“Nothing behind me, everything ahead of me, as is ever so on the road.”
“The best teacher is experience and not through someone's distorted point of view”
“Boys and girls in America have such a sad time together; sophistication demands that they submit to sex immediately without proper preliminary talk. Not courting talk — real straight talk about souls, for life is holy and every moment is precious.”
“I was surprised, as always, by how easy the act of leaving was, and how good it felt. The world was suddenly rich with possibility.”
“I realized these were all the snapshots which our children would look at someday with wonder, thinking their parents had lived smooth, well-ordered lives and got up in the morning to walk proudly on the sidewalks of life, never dreaming the raggedy madness and riot of our actual lives, our actual night, the hell of it, the senseless emptiness.”
“I woke up as the sun was reddening; and that was the one distinct time in my life, the strangest moment of all, when I didn't know who I was - I was far away from home, haunted and tired with travel, in a cheap hotel room I'd never seen, hearing the hiss of steam outside, and the creak of the old wood of the hotel, and footsteps upstairs, and all the sad sounds, and I looked at the cracked high ceiling and really didn't know who I was for about fifteen strange seconds. I wasn't scared; I was just somebody else, some stranger, and my whole life was a haunted life, the life of a ghost.”
“But why think about that when all the golden lands ahead of you and all kinds of unforseen events wait lurking to surprise you and make you glad you're alive to see?”
“...we all must admit that everything is fine and there's no need in the world to worry, and in fact we should realize what it would mean to us to UNDERSTAND that we're not REALLY worried about ANYTHING.”
“all I wanted to do was sneak out into the night and disappear somewhere, and go and find out what everybody was doing all over the country.”
“There was nothing to talk about anymore. The only thing to do was go.”
“I suddenly began to realize that everybody in America is a natural-born thief.”
“I ate another apple pie and ice cream; that's practically all I ate all the way across the country, I knew it was nutritious and it was delicious, of course.”
“What do you want out of life?" I asked, and I used to ask that all the time of girls.
I don't know," she said. "Just wait on tables and try to get along." She yawned. I put my hand over her mouth and told her not to yawn. I tried to tell her how excited I was about life and the things we could do together; saying that, and planning to leave Denver in two days. She turned away wearily. We lay on our backs, looking at the ceiling and wondering what God had wrought when He made life so sad.”
“Soon it got dusk, a grapy dusk, a purple dusk over tangerine groves and long melon fields; the sun the color of pressed grapes, slashed with burgandy red, the fields the color of love and Spanish mysteries.”
“I just won't sleep," I decided. There were so many other interesting things to do.”
Monday, December 12, 2016
Friday, December 9, 2016
Life's Too Short...
Life's Too Short...
...To make excuses.
...To save the good dishes for special occasions.
...To think a compliment and not say it.
..To sing half-heartedly.
...To let fear hold you back.
...To hoard and keep too much stuff.
...To simply trudge through the days.
...To forget the touch and small of Play-doh.
...To eat the same meals day after day.
...To not pray often, giving thanks in all things.
...To not be able to read and write well.
...To have a weak handshake.
...To not look someone in the eye when you are talking to them.
...To stop learning new things.
...To not learn from others mistakes.
...To not learn from our own mistakes.
...To not know that Jesus died for you.
...To not acknowledge that there is a God.
...To forget prayer is a two-way conversation.
...To only read about the Grand Canyon and never see it yourself.
....To ever always be comfortable.
...To not go off the path in the woods and get wonderfully lost.
...To not stand on top of a mountain and enjoy the view.
...To measure success by possessions and life by years.
...To let technology replace personal human interaction.
...To not meet someone new every day.
...To feel uncomfortable with silence.
...To regret life not meeting your expectations.
...To insist God do it your way.
...To avoid life.
...To fail to admire how things are made (the those who made them).
...To major in the minors.
...Give up too soon.
...To lie.
...To cheat.
...To spend time in jail.
...To brag about doing a bad thing.
...Complain you are bored.
...To not accept yourself as you are today.
...To be prideful, arrogant or unkind.
...To be impatient and rude.
...To cuss at inanimate objects.
...To part company without a loving embrace.
...To spend time rehearsing your anger.
...To blame others.
...To watch football all weekend.
...To miss saying "I love you" every day.
...To treat each day as a drudgery.
...To misplace things.
...To not sit around a fire with friends.
....To lend. Give it away instead, you can never be too generous.
...To try to change what you can't.
