Choose

[Optimism] is not about providing a recipe for self-deception.
The world can be a horrible, cruel place,
and at the same time it can be wonderful and abundant.
These are both truths.
There is not a halfway point;
there is only choosing which truth to put in your personal foreground.

        Sonja Lyubomirsky, The How of Happiness

 

 

 

 

 

More is better

It takes something more than intelligence to act intelligently.

                Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment 

 

 

 

 

Isn't it obvious?

There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact.

        Arthur Conan Doyle, The Boscombe Valley Mystery 

 

 

 

 

 

Sleep in

Progress doesn't come from early risers—
progress is made by lazy men looking for easier ways to do things.

            Robert Heinlein, Time Enough For Love

 

 

 

 

The end?

Never think you've seen the last of anything

        Eudora Welty, The Optimist’s Daughter

 

 

 

 

Keep working on it

Religion will not regain its old power
until it can face change
in the same spirit as does science.
Its principles may be eternal,
but the expression of those principles
requires continual development.

        Alfred North Whitehead, Science and the Modern World

 

 

 

 

Poem: April Rain Song

Let the rain kiss you
Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops
Let the rain sing you a lullaby
The rain makes still pools on the sidewalk
The rain makes running pools in the gutter
The rain plays a little sleep song on our roof at night
And I love the rain.

                Langston Hughes

 

 

 

 

 

Make it count

I should dearly love that the world should be ever so little better for my presence. Even on this small stage we have our two sides, and something might be done by throwing all one's weight on the scale of breadth, tolerance, charity, temperance, peace, and kindliness to man and beast. We can't all strike very big blows, and even the little ones count for something.

        Arthur Conan Doyle, The Stark Munro Letters

 

 

 

 

 

Nothing artificial about it

Real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time.

        Terry Pratchett, Hogfather

 

 

 

 

Play ball

Didn't come up here to read. Came up here to hit. 

Hank Aaron to catcher Yogi Berra, who told him to turn his bat around so he could see the trademark during the 1957 World Series, Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes 

 

 

 

 

Enough

Somebody once said we never know
    what is enough until we know
        what's more than enough.

                Billie Holiday, Lady Sings the Blues

 

 

 

 

The simple life

I could enjoy the simple life
with a small living quarters,
a scratched album of Johnny Cash
and a Box of Twinkies

        Stanley Victor Paskavich, Return to Stantasyland

        [Continental Bakery created Twinkies April 6, 1930]

 

 

 

 

 

Practice resurrection

The word "resurrection" has for many people the connotation
of dead bodies leaving their graves or other fanciful images.
But resurrection means the victory of the New state of things,
the New Being born out of the death of the Old.
Resurrection is not an event that might happen in some remote future,
but it is the power of the New Being to create life out of death,
here and now, today and tomorrow.

                    Paul Tillich, The New Being

 

 

 

 

 

Poem: Matzah

Flat you are as a door mat
and as homely.
No crust, no glaze, you lack
a cosmetic glow.
You break with a snap.
You are dry as a twig
split from an oak
in midwinter.
You are bumpy as a mud basin
in a drought.
Square as a slab of pavement,
you have no inside
to hide raisins or seeds.
You are pale as the full moon
pocked with craters.

What we see is what we get
honest, plain, dry
shining with nostalgia
as if baked with light
instead of heat.
The bread of flight and haste
In the mouth you promise, home.

            Marge Piercy 

 

 

 

 

Gods in hiding

We must look at ourselves differently.
We are freer than we think.
We haven't begun to live yet.
The man whose light has come on in his head,
in his dormant sun, can never be kept down or defeated.
We can redream this world and make the dream real.
Human beings are gods hidden from ourselves.

        Ben Okri, The Famished Road

 

 

 

 

 

An unpaid debt

There’s no way to repay a mother’s love, or lack of it.

    Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic’s Notebook

 

 

 

 

Keep the appointed time

Now the LORD spoke to Moses in the Wilderness of Sinai,
in the first month of the second year
after they had come out of the land of Egypt, saying:
"Let the children of Israel keep the Passover at its appointed time.
"On the fourteenth day of this month, at twilight,
you shall keep it at its appointed time.
According to all its rites and ceremonies you shall keep it."

            Book of Numbers, chap. 9, verse 1-3

 

 

 

 

 

Best April Fools joke

 

 

From an ad in six leading US newspapers April 1, 1996

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's a puzzlement

There's something in the human personality
which resents things that are clear,
and conversely, something which is attracted
to puzzles, enigmas, and allegories.

