"The problem is not that we do not have enough resources to provide for the basic needs of everyone. We have much more than enough. The problem is a lack of enough collective will to overcome the simple fact that the people who have the most say about what happens to the earth's resources do not care to do it. It is just not a priority for them, and insofar as our own preoccupation with wealth accumulation encourages us to acquiesce in this situation, we are complicit with their indifference."  --David Loy

"Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy. That is not our business and, in fact, it is nobody's business."  --Thomas Merton

Are You Home?

Today worrying means to be occupied and preoccupied with many things, while at the same time being bored, resentful, depressed, and very lonely. I am not trying to say that all of us are worried in such an extreme way all the time. Yet there is little doubt in my mind that the experience of being filled yet unfulfilled touches most of us to some degree at some time. In our highly technological and competitive world, it is hard to avoid completely the forces that fill up our inner and outer space and disconnect us from our innermost selves, our fellow human beings, and our God.

One of the most notable characteristics of worrying is that it fragments our lives. The many things to do, to think about, to plan for, the many people to remember to visit, or to talk with, the many causes to attack or defend, all these pull us apart and make us lose our center. Worrying causes us to be “all over the place,” but seldom at home. One way to express the spiritual crisis of our time is to say that most of us have an address but cannot be found there.

--Henri Nouwen

“The veneer of civilization is paper thin. We are its guardians and we cannot rest.”  --Congressman Tom Lantos, a Holocaust survivor

"Become aware of what is in you. Announce it, pronounce it, produce it, and give birth to it."  --Meister Eckhart

"If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you."  --Jesus, in The Gospel according to Thomas

Your Life is Guided by God

To walk in the presence of the Lord means to move forward in life in such a way that all our desires, thoughts, and actions are constantly guided by him. When we walk in the Lord’s presence, everything we see, hear, touch, or taste reminds us of him. This is what is meant by a prayerful life. It is not a life in which we say many prayers, but a life in which nothing, absolutely nothing, is done, said, or understood independently of him who is the origin and purpose of our existence. This is powerfully expressed by the nineteenth-century Russian Orthodox starets Theophan the Recluse:

Into every duty a God-fearing heart must be put, a heart constantly permeated by the thought of God; and this will be the door through which the soul will enter into active life. . . . The essence is to be established in the remembrance of God, and to walk in his presence.

--Henri Nouwen

"The truth can be spoken only by someone who already lives inside it; not by someone who still lives in untruth and only sometimes reaches out from untruth towards it."  --Ludwig Wittgenstein

"People cherish the person committed to right action

And rich in understanding.

That person, knowing the truth,

Walks steadfastly on the path."

—Balangoda Ananda Maitreya

We’ve braved the belly of the beast 
We’ve learned that quiet isn’t always peace
- Amanda Gorman, “The Hill We Climb”

"We no longer live on what we have, but on promises, no longer in the present day, but in the darkness of the future, which, we expect, will at last bring the proper sunrise."  --Carl Jung 

Joe Biden, while swearing in political appointees, says, "If you're ever working with me and I hear you treated another colleague with disrespect — talk down to someone — I promise I will fire you on the spot. On the spot...Everybody is entitled to be treated with decency."

"Through nonviolence, courage displaces fear; love transforms hate. Acceptance dissipates prejudice; hope ends despair. Peace dominates war; faith reconciles doubt. Mutual regard cancels enmity. Justice for all overthrows injustice. The redemptive community supersedes systems of gross social immorality."   --James Lawson

"And I say to you, I have also decided to stick with love, for I know that love is ultimately the only answer to mankind's problems. And I'm going to talk about it everywhere I go. I know it isn't popular to talk about it in some circles today. And I'm not talking about emotional bosh when I talk about love; I'm talking about a strong, demanding love. For I have seen too much hate on the faces of sheriffs in the South. I've seen hate on the faces of too many Klansmen and too many White Citizens Councilors in the South to want to hate myself, because every time I see it, I know that it does something to their faces and their personalities and I say to myself that hate is too great a burden to bear. I have decided to love. If you are seeking the highest good, I think you can find it through love."  Martin Luther King, Jr.

"An individual has not begun to live until [they] can rise above the narrow horizons of [their] particular individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity."  --Martin Luther King Jr.

Here’s Biden’s response to aides who use overly academic or elitist language: “Pick up your phone, call your mother, read her what you just told me,” he likes to say. “If she understands, we can keep talking.”

 After asking Richterman and others what a better public message might sound like, I was left thinking about something like this:

We should immediately be more aggressive about mask-wearing and social distancing because of the new virus variants. We should vaccinate people as rapidly as possible — which will require approving other Covid vaccines when the data justifies it.

People who have received both of their vaccine shots, and have waited until they take effect, will be able to do things that unvaccinated people cannot — like having meals together and hugging their grandchildren. But until the pandemic is defeated, all Americans should wear masks in public, help unvaccinated people stay safe and contribute to a shared national project of saving every possible life.