...To get roped into unnecessary drama. Repeat after me: "Not my circus, not my monkeys".
...To complain about people who aren't going to change.
...To give it away to addictions.
...To open yourself up to spiritual evil.
...To blame your parents for your problems.
...To not look your best every day (If only for yourself).
...To not do your best every day (your best, not someone else's best).
...To spend it with people you don't like.
...To live only for the weekends.
...To miss the sweetness of simple things.
...To not smell great smells.
...To apologize for things you can't control.
...To wear clothes that don't fit.
...To not try new foods.
...To put others down when you could be lifting them up.
...To talk before you listen.
...To hold people to standards you cannot meet yourself.
...To break promises.
...To hold a grudge and not forgive others (and yourself).
...To not go on adventures. Travel is life.
...To be embarrassed to sing or dance.
...To hate Mondays.
...To not give an honest day's work on Friday.
...To take short-cuts and procrastinate. If you are going to do it, do it your best!
...To gossip.
...To talk about shallow things.
...To always have to explain yourself.
...To try to reason with an unreasonable person.
...To be surrounded with critical, negative people.
...To speak in cliche's, never expanding your vocabulary.
...To eat alone.
...To not know your neighbors.
...To focus on your failures.
...To always take the same route.
...To not share the original person you are.
...To make excuses.
...To save the good dishes for special occasions.
...To think a compliment and not say it.
..To sing half-heartedly.
...To let fear hold you back.
...To hoard and keep too much stuff.
...To simply trudge through the days.
...To forget the touch and small of Play-doh.
...To eat the same meals day after day.
...To not pray often, giving thanks in all things.
...To not be able to read and write well.
...To have a weak handshake.
...To not look someone in the eye when you are talking to them.
...To stop learning new things.
...To not learn from others mistakes.
...To not learn from our own mistakes.
...To not know that Jesus died for you.
...To not acknowledge that there is a God.
...To forget prayer is a two-way conversation.
...To only read about the Grand Canyon and never see it yourself.
....To ever always be comfortable.
...To not go off the path in the woods and get wonderfully lost.
...To not stand on top of a mountain and enjoy the view.
...To measure success by possessions and life by years.
...To let technology replace personal human interaction.
...To not meet someone new every day.
...To feel uncomfortable with silence.
...To regret life not meeting your expectations.
...To insist God do it your way.
...To avoid life.
...To fail to admire how things are made (the those who made them).
...To major in the minors.
...Give up too soon.
...To lie.
...To cheat.
...To spend time in jail.
...To brag about doing a bad thing.
...Complain you are bored.
...To not accept yourself as you are today.
...To be prideful, arrogant or unkind.
...To be impatient and rude.
...To cuss at inanimate objects.
...To part company without a loving embrace.
...To spend time rehearsing your anger.
...To blame others.
...To watch football all weekend.
...To miss saying "I love you" every day.
...To treat each day as a drudgery.
...To misplace things.
...To not sit around a fire with friends.
....To lend. Give it away instead, you can never be too generous.
...To try to change what you can't.
...To get roped into unnecessary drama. Repeat after me: "Not my circus, not my monkeys".
...To complain about people who aren't going to change.
...To give it away to addictions.
...To open yourself up to spiritual evil.
...To blame your parents for your problems.
...To not look your best every day (If only for yourself).
...To not do your best every day (your best, not someone else's best).
...To spend it with people you don't like.
...To live only for the weekends.
...To miss the sweetness of simple things.
...To not smell great smells.
...To apologize for things you can't control.
...To wear clothes that don't fit.
...To not try new foods.
...To put others down when you could be lifting them up.
...To talk before you listen.
...To hold people to standards you cannot meet yourself.
...To break promises.
...To hold a grudge and not forgive others (and yourself).
...To not go on adventures. Travel is life.
...To be embarrassed to sing or dance.
...To hate Mondays.
...To not give an honest day's work on Friday.
...To take short-cuts and procrastinate. If you are going to do it, do it your best!
...To gossip.
...To talk about shallow things.
...To always have to explain yourself.
...To try to reason with an unreasonable person.
...To be surrounded with critical, negative people.
...To speak in cliche's, never expanding your vocabulary.
...To eat alone.
...To not know your neighbors.
...To focus on your failures.
...To always take the same route.
...To not share the original person you are.
Friday, January 1, 2016
Glennon Doyle Melton Quotes
“Life is hard—not because we’re doing it wrong, just because it’s hard.”
