"Standing still is never an option so long as inequities remain embedded in the very fabric of the culture."  --Tim Wise Colorblind: The Rise of Post-Racial Politics and the Retreat from Racial Equity

"The only calibration that counts is how much heart people invest, how much they ignore their fears of being hurt or caught out or humiliated. And the only thing people regret is that they didn't live boldly enough, that they didn't invest enough heart, didn't love enough. Nothing else really counts at all."  --Ted Hughes

"Nonviolence—both in terms of social action and inner transformation—is the external manifestation of a contemplative state of consciousness that is itself the outer garment of an even deeper truth: reality moves in harmony with love. As a spiritual path, nonviolence is not merely a cultural necessity or social form of protest, but the whole configuration in which life can be seen as it truly is, in its deepest dimensions."  

--Beverly Lanzetta

"We are bound in a delicate network of interdependence because, as we say in our African idiom, a person is a person through other persons. To dehumanize another inexorably means that one is dehumanized as well."  --Desmond Tutu

"In our world today, God's vision means our neighbor is not the one proximate to us, but the one whose life is at risk."  -- Sandy Ovalle

"Ask any Mexican, any Puerto Rican, any black man, any poor person—ask the wretched how they fare in the halls of justice, and then you will know, not whether or not the country is just, but whether or not it has any love for justice, or any concept of it. It is certain, in any case, that ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have."  --James A. Baldwin

"Blaming immigrants, illegal workers, welfare mothers, or other poor or less powerful groups diverts our attention from the people who own the power and wealth. We hurt ourselves and make it impossible to solve our economic problems when we don't understand the nature of racism. And the rich keep getting richer."  --Paul Kivel, Uprooting Racism

“I can conceive of no better service… than boldly exposing the weakness, liabilities and infinite corruptions of democracy.”  --Walt Whitman

"If the Church is to remain faithful to its Lord, it must make a decisive break with the structure of this society by launching a vehement attack on the evils of racism in all forms."  -- James H. Cone, Black Theology and Black Power

"We see rising homelessness and we turn the other way. We see unarmed Black folks being killed by police, and we see society blaming the victim. We hear about high suicide rates amongst LGBT youth, and we do little or nothing about it. We read reports on the climate crisis but leave it to the next generation to deal with. We watch our communities and the earth being assaulted every day and we just gather around and watch. None of my business. Nothing to see here."  --Kazu Haga, Healing Resistance

"The beauty and preciousness of life is intimately linked with its fragility and mortality. We can experience that every day—when we take a flower in our hands, when we see a butterfly dance in the air, when we caress a little baby. Fragility and giftedness are both there, and our joy is connected with both."  --Henri Nouwen

"... few people actually receive big calls, in visions of flaming chariots and burning bushes. Most of the calls we receive and ignore are ... the daily calls to pay attention to our intuitions, to be authentic, to live by our own codes of honor.

"Our lives are measured out ... not in the grand sweeps but in the small gestures. The great breakthroughs in our lives generally happen only as a result of the accumulation of innumerable small steps and minor achievements. We're called to reach out to someone, to pick up an odd book on the library shelf, to sign up for a class even though we're convinced we don't have the time or money, to go to our desks each day, to turn left instead of right.

"These are the fire drills for our bigger calls."  --Gregg Levoy

"To listen is to lean in softly 

With a willingness to be changed

By what we hear."  --Mark Nepo

"Through it all, the mountain just sits, experiencing change in each moment, constantly changing, yet always just being itself. It remains still as the seasons flow into one another and as the weather changes moment by moment and day by day, calmness abiding all change… --Jon Kabat-Zinn

"I sought my soul, But my soul I could not see.

I sought my God, But my God eluded me.

I sought my brother, And found all three."  --Anonymous

"Could our minds and our hearts be big enough just to hang out in that space where we’re not entirely certain about who’s right and who’s wrong? Could we have no agenda when we walk into a room with another person, not know what to say, not make that person wrong or right? Could we see, hear, feel other people as they really are? It is powerful to practice this way, because we’ll find ourselves continually rushing around to try to feel secure again—to make ourselves or them either right or wrong. But true communication can happen only in that open space."  --Pema Chodron

"We must develop our capacities and commitments to learn from each other and to affirm the human dignity we each are entitled to as God's creation."  --Rev. Dr. Shively T. J. Smith

"Everyone forms opinions and beliefs, but most act on them only up to a certain point, beyond which fears, desires, doubts, prudence, laziness and distractions of all kinds take over. Gandhi belonged to the small class of people, who are able to act according to their beliefs almost without condition or reservation."  --Jonathan Schell 

"I prayed for twenty years but received no answer until I prayed with my legs. "  --Frederick Douglass

