"Difference is of the essence of humanity. Difference is an accident of birth and it should therefore never be the source of hatred or conflict. The answer to difference is to respect it. Therein lies a most fundamental principle of peace: respect for diversity."  --John Hume

"There are no bystanders. In this time of astonishing moral crisis, silence is complicity. Because in the palm of our hand we have the ability to respond – to speak, to post, to organize, to act, online and on the ground, and in the voting booth. Speak, even if your voice trembles."  Valarie Kaur

Giving people (even more) grace

"Giving people (even more) grace. It's always been the right choice, but even more now. The past year has been stressful and divisive in many ways. It’s tempting to fixate on how people handled things differently than I did, but I firmly believe that doing so will only hold us back. Our calling as Christians is to choose compassion and foster unity, not hold onto disagreements. So as life resumes its "normalcy," I’m making it a priority to find commonalities instead of differences, and to give grace instead of judgment. I believe that’s the best way to heal from the inner wounds the pandemic left."  --Theresa Civantos Barber 

“One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back. Finding the occasional straw of truth awash in a great ocean of confusion and bamboozle requires intelligence, vigilance, dedication, and courage. But if we don't practice these tough habits of thought, we cannot hope to solve the truly serious problems that face us and we risk becoming a nation of suckers, up for grabs by the next charlatan who comes along.”  --Carl Sagan

"Faith is a way of looking at what there is to be seen in the world and in ourselves and hoping, trusting, believing against all evidence to the contrary that beneath the surface we see there is vastly more that we cannot see."  --Frederick Buechner from Secrets in the Dark

"I can only choose within the world I can see…if we consider what the work of attention is like, how continuously it goes on, and how imperceptibly it builds up structures of value round about us, we shall not be surprised that at crucial moments of choice most of the business of choosing is already over."  --Iris Murdoch

"Every time you feel hurt, offended, or rejected, you have to dare to say to yourself: “These feelings, strong as they may be, are not telling me the truth about myself. The truth, even though I cannot feel it right now, is that I am the chosen child of God, precious in God’s eyes, called the Beloved from all eternity and held safe in an everlasting embrace.”  --Henri Nouwen from Life of the Beloved

Life is a Gift to be Shared

"What then is care? The word care finds its origin in the word kara, which means “to lament, to mourn, to participate in suffering, to share in pain.” To care is to cry out with those who are ill, confused, lonely, isolated, and forgotten, and to recognize their pains in our own heart. To care is to enter into the world of those who are only touched by hostile hands, to listen attentively to those whose words are only heard by greedy ears, and to speak gently with those who are used to harsh orders and impatient requests. To care is to be present to those who suffer and to stay present even when nothing can be done to change their situation. To care is to be compassionate and so to form a community of people honestly facing the painful reality of our finite existence. To care is the most human gesture, in which the courageous confession of our common brokenness does not lead to paralysis but to community. When the humble confession of our basic human brokenness forms the ground from which all skillful healing comes forth, then cure can be welcomed not as a property to be claimed, but as a gift to be shared in gratitude."  --Henri Nouwen

"We seldom realize, for example, that our most private thoughts and emotions are not actually our own. For we think in terms of languages and images which we did not invent, but which we were given to us by our society."  --Alan Watts

"In the inner stillness where meditation leads, the Spirit secretly anoints the soul and heals our deepest wounds."  -- St. John of the Cross

Critical Race Theory posits ...

"Critical Race Theory posits that American racism is not just a by-product of people's bigotry, but most importantly a social construct embedded in societal and governmental structures that are in turn enforced by the legal system."  --John Sundholm

Inviting Closeness with the Other

To care means first of all to empty our own cup and to allow the other to come close to us. It means to take away the many barriers that prevent us from entering into communion with the other. When we dare to care, then we discover that nothing human is foreign to us, but that all the hatred and love, cruelty and compassion, fear and joy can be found in our own hearts. When we dare to care, we have to confess that when others kill, I could have killed, too. When others torture, I could have done the same. When others heal, I could have healed, too. And when others give life, I could have done the same. Then we experience that we can be present to the soldier who kills, to the guard who pesters, to the young man who plays as if life has no end, and to the old man who stopped playing out of fear for death.