“When her pain is fresh and new, let her have it. Don't try to take it away. Forgive yourself for not having that power. Grief and pain are like joy and peace; they are not things we should try to snatch from each other. They're sacred. they are part of each person's journey. All we can do is offer relief from this fear: I am all alone. That's the one fear you can alleviate.”
“The only meaningful thing we can offer one another is love. Not advice, not questions about our choices, not suggestions for the future, just love.”
“You have been offered "the gift of crisis". As Kathleen Norris reminds us, the Greek root of the word crisis is "to sift", as in, to shake out the excesses and leave only what's important. That's what crises do. They shake things up until we are forced to hold on to only what matters most. The rest falls away.”
“The sun shows up every morning, no matter how bad you've been the night before. It shines without judgment. It never withholds. It warms the sinners, the saints, the druggies, the cheerleaders- the saved and the heathens alike. You can hide from the sun, but it wont take you personally. It´ll never, ever punish you for hiding. You can stay in the dark for years or decades, and when you finally step outside, it´ll be there.”
“That’s how you can tell that you’re filling yourself with the wrong things. You use a lot of energy, and in the end, you feel emptier and less comfortable than ever.”
“If you feel something calling you to dance or write or paint or sing, please refuse to worry about whether you’re good enough. Just do it. Be generous. Offer a gift to the world that no one else can offer: yourself.”
“God approaches us in the disguise of other people.”
“What is to give light must endure burning.” —Viktor E. Frankl
“Kind people are brave people. Brave is not something you should wait to feel. Brave is a decision. It is a decision that compassion is more important than fear, than fitting in, than following the crowd.”
“When they speak to you from their fear--speak past their fear and directly to their love. Their Love will step forward eventually.”
“Wherever you go, there you are. Your emptiness goes with you. Maddening. Things that help: writing, reading, water, walks, forgiving myself every other minute, practicing easy yoga, taking deep breaths, and petting my dogs. These things don't fill me completely, but they remind me that it is not my job to fill myself. It's just my job to notice my emptiness and find graceful ways to live as a broken, unfilled human...
If there's a silver lining to the emptiness, here it is: the unfillable is what brings people together. I've never made a friend by bragging about my strengths, but I've made countless by sharing my weakness and my emptiness.”
“I did then what I knew how to do. Now that I know better, I do better.”
“Persevere. Bear with great patience each other’s infirmities of body or behavior. And when the thorns of contention arise, daily forgive, and be ready to accept forgiveness.”
“I think one of the keys to happiness is accepting that I am never going to be perfectly happy. Life is uncomfortable. So I might as well get busy loving the people around me. I’m going to stop trying so hard to decide whether they are the “right people” for me and just take deep breaths and love my neighbors. I’m going to take care of my friends. I’m going to find peace in the ’burbs. I’m going to quit chasing happiness long enough to notice it smiling right at me.”
“Reading is my inhale and writing is my exhale.”
“I am a child of God, and so is everyone else. We are all on the same side. And so in each new person, I see an invitation to know a new side of God. There are as many sides of him as there are people walking the earth. I think that’s why he keeps making people. He’s not done telling us about himself yet. So I remember that each person I meet or hear from, even if she’s not yet treating me the way I’d like to be treated, is the most important thing on earth. There is no hierarchy of importance, of brilliance. We are each infinity important. More brilliant than the sun. Because each of us is a child of God. So we better recognize. Those are the two sides of the golden coin I’d like each of my children to keep in her pocket forever: Be confident because you are a child of God. Be humble because everyone else is too.”
“Loving people and animals makes us stronger in the right ways and weaker in the right ways. Even if animals and people leave, even if they die, they leave us better. So we keep loving, even though we might lose, because loving teaches us and changes us.”
“Why does it have to hurt? Why does it have to be hard?” Tish asked me. “You know how math is your hardest class right now, but it’s also where you’re learning the most?” I explained. “It’s like that. Life is about learning, and we learn best when things get hard.”
“I don’t want to take anything to the grave. I want to die used up and emptied out. I don’t want to carry around anything that I don’t have to. I want to travel light.”
"Different always turns out to be an illusion."
“I love God, whoever he is, and I’d really like to get closer to him. I’ve been thinking about how one of the simplest ways to get close to a woman is to be good to her children. To be kind and gentle and to pay close attention to the things that make them special. To try to see her children the way she sees her children. And how God made us in his image. How he is the mother and father of all of us. So I wonder if that would be the best way to get closer to him too. By being kind and gentle to his children and noticing all of the things that make them special. So many of us spend our time trying to find God in books, but maybe the simplest way to God is directly through the hearts of his children.”