"We should say immediately, for the sake of the skeptics, that we do not believe vision makes anything happen. Vision without action is useless. But action without vision is directionless and feeble. Vision is absolutely necessary to guide and motivate. More than that, vision, when widely shared and firmly kept in sight, does bring into being new systems."  --Donella Meadows

"Conflicts exist at all levels, within and between individuals, communities, countries and cultures. Conflicts are natural. They are experienced by people of every background, culture, class, nationality, age and gender every single day. What is important, is not whether conflicts themselves are good or bad, but how we deal with them."  --Kai Frithojof Brand-Jacobsen

Accept Your Whole Self — the Light and the Dark

"It is very difficult for each of us to believe in Christ’s words, “I did not come to call the virtuous, but sinners. . . .” Perhaps no psychologist has stressed the need of self-acceptance as the way to self-realization so much as Carl Jung. For Jung, self-realization meant the integration of the shadow. It is the growing ability to allow the dark side of our personality to enter into our awareness and thus prevent a one-sided life in which only that which is presentable to the outside world is considered as a real part of ourselves. To come to an inner unity, totality and wholeness, every part of our self should be accepted and integrated. Christ represents the light in us. But Christ was crucified between two murderers and we cannot deny them, and certainly not the murderers who live in us."  --Henri Nouwen

"When evil is allowed to compete with good, evil has an emotional populist appeal that wins out unless good men and women stand as a vanguard against abuse."  --Hannah Arendt

"There is no moving on to healing and restoration without giving full expression to the grief and the trauma that we feel."  --Rev. Jason Coker

"And then all that has divided us will merge
And then compassion will be wedded to power
And then softness will come to a world that is harsh and unkind
And then both men and women will be gentle
And then both women and men will be strong
And then no person will be subject to another's will
And then all will be rich and free and varied
And then the greed of some will give way to the needs of many
And then all will share equally in the Earth's abundance
And then all will care for the sick and the weak and the old
And then all will nourish the young
And then all will cherish life's creatures
And then everywhere will be called Eden once again"
—Judy Chicago

"While fear and anger are the most natural and most obvious reactions to a state of emergency, they have to be unmasked as expressions of our false selves. When we are trembling with fear or seething with anger, we have sold ourselves to the world or to a false god. Fear and anger take our freedom away and make us victims of the strong seductions of our world. Fear, as well as anger, when we look at them in solitude and quiet, reveal to us how deeply our sense of worth is dependent either on our success in the world or on the opinions of others. We suddenly realize that we have become what we do or what others think of us."  --Henri Nouwen

"Until the color of a man's skin is of no more significance than the color of his eyes -
Until the basic human rights are equally guaranteed to all, without regard to race -
Until that day, the dream of lasting peace, world citizenship, and the rule of international morality will remain but a fleeting illusion to be pursued, but never attained.
But we know we shall win as we are confident in the victory of good over evil."
—Bob Marley 

Embracing the True Self

The secular or false self is the self that is fabricated, as Thomas Merton says, by social compulsions. “Compulsive” is indeed the best adjective for the false self. It points to the need for ongoing and increasing affirmation. Who am I? I am the one who is liked, praised, admired, disliked, hated, or despised. . . . If being busy is a good thing, then I must be busy. If having money is a sign of real freedom, then I must claim my money. If knowing many people proves my importance, I will have to make the necessary contacts. The compulsion manifests itself in the lurking fear of failing and the steady urge to prevent this by gathering more of the same—more work, more money, more friends.

These very compulsions are at the basis of the two main enemies of the spiritual life: anger and greed. They are the inner side of the secular life, the sour fruits of our worldly dependences.

--Henri Nouwen

"These tragedies have reminded us that words matter, that the power of life and death is in the tongue."  --Barry C. Black, Senate chaplain

"Healing the wounds of the earth and its people does not require saintliness or a political party, only gumption and persistence. It is not a liberal or a conservative activity; it is a sacred act. It is a massive enterprise undertaken by ordinary citizens everywhere, not by self-appointed governments or oligarchies."  --Paul Hawken

"A man is ethical only when life, as such, is sacred to him, that of plants and animals as that of his fellow men, and when he devotes himself helpfully to all life that is in need of help."  --Albert Schweitzer

God Needs Me as Much as I Need God

It might sound strange, but God wants to find me as much as, if not more than, I want to find God. Yes, God needs me as much as I need God. God is not the patriarch who stays home, doesn’t move, and expects his children to come to him, apologize for their aberrant behavior, beg for forgiveness, and promise to do better. To the contrary, he leaves the house, ignoring his dignity by running toward them, pays no heed to apologies and promises of change, and brings them to the table richly prepared for them.

