Self Preservation is seeking your life.
Going off halfhearted…
Sayers of wisdom say…
“Love of one’s country is part of the faith.”
Yes! It is good and noble to die for home and hearth. But steady now soldier. The sayers of wisdom haven’t rested yet. Listen, still.
“Your ‘real’ country is where you’re heading, not where you are.”
“It’s right to love your home place, but first ask, ‘Where is that, really?’”
—
How often am I off and running while wisdom is still standing with words in her mouth..
What do you want?
If questions had hands this one would pinch your cheeks
and maybe sometimes slap you in the face.
Like that aunt, lovable but only once-a-year;
intrusive, audacious and unavoidable, this question.
You answer with your life.
All I ask is a small ship and a Star to steer her by…
Do you think that, everything, is too much to ask?
Delightful description…
“A low, thrilling voice. It was the kind of voice that the ear follows up and down, as if each speech is an arrangement of notes that will never be played again. Her face was sad and lovely with bright things in it, bright eyes and a bright passionate mouth, but there was an excitement in her voice that men who had cared for her found difficult to forget: a singing compulsion, a whispered “Listen,” a promise that she had done gay, exciting things just a while since and that there were gay, exciting things hovering in the next hour.”
-F. Scott Fitzgerald, in The Great Gatsby
Courage can be lonely…
Maybe not going into the place
he most surely may
is the bravest thing a man can do.
Or maybe I’m just a fool.
Emerson…
Self-reliance, the height and perfection of man, is reliance on God.
DOUBT
Respect the child. Be not too much his parent.
Trespass not on his solitude.
Our strength grows out of our weakness.
The indignation which arms itself with secret forces
does not awaken until we are pricked and stung and sorely assailed.
Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming
that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.
A great man is always willing to be little.
Whilst he sits on the cushion of advantages, he goes to sleep.
When he is pushed, tormented, defeated, he has a chance to learn something;
he has been put on his wits, on his manhood; he has gained facts; learns his ignorance; is cured of the insanity of conceit; has got moderation and real skill.
The purpose of life seems to be to acquaint a man with himself.
He is not to live the future as described to him
but to live the real future to the real present.
The highest revelation is that God is in every man.
We are, like Nebuchadnezzar, dethroned,
bereft of reason, and eating grass like an ox.
Yet a man may love a paradox,
without losing either his wit or his honesty.
ACT
Be it how it will, do right now.
The thing done avails, and not what is said about it.
An original sentence, a step forward,
is worth more than all the censures.
Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions.
All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.
The voyage of the best ship is a zigzag line of a hundred tacks.
Of course, he who has put forth his total strength in fit actions,
has the richest return of wisdom.
It is easy to live for others; everybody does.
I call on you to live for yourselves.
KNOW
Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string.
Accept the place the divine providence has found for you,
the society of your contemporaries, the connection of events.
Great men have always done so.
People seem not to see that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character.
To different minds, the same world is a hell, and a heaven.
Truth is handsomer than the affectation of love.
Your goodness must have some edge to it — else it is none.
Speak what you think now in hard words,
and tomorrow speak what tomorrow thinks
in hard words again,
though it contradict every thing you said today.
I hung my verse in the wind
Time and tide their faults will find.
STAND
Valor consists in the power of self-recovery,
so that a man cannot have his flank turned,
cannot be out-generalled,
but put him where you will,
he stands.
Despair, never.
Here I am…
Are: the present form of to be.
-R
Afraid to laugh…
“If a good god is real why doesn’t he or she just show up sitting on a cloud or riding a unicorn with wings or something?”
“Did you know Where’s Waldo has sold more than 55 million copies around the world?”
“Huh?”
“Where’s Waldo, the crowd scenes with the Waldo character hiding in every single one…”
“Yeah yeah, I know. Great way to kill time. Super hard to find that guy sometimes. What’s that got to do with anything?”
“How many do you think we would buy if every page was just a giant picture of Waldo’s face?”
—
I waited for a giant picture for a long time. Then I got bored.
What if the point of all this is to get good at killing time?
Eternity is a long time, after all.
“Seek, and you will find.”
Maybe God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh…
Excuse me, I’m being serious here, did you just giggle?
Mindless questions…
If you want to build relationship a lifetime lasting,
it’s good to ask questions that are a lifetime answering.
Watching her rage…
The white wind tumbles and the sails flip and fly like a rebellious summer dress likely to unstay except for the proud tapered masts standing still while the wind walks her keel through the adolescent waves.
Your mission…
Everyone tells a story about themselves inside their own head.
Always. All the time. That story makes you what you are.
We build ourselves out of that story.
– Patrick the Rothfuss
What story do you tell yourself?
It must be a good one… 🙂
Our world needs a good story.
Keep telling it, would you?
It’s okay…
Must we always make music, may we sometimes play?
The wrong logic…
Promise of gain sells The Truth too cheap to reason.
The Way has always been Love, beyond & above reason.
How to genius…
The key to genius is a little bit crazy…
He saw that it was good…
There isn’t any better way to make something good than to act as if it already is.
Put it out…
Worrying is like chain-smoking for your soul.
Meaning for life…
I said: what about my eyes?
He said: Keep them on the road.
I said: What about my passion?
He said: Keep it burning.
I said: What about my heart?
He said: Tell me what you hold inside it?
I said: Pain and sorrow.
He said: Stay with it.
The wound is the place where the Light enters you.
-Rumi
A good host…
We invite our fears to share the hearth
even as they wet the fire.
Die for joy…
Prisoner Viktor Frankl found sparks of joy in a Nazi concentration camp.
“In a position of utter desolation, when Man cannot express himself in positive action, when his only achievement may consist in enduring his sufferings in the right way, an honorable way – in such a position Man can, through loving contemplation of the image he carries of his Beloved, achieve fulfillment.”
The meaning of life may be in suffering.
The purpose of life may be in joy.
Fix your eyes on the Beloved Love.
Imperfectly believe in perfection.
Set joy ever before you.
Endure.
Exhale.
Rest.
“The salvation of Man is through love and in love.”
Always give your best…
Give others a chance.
Give yourself a break.
Give a darn.
Give up on giving up.
Give us a sign.
Give in to that feeling that’s giving you the business.
Give us a reason to believe.
In you.
In ourselves.
In the goodness of Life that so rarely takes center stage.
Give the people what they want.
Give ‘em a hug.
Give up the 24/7 news network for Lent.
And every other day.
Give peas a chance.
Especially if they’re from your Uncle’s backyard garden.
Try the cucumbers, too.
For those out there who may be wondering why they’re not getting it,
Maybe it’s because you’re not giving it.
So, give until there’s nothing left.
And then give s’mores.
Be courageous…
Courage is the quality that conducts all others.
Courage is the truest act of faith, a righteous expression of free will.
Courage is the spirit that labors to deliver sacrificial Love.
Courage is one Being laying down their life for another; in one significant and final act, or through a lifelong struggle.
Courage is standing in the gap.
Courage is the difference between feeling and action, between desire and result.
Courage can unlid your cup, so that it may runneth over.
Love is in the heart.
Truth is in the mind.
Courage is in your hands.
—
Other thoughts about courage…