Ebook Quotes
The light to give you joy every day
I charge the sun, the blue of the sky, the light to give you joy every day.
~Simone Weil
Joy that is like a fire
The truly wise have a inner joy that is like a fire; it warms the world.
~ the Dalai Lama
The source of joy
In life's trials, little by little we realize that the source of joy does not lie in
extraordinary abilities or great expertise, but rather in the humble giving of ourselves in order to understand others with kind-heartedness. Joy is always there lying in waiting for us when simplicity is united to
kind-heartedness in our daily lives.
~ Brother Roger of Taizé
Transformed into the heart of joy
Solitude is the human condition, the universal vocation to be human. It is the
willingness, with Love indwelling, to go to the heart of pain to find new life and share it with the world even though you may be separated from it physically. From this
commitment to be focused through the narrow gate of solitude, self-emptying love is outpoured, and the heart of the community, the heart of pain, is transformed into the heart of joy.
~ Maggie Rose
We are meant to live in joy
"We are meant to live in joy," the Archbishop explained. "This does not mean that life will be easy or painless. It means that we can turn our faces to the wind and accept that this is the storm we must pass through. We cannot succeed by denying what exists. The acceptance of reality is the only place from which change can begin."
~ from THE BOOK OF JOY, His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu with Douglas Abrams
Authentic joy
Authentic joy is not a euphoric state or a feeling of being high. Rather, it is a state of appreciation that allows us to participate fully in our lives.
~ Pema Chodron
To perceive God's joy
Why is it always easier to anticipate God's wrath than to perceive God's joy? Ever
expecting to be shot, we're invariably dumbfounded by a grace we can't conceive...God plays rough before breaking into laughter.
~ Belden Lane
This is the true joy of life
This is the true joy of life: being used up for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one...I am of the opinion that my life belongs to others, and as long as I live, it is my privilege to do for them whatever I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work, the more I live...Life is no brief candle for me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for a moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.
~ George Bernard Shaw
The deep power of joy
With an eye made quiet by the power of harmony and by the deep power of joy, we see into the life of things.
~ William Wordsworth
Joy is my name
"I have no name:
I am but two days old."
What shall I call thee?
"I happy am,
Joy is my name."
Sweet joy befall thee!
I am but two days old."
What shall I call thee?
"I happy am,
Joy is my name."
Sweet joy befall thee!
~ Wm Blake
The effort must be light-hearted
The holy life is concerned with the journey, not the goal..In truth it is the spiritual
journey that brings great joy because it is a path of the heart . Discipline is needed; we need to put forth effort. The effort must be light-hearted. We can't be attached to our mistakes or any particular way of doing or being...We bring a sense of equanimity to all life's challenges; we learn to laugh at ourselves, to not take ourselves so seriously, and to get back up when we stumble. This brings us joy. Joy makes life whole and holy.
~ from OPEN MIND by Diane Mariechild
The most visible joy
The most visible joy
can only reveal itself to us
when we've transformed it, within.
can only reveal itself to us
when we've transformed it, within.
~ Rilke
A joyful awareness
The true source of joy is love—love of God, love of beauty, love of wisdom, love of
another human being, it does not matter which. It is all one love: a joyful awareness of dissolving boundaries of our ordinary
narrow self, of being one with reality
beyond, of being made whole.
~ from The Door to Joy by Irma Lalecki in "Heron Dance"
Joy is a piercing desire
Joy is a piercing desire, a mystical longing both painful and sweet: a kind of homesick-ness for a home we scarcely remember.
~ Deborah Smith Douglas, in Weavings, XV:4
We can cope with whatever life has to throw at us
Joy establishes us so securely in itself, and in the remembrance of its presence, that we can cope with whatever life has to throw at us.
~ from MEDITATIONS ON JOY by Wendy Beckett
One whole unity
We shall walk together on this path of life, for all things are part of the universe and are connected with each other to form one whole unity.
~ Maria Montessori in TO EDUCATE THE HUMAN POTENTIAL
Something not looked for
Joy is the by-product of something not looked for.
