We have an obligation to read for pleasure. If others see us reading, we show that reading is a good thing.
We have an obligation to support libraries, to protest the closure of libraries.
If you do not value libraries you are silencing the voices of the past and you are damaging the future.
— Neil Gaiman, Art Matters, “Why Our Future Depends on Libraries, Reading and Daydreaming”
Often, our pride stands in the way of our asking for help. In true love there is no place for pride. To love each other means to trust each other. If you don’t tell the person you love of your suffering, it means you don’t love this person enough to trust her. You have to realize that this person is the best person to help you. We need to be able to get help from the person we love.
— Thich Nhat Hanh, How to Love, p. 54
Photo: South Riding, Virginia, February 20, 2017
Thankfully, the true Christian life is not a test, it’s a rest. Spiritual growth isn’t about becoming someone tomorrow who you aren’t today through one’s spiritual performance, but rather it’s the journey of our actions and attitudes catching up with who we already fully are in Christ — complete, whole, holy, pure, righteous, saved, and lacking no spiritual blessing. This is the foundation of Grace that enables in us and through us all good things, effortlessly — any other foundation is a sinking sand-spiral of death.
— Christ Kratzer, Leatherbound Terrorism, p. 115-116
Photo: Meadowlark Gardens, Virginia, April 30, 2011
Reading and writing help us take the blinders off so we can look around and say “Wow,” so we can look at life and our lives with care, and curiosity, and attention to detail, which are what will make us happy and less afraid.
— Anne Lamott, Almost Everything, p. 99
Photo: After 2019 ALA Annual Conference
Though many people assume that the primary message of the prophets was to call the people back to obedience of the law, the real message of the prophets was to call people back to the goal of the law, which was love. We see this by the fact that many of the prophets are quite critical of how the people ignore justice and righteousness in the land. The prophets show that many of the people are quite observant when it comes to the law, but they neglect the greater goals of care for the poor, protection for the weak, and love for the outcast. A quick reading of some key prophetic texts reveals that their true concern was not adherence to the law, but living according to love (cf. Isa 1:10-20; 61:8; Jer 14:12; Hos 6:6; Amos 4:4-5; 5:21-25; Mic 6:6-8). Jesus, as the greatest prophet, reveals this same truth through His life, ministry, and teachings.
— J. D. Myers, Nothing But the Blood of Jesus, p. 96-97
Photo: South Riding, Virginia, June 14, 2019
Letting go is essential in love – it is the opposite of clinging to expectations about how things should be and allows us to accept others (and ourselves!) as they are.
— Sharon Salzberg, Real Love, p. 293
If I’m trying to be happy today in the same way I was happy yesterday, I’ll fail. The manna of joy falls in limitless supply, but each day’s rations must be gathered afresh. Joy inhabits only the present moment; if I can’t embrace it now, it’s gone.
What keeps me from seizing joy in the moment? Sorrow, obviously; yet joy too, either remembered or anticipated, can alienate me from present reality. Great things have happened and will happen, but they cannot compare with what God does right now, that His power and glory may continually spring forth fresh.
— Mike Mason, Champagne for the Soul, p. 141
There are two hundred references in Scripture that ask us to take special care of the poor. I’m guessing, then, it’s important. It is this preferential care and love for the poor that sets the stage for the original program. It doesn’t draw lines — it erases them. It rises above the polarizing temperature of our times. It doesn’t shake its finger at anybody but instead helps us all put our finger on it. We could ask ourselves, I suppose, if God is conservative or liberal, but I think that’s the wrong question. Instead we should ask: Is God expansive or tiny? Is God spacious or shallow? Is God inclusive or exclusive? What are the chances that God holds the same tiny point of view as I do? Well, zero.
— Gregory Boyle, Barking to the Choir, p. 164
Photo: Wildeshausen, Germany, May 16, 2004
Divine identification with the plight of the dispossessed in the event of the exodus makes understandable the constant return throughout the Bible to themes of God’s special concern for poor, powerless, oppressed, and marginalized persons. Gracious and merciful, God acts to make a new future possible. Such compassionate concern also undergirds the great biblical ethic of hospitality: “You shall not wrong or oppress a resident alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt” (Ex 22:21); and more positively, “You shall love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt” (Deut 10:19). The people liberated from slavery must act in like manner as the Holy One who delivered them.
— Elizabeth A. Johnson, Creation and the Cross, p. 38
Photo: South Riding, Virginia, May 15, 2019
Our positive intention reminds us of the life goals that dwelling on painful experience has shifted aside.
The biggest drawback to telling grievance stories is they keep us connected in a powerless way with people who have hurt us. When we mull over our past wounds and hurts, we remind ourselves of a part of our life that did not work. Reconnecting with our positive intention reminds us of our goals and enables us to move forward.
Positive intention can be defined as the strongest positive motivation we had for being in the grievance situation in the first place…. All grievances start with a situation that did not work out. We had an experience where either we did not get what we wanted or we got something we did not want. In either case, we wanted something for our well-being. Our positive intention is remembering what that something was and expressing it in the most beneficial terms we can find.
— Fred Luskin, Forgive for Good, p. 142
Photo: South Riding, Virginia, May 15, 2019