The message of Good Friday

I love you and I forgive you.
I am like you and you are like me.
I love all people.
I love the world.
I love creating.
Everything in our life should be based on love.

            Ray Bradbury, 2010 CNN interview

 

 

 

 

 

 

Strangers in a strange land

 

            Art by Jens Brasch, based on passages in the Book of Exodus

Poem: Gabriel, Age Two, Opens the Door for Elijah

My grandson gazes at the seder plate from his position
far down the table, waves his little hands in my direction,
and says, on cue and as he had practiced, "Ma zot?"
Hebrew for "What is all this?" Next year he might know
the Four Questions but for now, Ma zot is sufficient,
and we set about answering him.
True, we took a few liberties with the seder's order,
Gabriel opened the door for Elijah before the meal
In case he got cranky and his mother had to put him down.
For the record, Elijah didn't come this year,
Nor did he drink from the glass near Gabriel's plate.
But I swear I felt the prophet's presence
in the angelic face of my grandson. Both are harbingers
of that better world all of us so desperately need.

                                Sanford Pinsker 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Think again

All truly wise thoughts have been thoughts already thousands of times;
but to make them truly ours, we must think them over again honestly,
till they take root in our personal experience.

    Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Wilhelm Meister's Wanderjahre (Journeyman Years)

The power to create

You have the power to create.
Your power is so strong that whatever you believe comes true.
You create yourself, whatever you believe you are.
You are the way you are because that is what you believe about yourself.
Your whole reality, everything you believe, is your creation.
You have the same power as any other human in the world.
The main difference between you and someone else
is how you apply your power, what you create with your power.

                Don Miguel Ruiz, The Mastery of Love

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yes or no?

I have come to believe that there are really two religions in the world:
Those people in religions who say ‘yes’ to life
and those people in religions who say ‘no’ to life.
And I think people who share the ‘yes’ to life
in different religions have more in common with each other
than they do with people in their own culture
or specific religious tradition who say ‘no’ to life.

                             Rabbi Arnie Belzer 

 

 

 

 

 

Poem: The Triple Fool

I am two fools, I know,
        For loving, and for saying so
            In whining poetry;
But where’s that wise man, 1 that would not be I,
            If she would not deny?
Then as th’ earth’s inward narrow crooked lanes
    Do purge sea water’s fretful salt away,
I thought, if I could draw my pains
    Through rhyme’s vexation, I should them allay.
Grief brought to numbers cannot be so fierce,
For he tames it, that fetters it in verse.

        But when I have done so,
Some man, his art and voice to show,
            Doth set and sing my pain;
And, by delighting many, frees again
            Grief, which verse did restrain.
To love and grief tribute of verse belongs,
    But not of such as pleases when ’tis read.
Both are increasèd by such songs,
    For both their triumphs so are published,
And I, which was two fools, do so grow three;
Who are a little wise, the best fools be.

                                John Donne