OPreach
Dominican Preaching through Word and Image
Wednesday of Hope – Possibilities
If you assume that there is no hope, you guarantee that there will be no hope. If you assume that there is an instinct for freedom, that there are opportunities to change things, then there is a possibility that you can contribute to making a better world.
– Noam Chomsky
Qualities of God’s Friends
The Friend of God has these three qualities: a generosity like that of the ocean, a compassion like that of the sun, and a humility like that of the earth.
– Bayazid, Tadhkirat
Wednesday of Hope – Rainbows
God puts rainbows in the clouds so that each of us — in the dreariest and most dreaded moments — can see a possibility of hope.
– Maya Angelou
For a Mind Clear as Water
In a mind clear as still water, even the waves, breaking, are reflecting its light
– Eihei Dogen
Wednesday of Hope – Not Losing Hope
There is a saying in Tibetan, ‘Tragedy should be utilized as a source of strength.’ No matter what sort of difficulties, how painful experience is, if we lose our hope, that’s our real disaster.
– Dalai Lama
Rise to Taste the Dawn
I rise to taste the dawn, and find that love alone will shine today.
– Ken Wilber
Wednesday of Hope – Hopefulness Is Not Romantic
To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places—and there are so many—where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction./ And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.
– Howard Zinn
Whole Worlds of Wonder even in a Single Drop of Water
Mountains and oceans have whole worlds of innumerable wondrous features. We should understand that it is not only our distant surroundings that are like this, but even what is right here, even a single drop of water.
– Eihei Dogen
Wednesday of Hope – We Are Never Hopeless
We need never be hopeless because we can never be irreparably broken.
– John Green, Looking for Alaska
Animals Are People Too! And, of course, Trees.
Animals are people, too. As are plants. And water. And soil. This is the fundamental insight at the heart of all eco-spiritual work. But to get that insight, we have to get with the big picture. To get that insight, we have to climb a tree.
– Clark Strand, Trees, Butterflies, and the Buddhist Moral Life
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