"Detached observers always ask in such cases: “So what does she (he) see in him (her)?” Such questions are best left in peace: great love is never justified. It’s like the little tree that springs up in some inexplicable fashion on the side of a cliff: where are its roots, what does it feed on, what miracle produces those green leaves? But it does exist and it really is green — clearly, then, it’s getting whatever it needs to survive."  --Wisława Szymborska

“For man to be able to live he must either not see the infinite, or have such an explanation of the meaning of life as will connect the finite with the infinite.”  --Leo Tolstoy

“Whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is well done!”  --Vincent Van Gogh

"Let us keep courage and try to be patient and gentle. And not mind being eccentric, and make distinction between good and evil."  --Vincent Van Gogh

I am a modern man, A man for the millennium, Digital and smoke free.

A diversified, multi-cultural, Post-modern deconstructionist; Politically, anatomically and ecologically incorrect.

I’ve been uplinked and downloaded, I’ve been inputted and outsourced.

I know the upside of downsizing, I know the downside of upgrading.

I’m a high-tech low-life. A cutting edge, state-of-the-art,

Bi-coastal multi-tasker, And I can give you a gigabyte in a nanosecond.

I’m new-wave, but I’m old school; And my inner child is outward bound.

I’m a hot-wired, heat seeking, Warm-hearted cool customer; Voice activated and bio-degradable.

I interface with my database; My database is in cyberspace;

So I’m interactive, I’m hyperactive, And from time to time I’m radioactive.

Behind the eight ball, ahead of the curve, Ridin' the wave, dodgin' the bullet, Pushin' the envelope.

I’m on point, on task, on message, And off drugs.

I’ve got no need for coke and speed; I've got no urge to binge and purge.

I’m in the moment, on the edge, Over the top, but under the radar.

A high-concept, low-profile, Medium-range ballistic missionary.

A street-wise smart bomb. A top-gun bottom-feeder.

I wear power ties, I tell power lies, I take power naps, I run victory laps.

I’m a totally ongoing, big-foot, slam-dunk, Rainmaker with a pro-active outreach.

A raging workaholic, a working rageaholic; Out of rehab and in denial.

I’ve got a personal trainer, A personal shopper, A personal assistant, And a personal agenda.

You can’t shut me up; You can’t dumb me down.

Cause I’m tireless and I’m wireless. I’m an alpha-male on beta-blockers.

I’m a non-believer, An over-achiever; Laid-back and fashion-forward.

Up-front, down-home; Low-rent, high-maintenance.

I'm super-sized, long-lasting, High-definition, fast-acting,

Oven-ready and built to last.

A hands-on, footloose, knee-jerk head case;

Prematurely post-traumatic, And I have a love child that sends me hate-mail.

But I’m feeling, I’m caring, I’m healing, I’m sharing.

A supportive, bonding, nurturing, Primary care-giver.

My output is down, but my income is up.

I take a short position on the long bond,

And my revenue stream has its own cash flow.

I read junk mail, I eat junk food, I buy junk bonds, and I watch trash sports.

I’m gender-specific, capital-intensive, User-friendly and lactose-intolerant.

I like rough sex; I like tough love. I use the f-word in my email.

And the software on my hard drive. Is hard-core -- no soft porn.

I bought a microwave at a mini-mall. I bought a mini-van at a mega-store.

I eat fast food in the slow lane.

I’m toll-free, bite-sized, ready-to-wear, And I come in all sizes.

A fully equipped, factory-authorized, Hospital-tested, clinically proven,

Scientifically formulated medical miracle.

I’ve been pre-washed, pre-cooked, pre-heated, Pre-screened, pre-approved, pre-packaged,

Post-dated, freeze-dried, double-wrapped, And vacuum-packed.

And... I have an unlimited broadband capacity.

I’m a rude dude, but I’m the real deal.

Lean and mean. Cocked, locked and ready to rock;

Rough, tough and hard to bluff.

I take it slow, I go with the flow; I ride with the tide, I’ve got glide in my stride.

Drivin' and movin', sailin' and spinnin', Jivin' and groovin', wailin' and winnin'.

I don’t snooze, so I don’t lose. I keep the pedal to the metal

And the rubber on the road.

I party hearty and lunchtime is crunch time.

I’m hangin' in, there ain’t no doubt; And I’m hangin' tough.

Over and out!

-- George Carlin "I am a Modern Man" was released January 10, 2006 on Life Is Worth Losing. He was 341 days sober at the time of the recording, and that 2006 would be his 50th year in show business. 

