Category: balance
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Small things matter
I found this quote in the text about a photograph at the Gilcrease Museum in Tulsa. The photograph showed a field of wildflowers. A “tiny nail in the house of the universe, tiny but useful,” poet Mary Oliver once said. –Joy
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A full life
“Woodstock has never seen a violin or a fire truck or a candy store,” Snoopy once said. “He’s never heard an opera or a symphony. He’s never seen a movie or a play. On the other hand, he’s seen the sky, the clouds, the ground, the sun, the rain, the moon, the stars, a cat…
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Black and white?
“The dualistic mind presumes that if you criticize something, you don’t love it,” says Richard Rohr, the Franciscan priest and author. “Wise people, like prophets, would say the opposite.”
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Carve out moments of peace
It’s easy to be silent and still on a silent retreat. However, after I finished my silent retreat, I soon found, of course, that it’s more difficult to slow down after I’ve looked at my daily to-do list. I have to carve out moments of peace during each day. I remember what Thoreau once wrote:…
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Notice the flowers
Sometimes—often?—what’s happening in the world is depressing. We all need to practice noticing the positive, says Rick Hanson in his book Hardwiring Happiness. When you achieve something or find yourself in a beautiful place, rest your mind on that experience. Dwell on it. As Henri Matisse once said, “There are always flowers for those who…
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Indolence?
I have spring fever—and it’s not spring yet. That’s why I like this quote from Bernard Williams. “I like the word ‘indolence.’ It makes my laziness seem classy.” –Joy
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Compounds of good and evil
“Idealism is too oblivious of the ironic perils to which human virtue, wisdom and power are subject,” writes Reinhold Niebuhr, in his book The Irony of American History. “It is too certain that there is a straight path toward the goal of human happiness; too confident of the wisdom and idealism that prompt men (and…
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Take a break
December is always a busy month. I’m going to follow the examples of these past presidents and pace myself. Presidents with good leadership skills learned “to manage themselves,” Doris Kearns Goodwin told an Arts & Letters Live audience in Dallas earlier this year. Her latest book is Leadership: In Turbulent Times. • Abraham Lincoln went…
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Reunion of life with life
“Sin is separation,” says Paul Tillich in his book The Shaking of the Foundations. “Grace is reunion of life with life….Simply accept the fact that you are accepted! If that happens to us, we experience grace.”
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The center of our being
“There is grace in life,” says Paul Tillich in his book The Shaking of the Foundations. “The center of being, in which our own center is involved, is the source of the gracious beauty that we encounter again and again in the stars and mountains, in flowers and animals, in children and mature persons.”