    Stanley Kubrick, Kubrick: Inside a Film Artist's Maze

 

 

 

 

 

Silence

Silence is the general consecration of the universe.
Silence is the invisible laying on
of the Divine Pontiff's hands upon the world.
Silence is at once the most harmless
and the most awful thing in all nature.
It speaks of the Reserved Forces of Fate.
Silence is the only Voice of our God.

        Herman Melville, Pierre: or, The Ambiguities

 

 

 

 

 

Poem: On Clothes

And the weaver said, Speak to us of Clothes.
     And he answered:
     Your clothes conceal much of your beauty, yet they hide not the unbeautiful.
     And though you seek in garments the freedom of privacy you may find in them a harness and a chain.
     Would that you could meet the sun and the wind with more of your skin and less of your raiment,
     For the breath of life is in the sunlight and the hand of life is in the wind.

     Some of you say, “It is the north wind who has woven the clothes we wear.”
     And I say, Ay, it was the north wind,
     But shame was his loom, and the softening of the sinews was his thread.
     And when his work was done he laughed in the forest.
     Forget not that modesty is for a shield against the eye of the unclean.
     And when the unclean shall be no more, what were modesty but a fetter and a fouling of the mind?
     And forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair.

                    Kahlil Gibran 

A recipe for life

David Frost:
What would you like people to think about you when you've gone?

Muhammad Ali:
I'd like for them to say:
He took a few cups of love.
He took one tablespoon of patience,
One teaspoon of generosity,
One pint of kindness.
He took one quart of laughter,
One pinch of concern.
And then, he mixed willingness with happiness.
He added lots of faith,
And he stirred it up well.
Then he spread it over a span of a lifetime,
And he served it to each and every deserving person he met.

        From a 1974 interview with David Frost

 

 

 

 

 

 

David Frost: What would you like people to think about you when you've gone? Muhammad Ali: I'd like for them to say: He took a few cups of love. He took one tablespoon of patience, One teaspoon of generosity, One pint of kindness. He took one quart of laughter, One pinch of concern. And then, he mixed willingness with happiness. He added lots of faith, And he stirred it up well. Then he spread it over a span of a lifetime, And he served it to each and every deserving person he met.” — Muhammad Ali "Recipe of life" video clip http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7iPACdA1HQ Interview with David Frost (1974)

Source: https://quotepark.com/quotes/1831295-muhammad-ali-david-frost-what-would-you-like-people-to-think-a/

The way you are

The moment when you really experience
that you have created yourself being whatever way you are,
at that same moment you will never have to be that way again.

Werner Erhard
Werner Erhard: the Transformation of a Man: the Founding of est, William Bartley

 

 

 

 

 

 

Opening day

Baseball is not life.
It is a fiction, a metaphor.
And a ballplayer is a man
who agrees to uphold that metaphor
as though lives were at stake.

        David James Duncan, The Brothers K

 

 

 

 

Celebrity

Celebrity is a mask that eats into the face.
As soon as one is aware of being “somebody” to be watched
and listened to with extra interest, input ceases,
and the performer goes blind and deaf in his overanimation.
One can either see or be seen.

        John Updike, Self-Consciousness: Memoirs

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What we want

Freud said he didn’t know what women wanted.
I know what women want.
They want a whole lot of people to talk to.
What do men want?
They want a lot of pals,
and they wish that people wouldn’t get so mad at them.

        Kurt Vonnegut, God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian

 

 

 

 

 

 

Open to wonder

Instead of indulging in jealousy, greed, in relishing themselves,
there are men who keep their hearts alert to the stillness
in which time rolls on and leaves us behind. …
those who are open to the wonder will not miss it.
Faith is found in solicitude for faith,
in an inner care for the wonder that is everywhere.

        Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Holy Dimension

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Poem: Begin

Begin again to the summoning birds
to the sight of the light at the window,
begin to the roar of morning traffic
all along Pembroke Road.
Every beginning is a promise
born in light and dying in dark
determination and exaltation of springtime
flowering the way to work.
Begin to the pageant of queuing girls
the arrogant loneliness of swans in the canal
bridges linking the past and future
old friends passing though with us still.
Begin to the loneliness that cannot end
since it perhaps is what makes us begin,
begin to wonder at unknown faces
at crying birds in the sudden rain
at branches stark in the willing sunlight
at seagulls foraging for bread
at couples sharing a sunny secret
alone together while making good.
Though we live in a world that dreams of ending
that always seems about to give in
something that will not acknowledge conclusion
insists that we forever begin.

                    Brendan Kennelly 

 

 

 

 

 

World Water Day

If there is magic on this planet,
    it is contained in water.