By the honest recognition and confession of our human sameness we can participate in the care of God who came, not to the powerful but powerless, not to be different but the same, not to take our pain away but to share it. Through this participation we can open our hearts to each other and form a new community.  -- Henri Nouwen

"There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it."  --Edith Wharton

"The universe bleeds infinity, you got one life."  --Noname, “Rainforest”

"Cowardice asks the question: is it safe? Expediency asks the question: is it politic? Vanity asks the question: is it popular? But conscience asks the question: is it right? And there comes a time when we must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular—but one must take it because it's right."  --Martin Luther King, Jr.

"I understand now that charity consists in bearing with the faults of others, in not being surprised at their weakness, in being edified by the smallest acts of virtue we see them practice."  --St. Therese of Lisieux

"There will be peace when we begin to love our children more than we hate our enemies."  --Lebanese Citizen, quoted in the NY Times

Free to be Compassionate

"If you would ask the Desert Fathers why solitude gives birth to compassion, they would say, “Because it makes us die to our neighbor.” At first this answer seems quite disturbing to a modern mind. But when we give it a closer look we can see that in order to be of service to others we have to die to them; that is, we have to give up measuring our meaning and value with the yardstick of others. To die to our neighbors means to stop judging them, to stop evaluating them, and thus to become free to be compassionate. Compassion can never coexist with judgment because judgment creates the distance, the distinction, that prevents us from really being with the other."  --Henri Nouwen

Souls carry life differently than do bodies because bodies are built to eventually die. Inside of every living body, the life-principle has an exit strategy. It has no such strategy inside a soul, only a strategy to deepen, grow richer, and more textured. Aging forces us, mostly against our will, to listen to our soul more deeply and more honestly so as to draw from its deeper wells and begin to make peace with its complexity, its shadow, and its deepest proclivities – and the aging of the body plays the key role in this.

To employ a metaphor from James Hillman: The best wines have to be aged in cracked old barrels. So too for the soul: The aging process is designed by God and nature to force the soul, whether it wants to or not, to delve ever deeper into the mystery of life, of community, of God, and of itself. Our souls don’t age, like a wine, they mature, and so we can always be young in spirit.

Our zest, our fire, our eagerness, our wit, our brightness, and our humor, are not meant to dim with age. Indeed, they’re meant to be the very color of a mature soul.

--Ron Rolheiser OMI

Compassionate Solidarity

"When we think about the people who have given us hope and have increased the strength of our soul, we might discover that they were not advice givers, warners, or moralists, but the few who were able to articulate in words and actions the human condition in which we participate and who encouraged us to face the realities of life. . . . Those who do not run away from our pains but touch them with compassion bring healing and new strength. The paradox indeed is that the beginning of healing is in the solidarity with the pain. In our solution-oriented society it is more important than ever to realize that wanting to alleviate pain without sharing it is like wanting to save a child from a burning house without the risk of being hurt. It is in solitude that this compassionate solidarity takes its shape."  --Henri Nouwen

"I remember His Love for the prodigal son, I have heard his words to Mary Magdalene, to the woman taken in adultery, to the woman of Samaria. No - there is no one who could frighten me, for I know too well what to believe concerning his mercy and his love."  St. Therese of Lisieux

"Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage."  ----Lao Tze

"It is this certitude in a power larger than myself, and other than myself, which allows me to venture into the unknown and even the unknowable."  --Maya Angelou

When you encounter a mockingbird

"When you encounter a mockingbird, it’s time to stop for a bit and look into your heart for something that’s being left unsaid. We say a lot of things everyday, but these aren’t always the important ones. Sometimes there are messages we want to get across to the important people in our lives, but we may not find the right opportunities to do so. Yet deep inside, we know that our time is finite and these things may forever be hidden in our hearts. The mockingbird tells you that you should make every effort to get these messages out to their intended recipients. These words, when heard, could forever change your life and that of others for the better. These will make the best use of the mockingbird’s potent powers." 

Quote from:

10 Mockingbird Symbolism Facts & Meaning: A Totem, Spirit & Power Animal

https://www.hep6.com/mockingbird-symbolism-facts-meaning-totem-spirit-power-animal/

You Are Part of the Human Family

One of the greatest human spiritual tasks is to embrace all of humanity, to allow your heart to be a marketplace of humanity, to allow your interior life to reflect the pains and the joys of people not only from Africa and Ireland and Yugoslavia and Russia but also from people who lived in the fourteenth century and will live many centuries forward. Somehow, if you discover that your little life is part of the journey of humanity and that you have the privilege to be part of that, your interior life shifts. You lose a lot of fear and something really happens to you. Enormous joy can come into your life. It can give you a strong sense of solidarity with the human race, with the human condition.

