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This first bit is a summary of my recent poem What Does the Christ Do? Kudos to Episcopal priest Joe…I love it:

“The Christ dispels our nightmare,
Commands our terror cease,
Speaks health to pain and sickness,
To make our joy increase.
The Christ renews our likeness
To Spirit, Source of all,
Enabling us to venture
Past every deadly wall.”

Here are some miscellaneous quotes shared by readers in the last few months. (I assume the attributions of sources are correct…) I think these bits show my readers understand where I am coming from. Don’t you agree? Thank you for that. Check them out:

“Never think that you need to protect God. Because anytime you think you need to protect God, you can be sure that you are worshiping an idol.” Stanley Hauerwas

“He who works with his hands is a laborer.
He who works with his hands and his head is a craftsman.
He who works with his hand and his head and his heart is an artist.” St Francis of Assisi

“We’ve bought into the idea that education is about training and “success”, defined monetarily, rather than learning to think critically and to challenge. We should not forget that the true purpose of education is to make minds not careers. A culture that does not grasp the vital interplay between morality and power, which mistakes management techniques for wisdom, which fails to understand that the measure of a civilization is its compassion, not its speed or ability to consume, condemns itself to death.” Chris Hedges

“I wanted to change the world. But I have found that the only thing one can be sure of changing is oneself.” Aldous Huxley

“When ‘I’ is replaced by ‘we’, ‘illness’ turns into “wellness’.” Anonymous

“The world we have created is a product of our thinking; it cannot be changed without changing our thinking.” Albert Einstein

“It takes courage to grow up and turn out to be who you really are.” e.e.cummings

“I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.” Galileo Galilei

“Sow a thought, reap an action; sow an action, reap a habit; sow a habit, reap a character; sow a character, reap a destiny.” Stephen Covey

“If you hear a voice within you say ‘You cannot paint,’ then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced.” Vincent Van Gogh

“The planet does not need more ‘successful’ people. But it does desperately need more peacemakers, healers, restorers, storytellers, and lovers of every shape and form. It needs people who live well in their places. It needs people of moral courage willing to join the fight to make the world habitable and humane. And these needs have very little to do with success as our culture has defined it.” David Orr

“The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.” Aristotle

“As spiritual searchers we need to become freer of the attachment to our own smallness in which we get occupied with me-me-me. Pondering on large ideas or standing in front of things which remind us of a vast scale can free us from acquisitiveness and competitiveness and from our likes and dislikes. If we sit with an increasing stillness of the body, and attune our mind to the sky or to the ocean or to the myriad stars at night, or any other indicators of vastness, the mind gradually stills and the heart is filled with quiet joy. Also recalling our own experiences in which we acted generously or with compassion for the simple delight of it without expectation of any gain can give us more confidence in the existence of a deeper goodness from which we may deviate. (39)” ― Ravi Ravindra, The Wisdom of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras: A New Translation and Guide by Ravi Ravindra”

“Humility is not thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less.” C.S Lewis

“Making love the new bottom line isn’t naïve; believing we can survive the next hundred years doing anything less than that, is naïve.” Marianne Williamson

“Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.” Anais Nin

“Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit.” Edward Abbey

“No man steps in the same river twice, for it is not the same river and he is not the same man” – Heraclitus

“Any corporation, church, institution and society that embraces all people with love, justice & understanding is going to thrive.” Julio Rivas

“What I know for sure is that you feel real JOY in direct proportion to how connected you are to living your truth.” Oprah

“Success in life depends upon persistent effort, upon the improvement of moments more than upon any other one thing.” –Mary Baker Eddy

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