            Loren Eiseley, The Immense Journey

 

 

 

 

 

 

March Madness continued

A few years ago, Kobe [Bryant, duh] fractured the fourth metacarpal bone in his right hand. He missed the first fifteen games of the season; he used the opportunity to learn to shoot jump shots with his left, which he has been known to do in games. While it was healing, the ring finger, the one adjacent to the break, spend a lot of time taped to his pinkie. In the end, Kobe discovered, his four fingers were no longer evenly spaced; now they were separated, two and two. As a result, his touch on the ball was different, his shooting percentage went down. Studying the film he noticed that his shots were rotating slightly to the right.

To correct the flaw, Kobe went to the gym over the summer and made one hundred thousand shots. that's one hundred thousand made, not taken. He doesn't practice taking shots, he explains. He practices making them. If you're clear on the difference between the two ideas, you can start drawing a bead on Kobe Bryant who may well be one of the most misunderstood figures in sports today.

Mike Sager, Esquire Magazine, 2007

March Madness

I would not sell my soul to be playing college ball somewhere in this country tonight, but I would give it long and serious consideration.

Pat Conroy, My Losing Season: A Memoir

 

 

 

 

Drown your shamrock

Once upon a time at a pub, Patrick ordered a whiskey, but was shocked and offended when the bartender’s pour did not fill his glass. He said the man had a devil in his cellar feeding on his dishonesty, so he’d best get his act together. The man immediately changed his ways. Like Scrooge on Christmas Day, he became the guy who filled everyone’s glass to the rim.

Today that story is remembered in the “Drowning of the Shamrock.” Each St. Patrick’s Day at the very end of the night, shamrocks are dunked into the last round of drinks (ideally whiskey) and a toast is offered to St. Patrick, in honor of his preferential option for the full pour.

        Jim McDermott, America, The Jesuit Review, 2022

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's not just basketball

When you think you have done enough, do a little more,
because someone out there is working harder than you.

            Larry Bird, When the Game Was Ours

 

 

 

The ides of March

And they came and said to him, “Teacher, we know that you are sincere, and show deference to no one; for you do not regard people with partiality, but teach the way of God in accordance with truth. Is it lawful to pay taxes to Emperor Caesar, or not? Should we pay them, or should we not?” But knowing their hypocrisy, he said to them, “Why are you putting me to the test? Bring me a denarius [coin] and let me see it.” And they brought one. Then he said to them, “Whose image is this, and whose title?” They answered, “Caesar’s.” Jesus said to them, “Give to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”

                                12:14-17; Matthew 22:15-22; Luke 20:20-26


Diverse interpreters have speculated for ages about what it is that Jesus is saying belongs to God and should be given to God. Our spiritual virtues perhaps? Our immortal souls? Our tithes? Our life commitments? Our moral conscience? Our conformance to church law? Through history, “give to Caesar” has confused preachers and canon lawyers who apologized for Caesar’s needful claim on much of a Christian’s life.

But mystery writer [Dorothy] Sayers discovered that the dialog poses and solves a riddle. Jesus holds up the Roman coin, asking whose image it bears. Caesar’s image is how we recognize its owner, they reply. Then what belongs to God must have the same proof. What bears God’s image? You and I do: our whole human selves, as Genesis 2 declares. Then give your whole self to God, because you bear God’s image.

                Rick Fabian, Jesus and Paul Woven Together 

Poem: Domestic Bliss

A love affair is something to survive.
This is a relationship -
something to keep tidy.

So my love for you reveals itself
In my exceptionally thorough grocery lists
And I know how much you love me when
You scrub out the shower
Two weekends in a row.

I am a romantic janitor,
Performing constant maintenance
on my happiness.

Give me a kiss.
I just took out the trash
And swept the sidewalk.

                Patrick Califia 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Patience

Being an artist means, not reckoning and counting,
but ripening like the tree which does not force its sap
and stands confident in the storms of spring
without the fear that after them may come no summer.
It does come. But it comes only to the patient,
who are there as though eternity lay before them,
so unconcernedly still and wide.
I learn it daily, learn it with pain
to which I am grateful: patience is everything!

        Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Language

Language is courage:
the ability to conceive a thought,
to speak it, and by doing so to make it true.

    Salman Rushdie, The Satanic Verses

 

 

 

 

A winning hand

Life is not always a matter of holding good cards,
    but sometimes, playing a poor hand well.

        Dan Millman, Sacred Journey of the Peaceful Warrior

 

 

 

 

 

Treat yourself

One of the secrets of a happy life
    is continuous small treats,
        and if some of these can be inexpensive
            and quickly procured so much the better.