"What Gandhi sought was the spiritual liberation of humanity. He wanted . . . the kingdom of God extended throughout humanity so that oppression, injustice, and violence would cease and love and truth would reign. ‘When the practice of law (truth and love) become universal, God will reign on earth as God does in heaven.’ Earth and heaven are in us. We know the earth, and we are strangers to the heaven within us."  --—John Dear

"It takes more courage to dig deep in the dark corners of your own soul and the back alleys of your society than it does for a soldier to fight on the battlefield."  --William Butler Yeats

"Remember the wind. Remember her voice. She knows the origin of this universe."  -- Joy Harjo, Muscogee (Creek) Nation, "Remember" 

Deciding to be Grateful

"Gratitude is the most fruitful way of deepening your consciousness that you are not an “accident,” but a divine choice. It is important to realize how often we have had chances to be grateful and have not used them. When someone is kind to us, when an event turns out well, when a problem is solved, a relationship restored, a wound healed, there are very concrete reasons to offer thanks: be it with words, with flowers, with a letter, a card, a phone call, or just a gesture of affection. . . . Every time we decide to be grateful it will be easier to see new things to be grateful for. Gratitude begets gratitude, just as love begets love."  --Henri Nouwen

Detach from the Past

"I am increasingly convinced that it is possible to live the wounds of the past not as gaping abysses that cannot be fulfilled and, therefore, keep threatening us as gateways to new life. The “gateless gate” of Zen and the “healing wounds of Christ” both encourage us to detach ourselves from the past and trust in the glory to which we are called."  --Henri Nouwen

"It is easy to sit back and let unpleasant things happen when we don't have the heart to try to correct them. But such a laissez-faire attitude is a counterfeit non-violence. King called it ‘stagnant passivity.’ True nonviolence takes inner energy, desire and a willingness to risk."  --Dr. Gerard Vanderhaar

"If we believe, simply, that it gets better, there is no incentive to do the work to ensure that it does."  -- Mychal Denzel Smith, Invisible Man, Got the Whole World Watching: A Young Black Man's Education

"We must turn to each other and not on each other and choose higher ground."  -- Jesse Jackson

"What we need is not another doctrine, but an awakening that can restore our spiritual strength. What made Mahatma Gandhi's struggle a great success was not a doctrine—not even the doctrine of nonviolence—but Gandhi himself, his way of being. A lot is written today about the doctrine of nonviolence and people everywhere are trying to apply it. But they cannot rediscover the vitality that Gandhi had, because the ‘Gandhians’ do not possess Gandhi's spiritual strength. They have faith in his doctrine but cannot set into motion a movement of great solidarity because none of them possess the spiritual force of a Gandhi and therefore cannot produce sufficient compassion and sacrifice."  --Thich Nhat Hahn

"When one is a stranger to oneself then one is estranged from others too. If one is out of touch with oneself, then one cannot touch others."  --Anne Morrow Lindbergh 

"You can only appreciate freedom when you find yourself in a position to fight for someone else's freedom and not worry about your own."  -- Ruby Dee

"Sometimes we have to do the work even though we don't yet see a glimmer on the horizon that it's actually going to be possible."  --Angela Davis 

"The truth is that happiness is not something we get from life. Happiness comes from what we give back to it. Happiness comes from discovering what the world needs that we can give it."  --Joan Chittister

“When suddenly you seem to lose all you thought you had gained, do not despair. You must expect setbacks and regressions. Don't say to yourself "All is lost. I have to start all over again." This is not true. What you have gained you have gained....When you return to the road, you return to the place where you left it, not to where you started.”  --Henri Nouwen

“The most deadly poison of our time is indifference.”  -- St. Maximilian Kolbe

He took a Jew’s place in line at Auschwitz. May I also be as selfless as him.

"A single act of love makes the soul return to life."  -- St. Maximilian Kolbe

“Our actions entrench the power of the light on this planet. Every positive thought we pass between us makes room for more light. And if we do more than think, then our actions clear the path for even more light. That is why forgiveness and compassion must become more important principles in public life.”  --John Lewis

"To make life a little better for people less fortunate than you, that's what I think a meaningful life is. Our lives are not just for oneself but for one's community."  --Ruth Bader Ginsburg

"We tend to view compassion as something we project outward—that is, as a presence or gift we offer to another person or on behalf of a suffering world. This keeps compassion as an act of superiority, something the healthy offer the sick. We rarely offer the gift of compassionate presence to our own person."  --John Paul Lederach

"All the darkness in the world cannot extinguish the light of a single candle."  --St. Francis of Assisi

"To live in the world without belonging to the world summarizes the essence of the spiritual life. The spiritual life keeps us aware that our true house is not the house of fear, in which the powers of hatred and violence rule, but the house of love, where God resides."  --Henri Nouwen

"I know there is a God—and I see a storm coming. If he has a place for me, I believe that I am ready."   --Abraham Lincoln

"Everyone has work to do. I don't know anyone who doesn't have some unfinished business with themselves. Finishing that business is the healing we took birth for."  --Stephen Levine