Big Picture

My country is the world, and my religion is to do good.

- Thomas Paine

Seeds of Happiness

Everything is material for the seed of happiness, if you look into it with inquisitiveness and curiosity. The future is completely open, and we are writing it moment to moment. There always is the potential to create an environment of blame - or one that is conducive to loving-kindness.

- Pema Chodron

Compassion

What I've come to learn is that the world is never saved in grand messianic gestures, but in the simple accumulation of gentle, soft, almost invisible acts of compassion, everyday acts of compassion.

In South Africa they have a phrase called ubuntu. Ubuntu comes out of a philosophy that says, the only way for me to be human is for you to reflect my humanity back at me.


- Chris Abani

Paradox, Possibility and Hope

We live in a time of profound paradox, but also profound possibility,
and profound hope.

The paradox is that this (extreme poverty) continues
in a world of vast wealth and knowledge.

The hope is the fact that we live in
an age of vast possibility.


If we choose correctly,
this kind of extreme poverty
could be ended
in our generation.

- Jeffrey Sachs, Economist, Director of the UN Millennium Project

Take the First Step

Take the first step in faith....you don't have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step. 


- Martin Luther King Jr

Compassion

Compassion is sometimes the fatal capacity for feeling what it is like to live inside somebody else's skin. It is the knowledge that there can never really be any peace and joy for me until there is peace and joy finally for you too.


- Frederick Buechner

Kindness

Sometimes our light goes out
but is blown into a flame by another human being.
Each of us owes deepest thanks
to those who have
rekindled this light.

– Albert Schweitzer

Peace

Peace comes from being able to contribute
the best that we have,
and all that we are,
toward creating a world that supports everyone.

But it is also securing the space for others
to contribute the best that they have
and all that they are.


-  Hafsat Abiola

Sowing Seeds

This body of mine is my field.
I sow good thoughts and actions,
and in my body I reap the results.

- Quote from The Bhagavad Gita

Thanks Harmony

New Year's Eve

New Year's eve is like every other night; there is no pause in the march of the universe, no breathless moment of silence among created things that the passage of another twelve months may be noted; and yet no man has quite the same thoughts this evening that come with the coming of darkness on other nights.

- Hamilton Wright Mabie

Christmas Gift Suggestions

Christmas gift suggestions:

To your enemy, forgiveness.
To an opponent, tolerance.
To a friend, your heart.
To a customer, service.
To all, charity.
To every child, a good example.
To yourself, respect.
~ Oren Arnold

Life and Love

Life is eternal, and love is immortal,
and death is only a horizon;
and a horizon is nothing
save the limit of our sight.

- Rossiter Worthington Raymond

Christmas Candle

A Christmas candle is a lovely thing;

It makes no noise at all,

But softly gives itself away.

- Eva Logue

Getting More Than We Give

Do not stand on a high pedestal and
take 5 cents in your hand and say,
"here, my poor man",
but be grateful that the poor man is there,
so by making a gift to him you are able to help yourself.

It is not the reciever that is blessed, but it is the giver.

Be thankful that you are allowed to exercise
your power of benevolence and mercy in the world,
and thus become pure and perfect.


- Swami Vivekananda (Indian Spiritual leader)

Hope

When the world says, "Give up,"


Hope whispers, "Try it one more time."

- Author Unknown

Bounces and Bumps

Our lives disconnect and reconnect, we move on, and later we may again touch one another, again bounce away. This is the felt shape of a human life ... this bouncey-castle sequence of bumpings-into and tumblings-apart.

- Salman Rushdie

Last Post

Spats cover
Polluted boots
With a Sam Browne strapped
To a spit and polish belt
Tightened by the sergeant
Holding him there
Completely trapped.

Deathly still
Helmand
Mourning loss
Hobnailed by the flagpole
With a drooping ensign
In a two-minute silence
Like three hours on a cross.

Numb lips
This November
And another year
As the guns die down
In posthumous salute
While the note splits
In the mouth of momentary fear.

The bugle fades
Echoing round

As darkness descends
On Greenwich Mean Time
Across Whitehall
And the sands of an Afghan desert
While Calvary shares the silence.

Crinkled leaves
Float down
On their parachute trip
With legions of poppies
Papered for today
As a tear rolls down
To a stiff upper lip.

Teeth chatter
Feet freeze
With winter ahead
On count-down to Reveille
And the beginning of spring
While sheathed swords
Honour the glorious dead.

- Paul du Plessis

Rise Above

An individual has not started living until he can
rise above the narrow confines
of his individualistic concerns
to the broader concerns
of all humanity.

- Martin Luther King Jr.

Making a Stand

Give me a place to stand and I shall move the world.

- Archimedes

Values

When I was in the military
they gave me a medal for killing two men
and a discharge for loving one.

- Epitaph of Leonard P. Matlovich