“Let’s be Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird. Atticus’s children, Scout and Jem, carefully watch their father’s behavior as the house next door to theirs burns to the ground. As the fire creeps closer and closer to the Finches’ home, Atticus appears so calm that Scout and Jem finally decide that “it ain’t time to worry yet.” We need to be Atticus. Hands in our pockets. Calm. Believing. So that our children will look at us and even with a fire raging in front of them, they’ll say, “Huh. Guess it’s not time to worry yet.”
“I thought a lot about how beautiful and powerful courage and faith are when they are found together.”
“You can never get enough of what you don’t need.”
“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive." —Howard Thurman
“I don't believe in advice. Everybody has the answers right inside her, since we're all made up of the same amount of God. So when a friend says, I need some advice, I switch it to, I need some love, and I try to offer that.”
“I think God puts people in our lives as gifts to us. The children in your class this year, they are some of God's gifts to you. So please treat each one like a gift from God. Every single one.”
“Peace is not the absence of conflict, but the ability to cope with it." —Robert Fulghum
“Holes are good for making friends, and friends are the best fillers I’ve found yet. Maybe because other people are the closest we get to God on this side. So when we use them to find God in each other, we become holy.”
“There are two different types of time. Chronos time is what we live in. It’s regular time. It’s one minute at a time, staring down the clock until bedtime time. It’s ten excruciating minutes in the Target line time, four screaming minutes in time-out time, two hours until Daddy gets home time. Chronos is the hard, slow-passing time we parents often live in. Then there’s Kairos time. Kairos is God’s time. It’s time outside of time. It’s metaphysical time. Kairos is those magical moments in which time stands still. I have a few of those moments each day, and I cherish them.”
“When her pain is fresh and new, let her have it. Don't try to take it away. Forgive yourself for not having that power. Grief and pain are like joy and peace; they are not things we should try to snatch from each other. They're sacred. they are part of each person's journey. All we can do is offer relief from this fear: I am all alone. That's the one fear you can alleviate.”
“The only meaningful thing we can offer one another is love. Not advice, not questions about our choices, not suggestions for the future, just love.”
“You have been offered "the gift of crisis". As Kathleen Norris reminds us, the Greek root of the word crisis is "to sift", as in, to shake out the excesses and leave only what's important. That's what crises do. They shake things up until we are forced to hold on to only what matters most. The rest falls away.”
“The sun shows up every morning, no matter how bad you've been the night before. It shines without judgment. It never withholds. It warms the sinners, the saints, the druggies, the cheerleaders- the saved and the heathens alike. You can hide from the sun, but it wont take you personally. It´ll never, ever punish you for hiding. You can stay in the dark for years or decades, and when you finally step outside, it´ll be there.”
“That’s how you can tell that you’re filling yourself with the wrong things. You use a lot of energy, and in the end, you feel emptier and less comfortable than ever.”
“If you feel something calling you to dance or write or paint or sing, please refuse to worry about whether you’re good enough. Just do it. Be generous. Offer a gift to the world that no one else can offer: yourself.”
“God approaches us in the disguise of other people.”
“What is to give light must endure burning.” —Viktor E. Frankl
“Kind people are brave people. Brave is not something you should wait to feel. Brave is a decision. It is a decision that compassion is more important than fear, than fitting in, than following the crowd.”
“When they speak to you from their fear--speak past their fear and directly to their love. Their Love will step forward eventually.”
“Wherever you go, there you are. Your emptiness goes with you. Maddening. Things that help: writing, reading, water, walks, forgiving myself every other minute, practicing easy yoga, taking deep breaths, and petting my dogs. These things don't fill me completely, but they remind me that it is not my job to fill myself. It's just my job to notice my emptiness and find graceful ways to live as a broken, unfilled human...
If there's a silver lining to the emptiness, here it is: the unfillable is what brings people together. I've never made a friend by bragging about my strengths, but I've made countless by sharing my weakness and my emptiness.”
“I did then what I knew how to do. Now that I know better, I do better.”
“Persevere. Bear with great patience each other’s infirmities of body or behavior. And when the thorns of contention arise, daily forgive, and be ready to accept forgiveness.”
