Things are as they are.
Looking out into the universe at night, we make no comparisons between right and wrong stars,
nor between well and badly arranged constellations.
Alan Watts
Tag: Be fully present
Here and Now
Bill Watterson, Calvin and Hobbes
Sunday Quote: Grandeur
If there is a sin against life, it consists perhaps not so much in despairing of life
as in hoping for another life
and in eluding the implacable grandeur of this life.
Albert Camus
photo Håkon Dahlmo
Whole even if not perfect
[Thomas] Merton taught me the importance of looking at life not merely in terms of either-or, but also in terms of both-and. Paradoxical thinking is key to creativity, which comes from the capacity to entertain apparently contradictory ideas in a way that stretches the mind and opens the heart to something new. Paradox is also a way of being that’s key to wholeness, which does not mean perfection: it means embracing brokenness as an integral part of life…..To be whole I have to be able to say I am both shadow and light.
Parker Palmer, A Friendship, A Love, A Rescue
photo wabi-sabi tea bowl by ottmarliebert
Letting ourselves fall
As human beings we share a tendency to scramble for certainty whenever we realize that everything around us is in flux. In difficult times the stress of trying to find solid ground — something predictable to stand on — seems to intensify. But in truth, the very nature of our existence is forever in flux. Everything keeps changing, whether we’re aware of it or not.
Pema Chodron, The Fundamental Ambiguity of Being Human
photo USASOC news service
As they are
The beginning of love is the will to let those we love be perfectly themselves, the resolution not to twist them to fit our own image. If in loving them we do not love what they are, but only their potential likeness to ourselves, then we do not love them: we only love the reflection of ourselves we find in them.
Thomas Merton, No Man is an Island
photo paul stocker