~ Nan Merrill
The miraculous in the common
The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson in Nature, Chapter VIII, 1836
To live life in radical amazement
Our goal should be to live life in radical amazement...get up in the morning and look at the world in a way that takes nothing for granted. Everything is phenomenal; everything is incredible; never treat life casually. To be spiritual is to be amazed.
~ Abraham Joshua Heschel
Patient Trust
"Patient Trust"
Above all, trust in the slow work of God.
We are quite naturally impatient in everything to reach the end without delay.
We should like to skip the intermediate stages.
We are impatient of being on the way to something unknown, something new.
And yet it is the law of all progress that it is made by passing through some stages of instability and that it may take a very long time.
And so I think it is with you. Your ideas mature gradually – let them grow, let them shape themselves, without undue haste.
Don't try to force them on, as though you could be today what time (that is to say, grace and circumstances acting on your own good will) will make of you tomorrow.
Only God could say what this new spirit gradually forming within you will be.
Give Our Lord the benefit of believing that his hand is leading you, and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself in suspense and incomplete.
Above all, trust in the slow work of God.
We are quite naturally impatient in everything to reach the end without delay.
We should like to skip the intermediate stages.
We are impatient of being on the way to something unknown, something new.
And yet it is the law of all progress that it is made by passing through some stages of instability and that it may take a very long time.
And so I think it is with you. Your ideas mature gradually – let them grow, let them shape themselves, without undue haste.
Don't try to force them on, as though you could be today what time (that is to say, grace and circumstances acting on your own good will) will make of you tomorrow.
Only God could say what this new spirit gradually forming within you will be.
Give Our Lord the benefit of believing that his hand is leading you, and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself in suspense and incomplete.
~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, S.J. (1881-1955)
The moment of the eternal now
If I am slavishly attached to the previous moment
Or if I'm already living
tomorrow's moments,
Then I am not free for
the moment of the eternal now
Or if I'm already living
tomorrow's moments,
Then I am not free for
the moment of the eternal now
~ Macrina Wiederkehr in WALK IN A RELAXED WAY
What our Children Need Most Right Now
"I encourage you to spend as much time with your family as your time allows, whether it's dancing, playing, walking, cooking, cleaning, being silly, or just hanging out. This can be a scary time for kids, and nothing will help ease their fears and encourage their cognitive and social development like spending time with you." ...This same teacher is also emailing us [parents] a daily photo of a bird to identify...and sharing out-of-the-box ideas for the students' unit this month on an appropriate topic: survival...but the words above are the words I will treasure as a parent for a long time. They will remind me to take a break from refreshing the updated coronavirus map, checking my school email, and cursing Amazon's multitude of out-of-stock items.
Instead, I'll look my 12-year-old daughter in the eyes and ask, "How you doing, Baby Goose?" I'll accept my son's challenge to a muddy soccer game in the backyard. I'll take him by the hand and walk up our mountain one more time, grateful that during a crisis when all we have is each other, "each other" is exactly what we all need.
~ Justin Minkel, an elementary school teacher in Arkansas, "What our Children Need Most Right Now": in Education Week., March 2020
We feel at one with nature and the realm of dreams
As infants we enjoy an intimacy with everything around us: tiny stones, butterflies, flowers, birds, animals both stuffed and real. We live in a world of beauty and imagination. Ecstasy comes easily. We feel at one with nature and the realm of dreams...The past, the future, the present: these are meaningless to us, for we have the ability to blend them into one. We can be anything we want at any time...Then at some point in our lives, that awareness changes...adults convince us that we are not all one.
~ John Perkins in THE WORLD IS AS YOU DREAM IT
In the child is much knowledge
In the child is much knowledge, much wisdom. If we do not profit from it, it is only because of neglect on our part to become humble and to see the wonder of this soul and learn what the child can teach.
~ Maria Montessori in THE THEOSOPHIST
To live a creative life
To live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong.
~ Joseph Chilton Pearce
Serious play
Serious art is born from serious play.