"We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon on the Mount. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than we do about peace, more about killing than we do about living."  --Omar Bradley

“To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die.”  --Thomas Campbell

No Hiding

"Why do we keep hiding our deepest feelings from each other? We suffer much, but we also have great gifts of healing for each other. The mystery is that by hiding our pain we also hide our ability to heal. . . . We are called to confess to each other and forgive each other, and thus to discover the abundant mercy of God. But at the same time, we are so terribly afraid of being hurt more than we already are. This fear keeps us prisoners, even when the prison has no walls! I see better every day how radical Jesus’ message of love really is."  --Henri Nouwen

Spiritual Freedom

"Freedom belongs to the core of the spiritual life; not just the freedom that releases us from forces that want to oppress us, but the freedom also to forgive others, to serve them, and to form a new bond of fellowship with them. In short, the freedom to love and to work for a free world."  --Henri Nouwen

we are all born

so beautiful

the greatest tragedy is

being convinced we are not

--Rupi Kaur, milk and honey (2015)

Writing Reveals What is Alive in Us

"Writing is a process in which we discover what lives in us. The writing itself reveals to us what is alive in us. The deepest satisfaction of writing is precisely that it opens up new spaces within us of which we were not aware before we started to write. To write is to embark on a journey whose final destination we do not know. Thus, writing requires a real act of trust. We have to say to ourselves: “I do not yet know what I carry in my heart, but I trust that it will emerge as I write.” Writing is like giving away the few loaves and fishes one has, trusting that they will multiply in the giving. Once we dare to “give away” on paper the few thoughts that come to us, we start discovering how much is hidden underneath these thoughts and gradually come in touch with our own riches."  --Henri Nouwen

"Jesus does not look so much at the greatness of our actions, or even at their difficulty, as at the love with which we do them."  --St. Therese of Lisieux

Recipe for Joy

To reach satisfaction in all

desire its possession in nothing.

To come to possess all

desire the possession of nothing.

To arrive at being all

desire to be nothing.

To come to the knowledge of all

desire the knowledge of nothing.

To come to the pleasure you have not

you must go by the way in which you enjoy not.

To come to the knowledge you have not

you must go by a way in which you know not.

To come to the possession you have not

you must go by a way in which you possess not.

To come to be what you are not

you must go by a way in which you are not.

St. John of the Cross

"Whether or not we will be honest with each other, whether or not we will let ourselves be truly known, determines everything."  --N. Gordon Cosby, Seized By the Power of a Great Affection (2013)

"When it is genuine, when it is born of the need to speak, no one can stop the human voice. When denied a mouth, it speaks with the hands or the eyes, or the pores, or anything at all. Because every single one of us has something to say to the others, something that deserves to be celebrated."  --Eduardo Galeano

"I understood that love encompasses all vocations and that love is everything. Love encompasses all times and places."  --St. Therese of Lisieux

 “Maybe that’s what life is… a wink of the eye and winking stars.”  --Jack Kerouac

"Live your truth. Express your love. Share your enthusiasm. Take action towards your dreams. Walk your talk. Dance and sing to your music. Embrace your blessings. Make today worth remembering."  --Steve Maraboli

Poverty is a Quality of the Heart

"Poverty is the quality of the heart that makes us relate to life, not as a property to be defended but as a gift to be shared. Poverty is the constant willingness to say good-bye to yesterday and move forward to new, unknown experiences. Poverty is the inner understanding that the hours, days, weeks, and years do not belong to us but are the gentle reminders of our call to give, not only love and work, but life itself, to those who follow us and will take our place. He or she who cares is invited to be poor, to strip himself or herself from the illusions of ownership, and to create some room for the person looking for a place to rest. The paradox of care is that poverty makes a good host. When our hands, heads, and hearts are filled with worries, concerns, and preoccupations, there can hardly be any place left for the stranger to feel at home."  --Henri Nouwen

Receiving the Gifts of Others

"A gift only becomes a gift when it is received; and nothing we have to give—wealth, talents, competence, or just beauty— will ever be recognized as true gifts until someone is open to accept them. This all suggests that if we want others to grow— that is, to discover their potential and capacities, to experience that they have something to live and work for—we should first of all be able to recognize their gifts and be willing to receive them. For we only become fully human when we are received and accepted."  --Henri Nouwen

"More important than our talents are our gifts. We may have only a few talents, but we have many gifts. Our gifts are the many ways in which we express our humanity. They are part of who we are: friendship, kindness, patience, joy, peace, forgiveness, gentleness, love, hope, trust, and many others. These are the true gifts we have to offer to each other."  --Henri Nouwen

"The easiest way to avoid wrong notes is to never open your mouth and sing. What a mistake that would be."  --Pete Seeger

"I think music in itself is healing. It’s an explosive expression of humanity. It’s something we are all touched by. No matter what culture we’re from, everyone loves music."  --Billy Joel

