Alain de Botton about Reading to a Young Reader

Dear Reader,

We wouldn’t need books quite so much if everyone around us understood us well. But they don’t. Even those who love us get us wrong. They tell us who we are but miss things out. They claim to know what we need, but forget to ask us properly first. They can’t understand what we feel — and sometimes, we’re unable to tell them, because we don’t really understand it ourselves. That’s where books come in. They explain us to ourselves and to others, and make us feel less strange, less isolated and less alone. We might have lots of good friends, but even with the best friends in the world, there are things that no one quite gets. That’s the moment to turn to books. They are friends waiting for us any time we want them, and they will always speak honestly to us about what really matters. They are the perfect cure for loneliness. They can be our very closest friends.

Yours,

Alain [de Botton]

Blessing for Sound

BLESSING FOR SOUND

from The Bell and the Blackbird by David Whyte

I thank you,

for the smallest sound,

for the way my ears open

even before my eyes,

as if to remember

the way everything began

with an original, vibrant, note,

and I thank you for this

everyday original music,

always being rehearsed,

always being played,

always being remembered

as something new

and arriving, a tram line

below in the city street,

gull cries, or a ship’s horn

in the distant harbour,

so that in waking I hear voices

even where there is no voice

and invitations where

there is no invitation

so that I can wake with you

by the ocean, in summer

or in the deepest seemingly

quietest winter,

and be with you

so that I can hear you

even with my eyes closed,

even with my heart closed,

even before I fully wake.

Moments

There are moments that cry out to be fulfilled.  

Like, telling someone you love them. 

Or giving your money away, all of it.  

Your heart is beating, isn’t it? 

You’re not in chains, are you? 

There is nothing more pathetic than caution 

when headlong might save a life, 

even, possibly, your own.” (Felicity, p. 9)

--Mary Oliver

"We are afraid of religion because it interprets rather than just observes. Religion does not confirm that there are hungry people in the world; it interprets the hungry to be our brethren whom we allow to starve."  --Dorothee Sölle, translated by David L. Scheidt, The Inward Road and the Way Back

"In the end, we’ll all become stories."  --Margaret Atwood

"There's a metaphor in that somewhere - like all of life is about ending up somewhere you didn't expect, and learning to just be happy with it."  --Lauren Oliver

"Death is not an ending, but a symbol of movement along the path upon which we are all traveling. As it may be painful to lose contact with the physical aspect of one we love, the Spirit can never be lost. We have been and always will be a part of each other."  --John Denver