~ Julia Cameron in THE ARTIST'S WAY
Standing silent in the sun
Sometimes I wish I could photosynthesize so that just by being, just by shimmering at the meadow's edge or floating lazily on a pond, I could be doing the work of the world while standing silent in the sun.
~ Robin Wall Kimmerer in BRAIDING SWEETGRASS
The willow
"Scrape the willow until it sings..."
~ Julia Parker, Coast Miwok-Kashaya Pomo basket weaver
Creation is lifework
Creation is lifework, creation is how...you spend your life, you cannot divide life and the creation, it's impossible.
~ Yohji Yamamoto
Boredom is the runway of creativity
Boredom is — yes, the runway of creativity. That's the way I tell my youngest, if she ever says it. I'm like, "Great! You're bored! That means you're a little uncomfortable. And you know what? This incredible, creative world is right at the edge of that uncomfortableness," because it inevitably happens that you'll have to create your own sense of creativity...
...Your mind is in its most supple, creative state when it's off leash...we need to create more space off leash. And even now, when I step in the shower, I think, don't turn on the news, don't turn on anything, and just take a shower, because that's why you have your best ideas when you're in the shower or doing dishes or taking a walk. And we've just filled every waking moment with stimulation and input, and you need time to digest and create new thoughts...and figure out how you think about it and how it integrates to your larger narrative and — it's just such a great thing, to create that space to think.
~ Tiffany Shlain from "Living the Questions" podcast interview with Krista Tippett
Who can master beauty
I was taught that I had to 'master' subjects. But who can 'master' beauty, or peace, or joy?
~ Kathleen Norris in THE PSALMS WITH COMMENTARY
Something one could do
Beauty was not simply something to behold; it was something one could do.
~ Toni Morrison in THE BLUEST EYE
Open your eyes to unnoticed beauty
For most of us, knowledge of our world comes largely through sight, yet we look about with such unseeing eyes that we are partially blind. One way to open your eyes to unnoticed beauty is to ask yourself, 'What if I had never seen this before? What if I knew I would never see it again?'
~ Rachel Carson from THE SENSE OF WONDER
Might be joy
Because in trying to articulate what, perhaps, joy is, it has occurred to me that among other things—the trees and the mushrooms have shown me this—joy is the mostly invisible, the underground union between us, you and me, which is, among other things, the great fact of our life and the lives of everyone and thing we love going away. If we sink a spoon into that fact, into the duff between us, we will find it teeming. It will look like all the books ever written. It will look like all the nerves in a body. We might call it sorrow, but we might call it a union, one that, once we notice it, once we bring it into the light, might become flower and food. Might be joy.
~ Ross Gay in THE BOOK OF DELIGHTS
The loom of life
We sleep, but the loom of life never stops, and the pattern which was weaving when the sun went down is weaving when it comes up in the morning.
~ Henry Ward Beecher
Eagle Poem
To pray you open your whole self
To sky, to earth, to sun, to moon
To one whole voice that is you.
And know there is more
That you can't see, can't hear;
Can't know except in moments...
...we must take the utmost care
And kindness in all things.
Breathe in, knowing we are made of
All this, and breathe, knowing
We are truly blessed because we
Were born, and die soon within a
True circle of motion,
Like eagle rounding out the morning
Inside us.
We pray that it will be done
In beauty.
In beauty.
~ Joy Harjo in "Eagle Poem" from IN MAD LOVE AND WAR
Richly pollinated boughs of an ordinary life
I rarely think of poetry as something I make happen; it is more accurate to say that it happens to me. Like a summer storm, a house afire, or the coincidence of both on the same day. Like a car wreck, only with more illuminating results. I've overheard poems, virtually complete, in elevators or restaurants where I was minding my own business... When a poem does arrive, I gasp as if an apple had fallen into my hand, and give thanks for the luck involved. Poems are everywhere, but easy to miss. I know I might very well stand under that tree all day, whistling, looking off to the side, waiting for a red delicious poem to fall so I could own it forever. But like as not, it wouldn't. Instead it will fall right while I'm in the middle of changing the baby, or breaking up a rodeo event involving my children and the dog, or wiping my teary eyes while I'm chopping onions and listening to the news; then that apple will land with a thud and roll under the bed with the dust bunnies and lie there forgotten and lost for all time. There are dusty, lost poems all over my house, I assure you. In yours, too, I'd be willing to bet... I've lost so many I can't count them. I do understand that they fall when I'm least able to pay attention because poems fall not from a tree, really, but from the richly pollinated boughs of an ordinary life, buzzing, as lives do, with clamor and glory.