“We're like . . . like dinosaurs bedazzled by all the pretty lights in the sky, too fucking stupid to realise it's a comet getting closer and closer.”  --Philip Ridley, Shivered

“When we were kids the coolest dinosaur in world was the brontosaurus, which means 'THUNDERLIZARD'. But it turns out brontosaurs isn't even a thing, it's just an apatosaurus which means 'deceptive lizard', which isn't nearly as cool. I don't want my gigantic lizards to bring the lies. I want them to bring the thunder.”  --John Green

We Are Seen by God’s Loving Eyes

"The greatest spiritual battle begins—and never ends—with the reclaiming of our chosenness. Long before any human being saw us, we are seen by God’s loving eyes. Long before anyone heard us cry or laugh, we are heard by our God who is all ears for us. Long before any person spoke to us in this world, we are spoken to by the voice of eternal love."  --Henri Nouwen

"Music is the great uniter. An incredible force. Something that people who differ on everything and anything else can have in common."  --Sarah Dessen

Nothing Human is Alien

"Through compassion it is possible to recognize that the craving for love that people feel resides also in our own hearts, that the cruelty that the world knows all too well is also rooted in our own impulses. Through compassion we also sense our hope for forgiveness in our friends’ eyes and our hatred in their bitter mouths. When they kill, we know that we could have done it; when they give life, we know that we can do the same. For a compassionate man nothing human is alien; no joy and no sorrow, no way of living and no way of dying."  --Henri Nouwen

“Abstract painting is abstract. It confronts you. There was a reviewer a while back who wrote that my pictures didn’t have any beginning or any end. He didn’t mean it as a compliment, but it was.”  --Jackson Pollock

“Everyone wants to understand art. Why not try to understand the song of a bird? …people who try to explain pictures are usually barking up the wrong tree.”  --Pablo Picasso

Compassion

"Compassion asks us to go where it hurts, to enter into the places of pain, to share in brokenness, fear, confusion, and anguish. Compassion challenges us to cry out with those in misery, to mourn with those who are lonely, to weep with those in tears. Compassion requires us to be weak with the weak, vulnerable with the vulnerable, and powerless with the powerless. Compassion means full immersion in the condition of being human."  --Henri Nouwen

"The great events of this world are not battles and elections and earthquakes and thunderbolts. The great events are babies, for each child comes with a message that God is not yet discouraged with humanity, but is still expecting goodwill to become incarnate in each human life."  --Marian Wright Edelman, “Standing Up for Children” (2003)

“In past wars only homes burnt, but this time

Don't be surprised if even loneliness ignites.

In past wars only bodys burnt, but this time

Don't be surprised if even shadows ignite.”

--Sahir Ludhianvi

“I cannot conceive that the man who dropped the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was a machine. He also had a heart, just like you. He also had his wife and children, his old mother and father. He was as much a human being as you are—with a difference. He was trained to follow orders without questioning, and when the order was given, he simply followed it.”  --Osho, Intimacy: Trusting Oneself and the Other

“Do-oh died on March 14, 2007, just as the buds of her beloved drooping cherry trees behind her house were ready to burst. Having surpassed by two years her goal to live until seventy-five, she had, by her own measure, defeated the atomic bomb. "What I mean is - I mean, they dropped the bombs thinking everyone will die, right? But not everyone was killed. I think it takes great emotional strength and force of will to triumph over nuclear weapons.”  --Susan Southard

"I happen to love America. I love this freedom and democracy. The fact is we are the ones who killed innocent people, men, women and children, in Hiroshima and Nagasaki with nuclear weapons, weapons that should have never been used, should have never been developed in the first place, you know?"  --Robert Scheer 

"Everybody says, "Well, if it's a democracy, let them have nuclear weapons." America is the only country that has ever used nuclear weapons. We're the only ones, this democracy, our great democracy."  --Robert Scheer

"The use of [the atomic bombs] at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender because of the effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons... The lethal possibilities of atomic warfare in the future are frightening. My own feeling was that in being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was not taught to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children."  --Fleet Admiral William D. Leahy

"Every positive value has its price in negative terms... the genius of Einstein leads to Hiroshima."  --Pablo Picasso

[Remark to Françoise Gilot in 1946, in Françoise Gilot and Carlton Lake Life With Picasso (1964) pt. 2]

"We cannot and must not allow ourselves to have the message of Hiroshima and Nagasaki fade completely from our minds, and we cannot allow our vision or ideals to fade, either. For if we do, we have but one course left for us. And that flash of light will not only rob us of our vision, but it will rob us of our lives, our progeny, and our very existence."  --Tadatoshi Akiba

"The Japanese were ready to surrender, and it wasn't necessary to hit them with that awful thing."  --Dwight D. Eisenhower  [Newsweek, p. 107, November 11, 1963]

"If I had foreseen Hiroshima and Nagasaki, I would have torn up my formula in 1905."  --Albert Einstein   — p. 112  Einstein and the Poet (1983)

 

If the radiance of a thousand suns

Were to burst at once into the sky

That would be like the splendour of the Mighty One...

