"The one who plants trees, knowing that he will never sit in their shade, has at least started to understand the meaning of life."  --Rabindranath Tagore

"Love alters the unseen activity within your body and brain. More than any other positive emotion, then, love belongs not to one person, but to pairs or groups of people. It resides within connections. It extends beyond personal boundaries to even energize whole social networks or inspire a crowd to get up and dance."  --Barbara L. Fredrickson, PhD.

"What we have experienced and are still experiencing must surely convince us that the spirit is everything and that institutions count for very little. The best planned improvements in the organization of our society cannot help us at all until we have become at the same time capable of imparting a new spirit to our age."  --Albert Schweitzer

"The moment we begin to fear the opinions of others and hesitate to tell the truth that is in us, and from motives of policy are silent when we should speak, the divine floods of light and life flow no longer into our souls."  --Elizabeth Cady Stanton

"Do right and don’t look back, and things will turn out well."  --Vincent van Gogh

"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."  --Henri Nouwen

"If one has no sense of humor, one is in trouble."  --Betty White

 "The difficult is what takes a little time; the impossible is what takes a little longer."  --Fridtjof Nansen

God Longs to Bring Me Home

For most of my life I have struggled to find God, to know God, to love God. I have tried hard to follow the guidelines of the spiritual life—pray always, work for others, read the Scriptures—and to avoid the many temptations to dissipate myself. I have failed many times but always tried again, even when I was close to despair.

Now I wonder whether I have sufficiently realized that during all this time God has been trying to find me, to know me, and to love me. The question is not “How am I to find God?” but “How am I to let myself be found by him?” The question is not “How am I to know God?” but “How am I to let myself be known by God?” And, finally, the question is not “How am I to love God?” but “How am I to let myself be loved by God?” God is looking into the distance for me, trying to find me, and longing to bring me home.

--Henri Nouwen

"Don't plan it all. Let life surprise you a little."  --Julia Alvarez 

"There are shortcuts to happiness, and dancing is one of them."  --Vicki Baum

"Walls turned sideways are bridges."  --Angela Davis

The “Ifs” That Enslave Me

"As long as I keep running about asking “Do you love me? Do you really love me?” I give all power to the voices of the world and put myself in bondage because the world is filled with “ifs.” The world says: “Yes, I love you if you are good-looking, intelligent, and wealthy. I love you if you have a good education, a good job, and good connections. I love you if you produce much, sell much, and buy much.” There are endless “ifs” hidden in the world’s love. These “ifs” enslave me, since it is impossible to respond adequately to all of them. The world’s love is and always will be conditional. As long as I keep looking for my true self in the world of conditional love, I will remain “hooked” to the world—trying, failing, and trying again. It is a world that fosters addictions because what it offers cannot satisfy the deepest craving of my heart."  --Henri Nouwen

"And this our life, exempt from public haunt, Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, Sermons in stones, and good in everything. I would not change it."  --William Shakespeare  As You Like It, Act II, scene 1, line 15

"If you realize how vital to your whole spirit — and being and character and mind and health — friendship actually is, you will take time for it… [But] for so many of us … we have to be in trouble before we remember what’s essential… It’s one of the lonelinesses of humans that you hold on desperately to things that make you miserable and … you only realize what you have when you’re almost about to lose it."  --John O’Donohue 

"It’s not you who should solve my problems, God,

but I yours, God of the asylum-seekers.

It’s not you who should feed the hungry,

but I who should protect your children

from the terror of the banks and armies.

It’s not you who should make room for the refugees,

but I who should receive you,

hardly hidden God of the desolate.

You dreamed me, God,

Practicing walking upright

and learning to kneel down,

more beautiful that I am now,

happier than I dare to be,

freer than our country allows.

Don’t stop dreaming me, God.

I don’t want to stop remembering

that I am your tree,

planted by the streams

of living water."

--Dorothee Soelle

"The only thing people regret is that they didn’t live boldly enough, that they didn’t invest enough heart, didn’t love enough."  --Ted Hughes

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

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)."  --Henri Nouwen

“That's the thing with time, isn't it? It's not all the same. Some days - some years - some decades - are empty. There is nothing to them. It's just flat water. And then you come across a year, or even a day, or an afternoon. And it is everything. It is the whole thing.”  --Matt Haig, How to Stop Time

"Hope is like a road in the country; there was never a road, but when many people walk on it, the road comes into existence."  --Lin Yutang

"Openness may not completely disarm prejudice, but it’s a good place to start."  --Jason Collins

"The difference between a nice person and an interesting one is the interesting person often has the slight aroma of sulfur to them."  --Jonathan Carroll

"Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go."  --T.S. Eliot

"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident."  --Arthur Schopenhauer

"Fall in love with the ordinary. Fall in love with the everyday. Fall in love with brown eyes and small towns and a hand full of dandelions. Discover. Discover the crevices. Read the books that aren’t so popular, by little known authors who have a lot to offer. Listen to music that makes you think. Choose art that is buried in the corner of galleries, or on the street. Teach yourself to love the small things. The special but unnoticed things. Teach yourself how the ordinary is not so ordinary after all."  --S. Zhao

“If they miss you, they’ll call. If they want you, they’ll say it. If they care, they’ll show it. If not, they aren’t worth your time.”  --Anon

"And yet, as always, the springtime sun brings forth new life, and we may rejoice because of this new life and contribute to its unfolding; and Mozart remains as beautiful and tender as he always was and always will be. There is, after all, something eternal that lies beyond the hand of fate and of all human delusions. And such eternals lie closer to an older person than to a younger one oscillating between fear and hope. For us, there remains the privilege of experiencing beauty and truth in their purest forms."  --Albert Einstein

A New Beginning!

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.

Is it possible that our imagination can lead us to the truth of our lives? Yes, it can! The problem is that we allow our past, which becomes longer and longer each year, to say to us: “You know it all; you have seen it all, be realistic; the future will just be a repeat of the past. Try to survive it as best you can.” There are many cunning foxes jumping on our shoulders and whispering in our ears the great lie: “There is nothing new under the sun... don’t let yourself be fooled.”

When we listen to these foxes, they eventually prove themselves right: our new year, our new day, our new hour become flat, boring, dull, and without anything new.

So what are we to do? First, we must send the foxes back to where they belong: in their foxholes. And then we must open our minds and our hearts to the voice that resounds through the valleys and hills of our life saying: “Let me show you where I live among my people. My name is ‘God-with-you.’ I will wipe all the tears from your eyes; there will be no more death, and no more mourning or sadness. The world of the past has gone” (Revelation 21:2–5).

--Henri Nouwen