~ Barbara Kingsolver from "Stealing Apples" in SMALL WONDER
Unless we are creators
Unless we are creators, we are not fully alive... Remember, the root word of humble and human is the same: humus: earth. We are dust. We are created; it is God who made us and not we ourselves. But we were made to be co-creators with our maker.
~ Madeleine L'Engle in WALKING ON WATER
Restoring your own soul
Whenever you are creating beauty around you, you are restoring your own soul.
~ Alice Walker
Becoming
Peace is a day-to-day problem, the product of a multitude of events and judgements. Peace is not an 'is' it is a 'becoming.'
~ Haile Selassie
Psalm 35
Pour forth your strength into my heart
That I might stand strong!
Encircle with healing love those
Who persecute me through fear!
And say to my soul,
"I am with you always."
That I might stand strong!
Encircle with healing love those
Who persecute me through fear!
And say to my soul,
"I am with you always."
~ Nan Merrill, Psalm 35, in PSALMS FOR PRAYING
Indomitable will
Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.
~ Mahatma Gandhi in NON-VIOLENCE IN PEACE AND WAR
It isn't enough to talk about peace
It isn't enough to talk about peace. One must believe in it. And it isn't enough to believe in it. One must work at it.
~ Eleanor Roosevelt from 1951"Voice of America" broadcast
Their fears rest
When children know their differences will be supported by you saying you will never stop trying ways to help them find their very best voice, their fears rest.
~ Peyton Goddard in I AM INTELLIGENT: FROM HEARTBREAK TO HEALING
There seemed no end to the lilies
There seemed no end to the lilies. Day after day from all those miles and leagues of flowers there rose a smell which Lucy found it very hard to describe; sweet—yes, but not at all sleepy or overpowering, a fresh, wild, lonely smell that seemed to get into your brain and make you feel that you could go up mountains at a run or wrestle with an elephant. She and Caspian said to one another, "I feel that I can't stand much more of this, yet I don't want it to stop".
~ C.S. Lewis in VOYAGE OF THE DAWNTREADER
The very act of continuing something
We become better at something in ourselves—more skilled, more creative, more effective—when we work. We discover that, indeed, we are good for something. Good work is, at the time, its own kind of asceticism. It needs no symbolic rituals or contrived penances.
The very act of continuing something until we succeed at it is soul-searing, life changing enough... It makes us equal partners with the rest of the human race in this one common endeavor to grow the globe to wholeness. Good work is our gift to the future. It is what we leave behind—our persistence, our precision, our commitment, our fidelity to the smallest and meanest of tasks that will change the mind of generations to come about our sacred obligation to bear our share of the holy-making enterprise that is work.
The very act of continuing something until we succeed at it is soul-searing, life changing enough... It makes us equal partners with the rest of the human race in this one common endeavor to grow the globe to wholeness. Good work is our gift to the future. It is what we leave behind—our persistence, our precision, our commitment, our fidelity to the smallest and meanest of tasks that will change the mind of generations to come about our sacred obligation to bear our share of the holy-making enterprise that is work.
~ Joan Chittister in THE MONASTERY OF THE HEART
Some of the most beautiful people I know
It does seem a strange thing to count suffering as joy, yet there's a truth here in that suffering helps to build one's character. Some of the most beautiful people I know are those who have passed through the flames and come out strengthened. If it happens to clay, why shouldn't it happen to us.
~ Macrina Wiederkehr in OPEN WIDE MY HEART
Suffering often seems to be our opening
Love is what we long for and were created for—in fact love is what we are as an outpouring from God—but suffering often seems to be our opening to that need, that desire, and that identity. Love and suffering are the main portals that open up the mind space and the heart space (either can come first), breaking us into breadth, and depth and communion.
