The Resolute Woman

Category: friends

  • Weeds are flowers too?!

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    by

    resolutewoman
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    I have some friends who have political opinions I don’t agree with, friends who can be a bit disagreeable, sometimes a bit cranky or unkind. They aren’t perfect. And, they may not be wonderful. However, once I got to know them and understand their circumstances, I realized that they are interesting, complicated people. They are…

  • The whole human family

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    resolutewoman
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    “The Golden Way is to be friends with the world and to regard the whole human family as one,” Gandhi once said. I found this quote in Lisa Congdon’s book You Will Leave a Trail of Stars. –Joy

  • A place in hell

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    by

    resolutewoman
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    We need to help each other. As Madeleine Albright, this country’s first female secretary of state, once said, “There is a special place in hell for women who don’t help other women.”

  • The heart of empathy

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    by

    resolutewoman
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    What is empathy? Christopher Myers, in his introduction for Home Is Not a Country, offers one answer. “It seems to me,” he says, “that this knowledge—that you could have just as easily been any one of a hundred other people—is at the heart of empathy. It’s the realization that every person you meet, or see…

  • Just be “nice”

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    resolutewoman
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    I never have liked the word “nice.” Somehow, it always seems a bit trite, but the word is packed with a lot of information. That’s why I like this quote by anonymous. “Treat everyone with kindness, even those who are rude to you, not because they are nice but because you are.” –Joy

  • Remember kindness

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    by

    resolutewoman
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    I sometimes have to remind myself that I can be kind to everyone. “Kindness is in our power even when fondness is not,” Henry James once said. –Joy

  • Endless pools of unknowability

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    resolutewoman
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    In her book Oh, William!, Elizabeth Strout writes about William and Lucy, who used to be married to each other. An NPR interviewer commented, “Lucy and William knew each other very well, but they didn’t know each other as well as they thought they did. “Has you ever experienced this?” “Yes, I have,” Strout answered,…

  • We are mysteries

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    by

    resolutewoman
    in ,

    In her book Oh, William!, Elizabeth Strout writes about William and Lucy—and about knowing and not knowing—other people and ourselves, too. At the end of the book, Strout concludes: But when I think Oh William!, don’t I mean Oh Lucy! too. Don’t I mean Oh Everyone, O dear Everybody in this whole wide world, we…

  • Count your blessings

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    resolutewoman
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    A friend died. Another friend has to wait to pick up a new prescription until she gets a check next week. And a third friend has COVID and is afraid he will give the virus to his spouse. I am so tired of this pandemic, but I am counting my blessings. My issues are very…

  • Speak to strangers

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    by

    resolutewoman
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    Carme, a character in Isabel Allende’s book A Long Petal of the Sea, “resolved to speak to strangers, since she had discovered that people like to talk, and it only took a couple of questions to make friends and find out lots of things.” What’s important about this reminder from Carme? Ask questions! And, listen.