I am become Death,

The shatterer of worlds.

[Quoted from the Bhagavad Gita after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.]

― J. Robert Oppenheimer

War is a terribly fraught business. War always runs the risk of clouding our judgement and engenders emotions that can run sky-high at times. War is a crucible where nationalism speeds forever onwards to the fore of our minds squeezing out and eclipsing our values, locking out a swathe of important issues. Apart from truth being its first casualty, war and nationalism colours a proper consideration of the laws of war and the hope of their eventual enforcement.

War can loosen and minimise our commitment to legal principles such as the rule of law itself, how war is properly prosecuted, not employing war indiscriminately and disproportionately, the protection of non-combatants, to not use prohibited weapons such as landmines, biological or chemical agents, to eschew any form of torture, to not stymie or attack any hospitals or persons employed in attending the sick and injured, and to treat any prisoners of war humanely, amongst many other considerations. Moral conduct, human rights, civility and the rule of law, are what democratic societies live and die for. During war, all of these things can be considered ‘the pejorative pastime of intellectuals and oddballs who probably have too much time on their hands’.

The facts of the matter are that the rule of international law cannot be expunged, demeaned, pilloried or considered optional by any side of a conflict, except through dirty politics, self-interest and expediency. 

-- John Candido

"Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and life to everything."  --Plato

A Cry of Thanksgiving

"For me, prayer is a burst from my heart, it is a simple glance thrown toward heaven, a cry of thanksgiving and love in times of trial as well as in times of joy."  --St. Therese of Lisieux

"If every trace of any single religion were wiped out and nothing were passed on, it would never be created exactly that way again. There might be some other nonsense in its place, but not that exact nonsense. If all of science were wiped out, it would still be true and someone would find a way to figure it all out again."  --Penn Jillette    — p. 129 (God, No!: Signs You May Already Be an Atheist and Other Magical Tales (2011))

"If Darwin 's discovery had been made in a Taoist or Shinto, Hindu or animist culture it would very likely have become just one more strand in its intertwining mythologies. In these faiths humans and other animals are kin. By contrast, arising among Christians who set humans beyond all other living things, it triggered a bitter controversy that rages on to this day."  --John N. Gray   — The Human: Science versus Humanism (p. 3-4)

"I happen to think that the singular evil of our time is prejudice. It is from this evil that all other evils grow and multiply. In almost everything I've written there is a thread of this: a man's seemingly palpable need to dislike someone other than himself."  --Rod Serling     — Interview Los Angeles Times (1967)

"Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation."  --Oscar Wilde

"... And I, who timidly hate life, fear death with fascination. I fear this nothingness that could be something else, and I fear it as nothing and as something else simultaneously, as if gross horror and non-existence could coincide there, as if my coffin could entrap the eternal breathing of a bodily soul, as if immortality could be tormented by confinement. The idea of hell, which only a satanic soul could have invented seems to me to have derived from this sort of confusion - a mixture of two different fears that contradict and contaminate each other."  --Fernando Pessoa

"You don't always have to be doing something. You can just be, and that's plenty."  --Alice Walker

"At every stage in human history, music has been a catalyst for change, challenging conventions and conveying coded messages—or, not infrequently, delivering blunt, unambiguous ones. It has given voice to individuals and groups denied access to other platforms for expression, so much so that, in many times and places, freedom of song has been as important as freedom of speech, and far more controversial."  --Ted Gioia

"A small act is worth a million thoughts."  --Ai Weiwei

Where to Put Our Attention

"Somewhere we know that without silence words lose their meaning, that without listening speaking no longer heals, that without distance closeness cannot cure. Somewhere we know that without a lonely place our actions quickly become empty gestures. The careful balance between silence and words, withdrawal and involvement, distance and closeness, solitude and community forms the basis of the Christian life and should, therefore, be the subject of our most personal attention."  --Henri Nouwen

"I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel."  --Maya Angelou

"I understand above all that charity must not remain hidden in the bottom of the heart."  --St. Therese of Lisieux

"Nothing is worth more than laughter. It is strength to laugh and to abandon oneself, to be light."  --Frida Kahlo

The Sacred and the Holy

"Something very deep and mysterious, very holy and sacred, is taking place in our lives right where we are, and the more attentive we become the more we will begin to see and hear it. The more our spiritual sensitivities come to the surface of our daily lives, the more we will discover—uncover—a new presence in our lives."  --Henri Nouwen