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Dominican Preaching through Word and Image
Wednesday of Hope – For What Do We Hope?
The very least you can do in your life is to figure out what to hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope.
– Barbara Kingsolver
The Mystery of Gratitude
Ironically, gratitude’s most powerful mysteries are often revealed when we are struggling in the midst of personal turmoil.
– Sarah Ban Breathnach
Wednesday of Hope – Never Give Up
There are moments when I feel like giving up or giving in, but I soon rally again and do my duty as I see it: to keep the spark of life inside me ablaze.
– Etty Hillesum, An Interrupted Life
Don’t Take the Easy Way
We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.
– Maya Angelou
Wednesday of Hope – Wisdom from Helen Keller
No pessimist ever discovered the secret of the stars, or sailed an uncharted land, or opened a new doorway for the human spirit.
– Helen Keller
Sunshine and Smiles
What sunshine is to flowers, smiles are to humanity. These are but trifles, to be sure; but, scattered along life’s pathway, the good they do is inconceivable.
– Joseph Addison
Wednesday of Hope – Room for Great Hope
There is always room for great hope. For at every level of despair there is the possibility of giving up. In the midst of every dimension of delusion there are sparkles of sanity…. In the early years of life, giving up usually takes the form of faith. A leaping forward into a belief that one is loved, accepted, forgiven and redeemed just as one is, with nothing special needing to be done. In later years, giving up more often comes from despair. From the wisdom of realizing that no amount of continuing effort, no amount of fixing, will enable one to ‘get it all together.’ Despair then is forever a doorway to life.
– Gerald May
What Is the Future We Are Creating?
The future is not some place we are going, but one we are creating. The paths are not to be found, but made. And the activity of making them changes both the maker and their destination.
– John Schaar
Wednesday of Hope – Wendell Berry’s Wisdom
When despair for the world grows in me,
And I wake in the night in fear . . .
I go and lie down where the wood drake
Rests in beauty on the water,
And the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
Who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief.
I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day blind stars waiting with their light.
I rest in the grace of the world and am free.
– Wendell Berry
The Best Seeds to Plant
When you plant a seed of love, it is you that blossoms.
– Ma Jaya Sati
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