~ Richard Rohr in THE NAKED NOW
Held
We carried our grief
to the ocean's edge,
sat quiet in the sand;
the sorrows softened
as the waves washed
over them and the
brilliance of the
morning sun upon
the shimmering waters
filled our hearts
with wonder.
to the ocean's edge,
sat quiet in the sand;
the sorrows softened
as the waves washed
over them and the
brilliance of the
morning sun upon
the shimmering waters
filled our hearts
with wonder.
~ Robert Soley, "Held", in MOVING DAY
Not to give up under any circumstances
Not to give up under any circumstances should be the motto of our life: I shall try again and again, and I am bound to succeed. There will be obstacles, but I have to defy the obstacles.
~ Sri Chinmoy in BEYOND WITHIN
It always seems impossible
It always seems impossible until it's done.
~ Often attributed to Nelson Mandela, origins with Pliny the Elder
Miracles
A man traversed land and sea to check
for himself the Master's extraordinary fame.
"What miracles has your Master worked?"
he said to a disciple.
"Well, there are miracles and miracles.
In your land it is regarded as a miracle if
God does someone's will. In our country it
Is regarded as a miracle if someone does
The will of God."
~ Anthony de Mello from "Miracles" in ONE MINUTE WISDOM
In growth
The Master always left you to grow at your own pace. He was never known to "push." He explained this with the following parable:
"A man once saw a butterfly
struggling to emerge from
its cocoon, too slowly
for his taste, so he began
to blow on it gently. The
warmth of his breath speeded
up the process all right. But
what emerged was not a butterfly
but a creature with mangled
wings.
"In growth," the Master concluded, "you cannot speed the process up. All you can do is abort it."
"A man once saw a butterfly
struggling to emerge from
its cocoon, too slowly
for his taste, so he began
to blow on it gently. The
warmth of his breath speeded
up the process all right. But
what emerged was not a butterfly
but a creature with mangled
wings.
"In growth," the Master concluded, "you cannot speed the process up. All you can do is abort it."
~ Anthony de Mello from "Miracles" in ONE MINUTE WISDOM
Making Peace
A voice from the dark called out,
'The poets must give us
imagination of peace, to oust the intense, familiar
imagination of disaster. Peace, not only
the absence of war.'
But peace, like a poem,
is not there ahead of itself,
can't be imagined before it is made,
can't be known except
in the words of its making,
grammar of justice,
syntax of mutual aid.
A feeling towards it,
dimly sensing a rhythm, is all we have
until we begin to utter its metaphors,
learning them as we speak.
A line of peace might appear
if we restructured the sentence our lives are making,
revoked its reaffirmation of profit and power,
questioned our needs, allowed
long pauses. . .
A cadence of peace might balance its weight
on that different fulcrum; peace, a presence,
an energy field more intense than war,
might pulse then,
stanza by stanza into the world,
each act of living
one of its words, each word
a vibration of light—facets
of the forming crystal.
'The poets must give us
imagination of peace, to oust the intense, familiar
imagination of disaster. Peace, not only
the absence of war.'
But peace, like a poem,
is not there ahead of itself,
can't be imagined before it is made,
can't be known except
in the words of its making,
grammar of justice,
syntax of mutual aid.
A feeling towards it,
dimly sensing a rhythm, is all we have
until we begin to utter its metaphors,
learning them as we speak.
A line of peace might appear
if we restructured the sentence our lives are making,
revoked its reaffirmation of profit and power,
questioned our needs, allowed
long pauses. . .
A cadence of peace might balance its weight
on that different fulcrum; peace, a presence,
an energy field more intense than war,
might pulse then,
stanza by stanza into the world,
each act of living
one of its words, each word
a vibration of light—facets
of the forming crystal.
~ Denise Levertov, "Making Peace", in BREATHING THE WATER
Wrestling the light
To wrestle with, and for, the light, for some meaning in life, is always a way of being in the presence of God.
~ Ted Loder in WRESTLING THE LIGHT