I am beginning to now see how radically the character of my spiritual journey will change when I no longer think of God as hiding out and making it as difficult as possible for me to find him, but, instead, as the One who is looking for me while I am doing the hiding.

--Henri Nouwen

"Life is so many things. The message was clear from Christ, Gandhi, all the good people who said exactly what has to be done. So every night you've got to think, ‘What did I do today?’ Life is very complicated. But we try to keep it simple. Get the work done. We're essentially activists. We have our precepts and our principles and then we act."  --Cesar Chavez

God is a Compassionate God

"The truly good news is that God is not a distant God, a God to be feared and avoided, a God of revenge, but a God who is moved by our pains and participates in the fullness of the human struggle. . . . God is a compassionate God. This means, first of all, that God is a God who has chosen to be God-with-us. . . . As soon as we call God “God-with-us,” we enter into a new relationship of intimacy with him. By calling God Emmanuel, we recognize God’s commitment to live in solidarity with us, to share our joys and pains, to defend and protect us, and to suffer all of life with us. The God-with-us is a close God, a God whom we call our refuge, our stronghold, our wisdom, and even, more intimately, our helper, our shepherd, our love. We will never really know God as a compassionate God if we do not understand with our heart and mind that “the Word became flesh and lived among us” (John 1:14)."

"The right things to do are those that keep our violence in abeyance; the wrong things are those that bring it to the fore.  --Robert J. Sawyer, Calculating God

"If by patience, if by watching . . . the world which was dead prose to me becomes living and divine, shall I not watch ever? Shall I not be a watchman henceforth?"  --Henry David Thoreau

"America is a work in progress. So is democracy."  --Margaret Atwood

"You might have thought
it was the other story,
the one about rubble,
violence, catastrophe
about darkness
undoing the world.
But not today. Today
the pieces are dictating
the headlines:
COMING APART; PREREQUISITE
FOR THE WORK OF ASTONISHMENT.
ALL THINGS CRACK OPEN
UNDER THE PRESSURE
OF LIGHT SEEKING YOU. "
—A selection from “Dialogue with the Pieces” by  L.R. Berger

Psalm 103:8-14

The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. He will not always chide, nor will he keep his anger forever. He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us. As a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him. For he knows our frame, he remembers that we are dust.

"We seek to be a nation where different does not mean deficient, color does not mean caste, and gender is not, and shall not be, restricted by glass ceilings."  --Otis Moss III

You Are Beloved

Personally, as my struggle reveals, I don’t often “feel” like a beloved child of God. But I know that that is my most primal identity and I know that I must choose it above and beyond my hesitations.

Strong emotions, self-rejection, and even self-hatred justifiably toss you about, but you are free to respond as you will. You are not what others, or even you, think about yourself. You are not what you do. You are not what you have. You are a full member of the human family, having been known before you were conceived and molded in your mother’s womb. In times when you feel bad about yourself, try to choose to remain true to the truth of who you really are. Look in the mirror each day and claim your true identity. Act ahead of your feelings and trust that one day your feelings will match your convictions. Choose now and continue to choose this incredible truth. As a spiritual practice claim and reclaim your primal identity as beloved daughter or son of a personal Creator.

--Henri Nouwen

Your Heart is the Center of Your Being

"In the biblical understanding, our heart is at the center of our being. It’s not a muscle, but a symbol for the very center of our being. Now the beautiful thing about the heart is that the heart is the place where we are most ourselves. It is the very core of our being, the spiritual center of our being. Solitude and silence, for instance, are ways to get to the heart, because the heart is the place where God speaks to us, where we hear the voice that calls us beloved. This is precisely the most intimate place. In the famous story, Elijah was standing in front of the cave. God was not in the storm, God was not in the fire and not in the earthquake, but God was in that soft little voice (see 1 Kings 19: 11–12). That soft little voice ... speaks to the heart. Prayer and solitude are ways to listen to the voice that speaks to our heart, in the center of our being. One of the most amazing things is that if you enter deeper and deeper into that place, you not only meet God, but you meet the whole world there."  --Henri Nouwen

"And if you desire to have this intent (peace) summarized in one word, take but a little word of one syllable. And such a word is LOVE—and fasten this word to your heart so it may never go away no matter what befalls you. And if any thought presses on you to ask what you would have, answer with just this one word."  --adapted from The Cloud of Unknowing

"We must learn to live each day, each hour, yes, each minute as a new beginning, as a unique opportunity to make everything new. Imagine that we could live each moment as a moment pregnant with new life. Imagine that we could live each day as a day full of promises. Imagine that we could walk through the new year always listening to the voice saying to us: “I have a gift for you and can’t wait for you to see it!” Imagine."  --Henri Nouwen

"This being human is a guest house. Every morning is a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor...Welcome and entertain them all. Treat each guest honorably. The dark thought, the shame, the malice, meet them at the door laughing, and invite them in. Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond. "  --Rumi