                Iris Murdoch, The Sea, the Sea

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A distinction

Mobilizing is about getting people to do a thing,
    and organizing is about getting people to become
        the kind of people who do what needs to be done.

                Hahrie Han, The New Yorker, October 2024

Spring forward

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

 

 

 

 

International Women's Day

 Join the union, girls, 

        and together say  

                Equal Pay for Equal Work.

                            Susan B. Anthony, The Revolution

 

 

 

 

  

Poem: Dear March—Come in—

Dear March—Come in—
How glad I am—
I hoped for you before—
Put down your Hat—
You must have walked—
How out of Breath you are—
Dear March, how are you, and the Rest—
Did you leave Nature well—
Oh March, Come right upstairs with me—
I have so much to tell—

I got your Letter, and the Birds—
The Maples never knew that you were coming—
I declare - how Red their Faces grew—
But March, forgive me—
And all those Hills you left for me to Hue—
There was no Purple suitable—
You took it all with you—

Who knocks? That April—
Lock the Door—
I will not be pursued—
He stayed away a Year to call
When I am occupied—
But trifles look so trivial
As soon as you have come

That blame is just as dear as Praise
And Praise as mere as Blame—

            Emily Dickinson 

The way home

Actually, I doubt that it was "progress" that most interested [physicist] Richard [Feynman]. He was always searching for patterns, for connections, for a new way of looking at something, but I suspect his motivation was not so much to understand the world as it was to find new ideas to explain. The act of discovery was not complete for him until he had taught it to someone else.

I remember a conversation we had a year or so before his death, walking in the hills above Pasadena. We were exploring an unfamiliar trail and Richard, recovering from a major operation for the cancer, was walking more slowly than usual. He was telling a long and funny story about how he had been reading up on his disease and surprising his doctors by predicting their diagnosis and his chances of survival. I was hearing for the first time how far his cancer had progressed, so the jokes did not seem so funny. He must have noticed my mood, because he suddenly stopped the story and asked, "Hey, what's the matter?"

I hesitated. "I'm sad because you're going to die."

"Yeah," he sighed, "that bugs me sometimes too. But not so much as you think." And after a few more steps, "When you get as old as I am, you start to realize that you've told most of the good stuff you know to other people anyway."

We walked along in silence for a few minutes. Then we came to a place where another trail crossed and Richard stopped to look around at the surroundings. Suddenly a grin lit up his face.

"Hey," he said, all trace of sadness forgotten, "I bet I can show you a better way home."

And so he did.

        Danny Hillis, Richard Feynman and The Connection Machine, longnow.org

Flexibility

The willow which bends to the tempest
often escapes better than the oak which resists it.

    Walter Scott, The Works of Sir Walter Scott: The pirate 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm thinking!

It’s not always easy to tell the difference
between thinking and looking out of the window.

        Wallace Stevens, Letters

 

 

 

 

Why there are so few great artists

Waiting is one of the great arts.

        Margery Allingham, The Tiger In The Smoke

 

 

 

 

 

 

March winds

The wind is rising...
    we must attempt to live.

        Paul Valery, Charmes. Le Cimetière Marin

 

 

 

Take it back

We cannot live securely in a world which is not our own,
in a world which is interpreted for us by others.
An interpreted world is not a home.
Part of the terror is to take back our own listening,
to put our ears to our own inner voices, to see our own light,
which is our birthright, and comes to us in silence.

        Hildegard of Bingen, Warrior of Light,
        by Elaine Bellezza, Gnosis magazine, 1991

 

 

 

 

 

Poem: The Fame Game

You have this need to be famous,
my therapist said, but I think
you should get a job first. If
you look at all the famous people,
they all had jobs. George Bush
never looks like he’s doing anything,
but he was once a President. You have
to start from somewhere. Otherwise
you’ll be famous inside
your own head, but so is everyone else.

            Hal Sirowitz

 

 

 

 

 

 

Doing one's duty

This story might be half-apocryphal, but apparently on May 19th, 1780, the sky went dark over Connecticut. We don’t know what blotted out the sun—probably some forest fires burning nearby—but the deeply Christian Connecticuters figured it was a sign the End Times had come. At the State House in Hartford, several senators suggested that everybody should return home and prepare to meet their Maker. 

Amidst the commotion, Senator Abraham Davenport of Stamford stood up and said: "I am against adjournment. The day of judgment is either approaching, or it is not. If it is not, there is no cause for an adjournment; if it is, I choose to be found doing my duty. I wish therefore that candles may be brought." 

Candles were brought, and the work continued.

            Adam Mastroianni, Experimental History blog