It is good to be human.

--Henri Nouwen

Compassion is Being With

Let us not underestimate how hard it is to be compassionate. Compassion is hard because it requires the inner disposition to go with others to the place where they are weak, vulnerable, lonely, and broken. But this is not our spontaneous response to suffering. What we desire most is to do away with suffering by fleeing from it or finding a quick cure for it. As busy, active, relevant [people], we want to earn our bread by making a real contribution. This means first and foremost doing something to show that our presence makes a difference. And so we ignore our greatest gift, which is our ability to enter into solidarity with those who suffer. . . .

Those who can sit with their fellow man, not knowing what to say but knowing that they should be there, can bring new life into a dying heart. Those who are not afraid to hold a hand in gratitude, to shed tears of grief, and to let a sigh of distress arise straight from the heart can break through paralyzing boundaries and witness the birth of a new fellowship, the fellowship of the broken.

--Henri Nouwen

"The nearer one gets to God, the simpler one becomes."  --St. Therese of Lisieux

"[W]e have always put a lot of emphasis on the 6th commandment, sexual ethics, and haven’t been nearly as self-scrutinizing in regards to the fifth commandment (that deals with bitterness, judgements, anger, and hatred) or with the 9th and 10th commandments (that have to do with jealousy). It’s not that sexual ethics are unimportant, but our failures here are easier to see and harder to rationalize. The same isn’t true for bitterness, anger, especially righteous anger, nor for jealousy. We can more easily rationalize these and not notice that jealousy is the only sin that God felt it necessary to prohibit in two commandments."  --Ron Rolheiser

 "Never give up, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn."  --Harriet Beecher Stowe

“The sea rises, the light fails… The moment we cease to hold each other, the moment we break faith with one another, the sea engulfs us and the light goes out.”  --James Baldwin

"We live our lives by tidal forces — vast oceanic waves of change and chance sweeping us together, stranding us apart, washing over us with their all-subsuming totality of feeling, only to retreat and then begin anew before we have fully regained our breath and our footing. What buoys us is the awareness that, however distant and desolate the shore might appear, however dark and cold the waters of the night, there are other bodies swimming these waves, others so different yet so kindred — life itself swimming itself alive, as it did long ago in the primordial oceans that gave us feet and lungs and consciousness to live by."  --Maria Popova

"Christians cannot protest for their religious freedom one day and protest against a mosque opening up down the street the next. Not only does that undermine Christian witness in politics, it undermines religious freedom."  --Michael Wear, Reclaiming Hope (2017)

"When you know who you are; when your mission is clear, and you burn with the inner fire of unbreakable will; no cold can touch your heart; no deluge can dampen your purpose. You know that you are alive."  --Chief Seattle, Duwamish

"Solitude is the ground from which community grows. Whenever we pray alone, study, read, write, or simply spend quiet time away from the places where we interact with each other directly, we are potentially opened for a deeper intimacy with each other. It is a fallacy to think we grow closer to each other only when we talk, play, or work together. Much growth certainly occurs in such human interactions, but these interactions derive their fruit from solitude, because in solitude, our intimacy with each other is deepened. In solitude we discover each other in a way that physical presence makes difficult if not impossible. In solitude we know a bond with each other that does not depend on words, gestures, or actions, a bond much deeper than our own efforts can create. . . ."  --Henri Nouwen

"We can easily forgive a child when he is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light."  --Plato

"You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, 'I lived through this horror; I can take the next thing that comes along.' You must do the thing you think you cannot do."  --Eleanor Roosevelt

You are the Beloved

"Life is a gift. Each one of us is unique, known by name, and loved by the One who fashioned us. Unfortunately, there is a very loud, consistent, and powerful message coming to us from our world that leads us to believe that we must prove our belovedness by how we look, by what we have, and by what we can accomplish. We become preoccupied with “making it” in this life, and we are very slow to grasp the liberating truth of our origins and our finality. We need to hear the message announced and the message emboldened over and over again. Only then do we find the courage to claim it and live from it."  --Henri Nouwen