Posts tagged ‘post-processing’
Do Not Be Small Minded
Do not be small minded. Do not pray for gourds and pumpkins from God, when you should be asking for pure love and pure knowledge to dawn within every heart.
– Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, Great Swanby by Lex Hixon
Wednesday of Hope – Breathing Hope
Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.
– Arundhati Roy
Wednesday of Hope – Cup of Hope
Drinking our cup is not simply adapting ourselves to a bad situation and trying to use it as well as we can. Drinking our cup is a hopeful, courageous, and self-confident way of living. It is standing in the world with head erect, solidly rooted in the knowledge of who we are, facing the reality that surrounds us and responding to it from our hearts.
– Henri Nouwen
Wednesday of Hope – Hope of All Hallows Eve
In our Christian tradition, the eve of a feast is the beginning of the celebration of that feast. Today is Halloween, or originally, All Hallows Eve – the evening before All Saints Day – October 31st. On All Saints Day – November 1st– we remember all those faithful women and men who have died, but never received “official” recognition that their lives were holy. Truly, all of us are holy . . . all of us are saints.
We can recall that wonderful song, “When the Saints Go Marching In.” Those words are our hope, “O, Lord, I want to be in that number, when the saints go marching in!” The other feast we celebrate at this time is All Souls Day, sometimes known as The Day of the Dead – November 2nd– when we remember those who have died, and hold them in our prayers.
So for this these three days, we celebrate three feasts that remember all those who have died, and we are reminded that we too will die. Our faith in the resurrection gives us confidence in the joyful communion we will share with those we have loved when we are fully united with our loving God.
Wednesday of Hope – The Need for Humor
The only thing I can recommend at this stage is a sense of humor, an ability to see things in their ridiculous and absurd dimensions, to laugh at others and at ourselves, a sense of irony regarding everything that calls out for parody in this world. In other words, I can only recommend perspective and distance.
– Václav Havel
Wednesday of Hope – Dragons Can Be Killed
Fairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed.
– G.K. Chesterton
Wednesday of Hope – Saving Hope
Because we spill not only milk
Knocking it over with an elbow
When we reach to wipe a small face
But also spill seed on soil we thought was fertile but isn’t,
And also spill whole lives, and only later see in fading light
How much is gone and we hadn’t intended it
Because we tear not only cloth
Thinking to find a true edge and instead making only a hole
But also tear friendships when we grow
And whole mountainsides because we are so many
And we want to live right where black oaks lived,
Once very quietly and still
Because we forget not only what we are doing in the kitchen
And have to go back to the room we were in before,
Remember why it was we left
But also forget entire lexicons of joy
And how we lost ourselves for hours
Yet all that time were clearly found and held
And also forget the hungry not at our table
Because we weep not only at jade plants caught in freeze
And precious papers left in rain
But also at legs that no longer walk
Or never did, although from the outside they look like most others
And also weep at words said once as though
They might be rearranged but which
Once loose, refuse to return and we are helpless
Because we are imperfect and love so
Deeply we will never have enough days,
We need the gift of starting over, beginning
Again: just this constant good, this
Saving hope.– Nancy Shaffer, Instructions in Joy
