{"id":9786,"date":"2026-06-06T22:22:41","date_gmt":"2026-06-07T02:22:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/?p=9786"},"modified":"2026-06-06T22:27:47","modified_gmt":"2026-06-07T02:27:47","slug":"surprise-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/?p=9786","title":{"rendered":"Surprise Me."},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Dulaney5.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Dulaney5.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-9787\" srcset=\"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Dulaney5.jpg 800w, https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Dulaney5-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Dulaney5-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Dulaney5-640x480.jpg 640w, https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Dulaney5-400x300.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>My brother told me about an interview he had read with the Dalai Lama, where the interviewer had asked, &#8220;What if you get to the other side of death and discover that your theory of reincarnation was all wrong?  What if you discover that the truth is that we do not return and return to the earth, and therefore you could not be the reincarnation of the original Dalai Lama?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Then I would let go of the idea and accept the truth&#8221; was the Dalai Lama&#8217;s simple answer.<\/p>\n<p>Clearly he is very comfortable with being proved wrong.<\/p>\n<p>This has me thinking that I might have discovered my next daily prayer.  Dear God, please disabuse me of my calcified notions of how you work in this world.  Surprise me, please.<\/p>\n<p>Please don&#8217;t ever let me think that I am finished.<\/p>\n<p>&#8212; Margaret Dulaney, <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sonderbooks.com\/Nonfiction\/to_hear_the_forest_sing.html\">To Hear the Forest Sing<\/a><\/em>, p. 170<\/p>\n<p>Photo: Bluebell Trail, Bull Run Regional Park, Fairfax County, Virginia, April 3, 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>My brother told me about an interview he had read with the Dalai Lama, where the interviewer had asked, &#8220;What if you get to the other side of death and discover that your theory of reincarnation was all wrong? What if you discover that the truth is that we do not return and return to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46,18,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9786","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-acceptance","category-prayer","category-truth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9786","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9786"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9786\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9789,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9786\/revisions\/9789"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}