“I think one of the keys to happiness is accepting that I am never going to be perfectly happy. Life is uncomfortable. So I might as well get busy loving the people around me. I’m going to stop trying so hard to decide whether they are the “right people” for me and just take deep breaths and love my neighbors. I’m going to take care of my friends. I’m going to find peace in the ’burbs. I’m going to quit chasing happiness long enough to notice it smiling right at me.”
“Reading is my inhale and writing is my exhale.”
“I am a child of God, and so is everyone else. We are all on the same side. And so in each new person, I see an invitation to know a new side of God. There are as many sides of him as there are people walking the earth. I think that’s why he keeps making people. He’s not done telling us about himself yet. So I remember that each person I meet or hear from, even if she’s not yet treating me the way I’d like to be treated, is the most important thing on earth. There is no hierarchy of importance, of brilliance. We are each infinity important. More brilliant than the sun. Because each of us is a child of God. So we better recognize. Those are the two sides of the golden coin I’d like each of my children to keep in her pocket forever: Be confident because you are a child of God. Be humble because everyone else is too.”
“Loving people and animals makes us stronger in the right ways and weaker in the right ways. Even if animals and people leave, even if they die, they leave us better. So we keep loving, even though we might lose, because loving teaches us and changes us.”
“Why does it have to hurt? Why does it have to be hard?” Tish asked me. “You know how math is your hardest class right now, but it’s also where you’re learning the most?” I explained. “It’s like that. Life is about learning, and we learn best when things get hard.”
“I don’t want to take anything to the grave. I want to die used up and emptied out. I don’t want to carry around anything that I don’t have to. I want to travel light.”
"Different always turns out to be an illusion."
“I love God, whoever he is, and I’d really like to get closer to him. I’ve been thinking about how one of the simplest ways to get close to a woman is to be good to her children. To be kind and gentle and to pay close attention to the things that make them special. To try to see her children the way she sees her children. And how God made us in his image. How he is the mother and father of all of us. So I wonder if that would be the best way to get closer to him too. By being kind and gentle to his children and noticing all of the things that make them special. So many of us spend our time trying to find God in books, but maybe the simplest way to God is directly through the hearts of his children.”
“Let’s be Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird. Atticus’s children, Scout and Jem, carefully watch their father’s behavior as the house next door to theirs burns to the ground. As the fire creeps closer and closer to the Finches’ home, Atticus appears so calm that Scout and Jem finally decide that “it ain’t time to worry yet.” We need to be Atticus. Hands in our pockets. Calm. Believing. So that our children will look at us and even with a fire raging in front of them, they’ll say, “Huh. Guess it’s not time to worry yet.”
“I thought a lot about how beautiful and powerful courage and faith are when they are found together.”
“You can never get enough of what you don’t need.”
“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive." —Howard Thurman
“I don't believe in advice. Everybody has the answers right inside her, since we're all made up of the same amount of God. So when a friend says, I need some advice, I switch it to, I need some love, and I try to offer that.”
“I think God puts people in our lives as gifts to us. The children in your class this year, they are some of God's gifts to you. So please treat each one like a gift from God. Every single one.”
“Peace is not the absence of conflict, but the ability to cope with it." —Robert Fulghum
“Holes are good for making friends, and friends are the best fillers I’ve found yet. Maybe because other people are the closest we get to God on this side. So when we use them to find God in each other, we become holy.”
“There are two different types of time. Chronos time is what we live in. It’s regular time. It’s one minute at a time, staring down the clock until bedtime time. It’s ten excruciating minutes in the Target line time, four screaming minutes in time-out time, two hours until Daddy gets home time. Chronos is the hard, slow-passing time we parents often live in. Then there’s Kairos time. Kairos is God’s time. It’s time outside of time. It’s metaphysical time. Kairos is those magical moments in which time stands still. I have a few of those moments each day, and I cherish them.”
Brilliant Will Durant Quotes
“Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance.”
“The only real revolution is in the enlightenment of the mind and the improvement of character, the only real emancipation is individual, and the only real revolutionaries are philosophers and saints.”
“It is a mistake to think that the past is dead. Nothing that has ever happened is quite without influence at this moment.”
“To speak ill of others is a dishonest way of praising ourselves.”
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.”
“A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself within.”
“I feel for all faiths the warm sympathy of one who has come to learn that even the trust in reason is a precarious faith, and that we are all fragments of darkness groping for the sun.”
“No man who is in a hurry is quite civilized.”
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