One life on this earth is all that we get,
whether it is enough or not enough,
and the obvious conclusion would seem to be
that at the very least we are fools
if we do not live it as fully and bravely and beautifully as we can.
Frederick Buechner, born 1926, American author and theologian
We should not try to tame our hearts or become too focused on the to-do lists of our days:
Wild sings the bird of the heart
in the forests of our lives.
Mary Oliver
Even brief, five minute, encounters – if we have eyes to see – can contain a lifetime, and make a day special
Unexpected wonders happen,
not on schedule, or when you expect or want them to happen,
but if you keep hanging around, they do happen.
Wendell Berry
Sanctuary is wherever I find safe space to regain my bearings, reclaim my soul, heal my wounds, and return to the world as a wounded healer. It’s not merely about finding shelter from the storm: it’s about spiritual survival. Today, seeking sanctuary is no more optional for me than church attendance was as a child.
Sometimes I find it in churches, monasteries, and other sites designated as sacred.
But more often I find it in places sacred to my soul: in the natural world, in the company of a trustworthy friend, in solitary or shared silence, in the ambience of a good poem or good music.
Parker Palmer, Seeking Sanctuary in our own Sacred Places
It is sometimes through times of testing that we come to know what endures.
The Zen student, the poet, the husband, the wife — none knows with certainty what he or she is staying for, but all know the likelihood that they will be staying “a while”: to find out what they are staying for. And it is the faith of all of these disciplines that they will not stay to find that they should not have stayed. That faith has nothing to do with what is usually called optimism. The faith, rather, is that by staying, and only by staying, we will learn something of the truth, that the truth is good to know, and that it is always both different and larger than we thought.
Wendell Berry
All delusions begin in the mind
All delusions are based on various ways we’re talking to ourselves
and then believing what we are saying.
Adyashanti
