thevolutionaries

Thomas Merton's Journals :)
"..the creative power of our liberty is perhaps.. A non-destructiveness. If we can accept creation we concur in creating because we have the 'power' to destroy. Our power to create is a power to consent in creation....Our power to destroy seems more ours (and it is so) and more of a power. What is happening now is that we concentrate more and more on the power that is a rejection. Yet paradoxically, to have the power to destroy and not destroy is to 'make'.........The problem is for people to see that the power to nurture and preserve......is the only true power, and does not appear as power. Whereas what appears as power, the power to destroy, is not power but self-defeat. Strangely, this power is regarded as the one great reality in our world...."

"The price of Freedom is Eternal Vigilance."
"Those who surrender Liberty, to get temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." ~ Benjamin Franklin

"O Beloved of hearts, I beseech only You. Have pity this day on those who turn to You. My Hope, my Rest, my Delight, this heart can love none other but You."
~ Rabi'a, "Rabi'a the Mystic"

"Our peace of mind increases in spite of suffering; we become braver and more enterprising; we understand more clearly the difference between what is everlasting and what is not; we learn how to distinguish between what is our duty and what is not. Our pride melts away and we become humble. Our worldly attachments diminish and, likewise, the evil within us diminishes from day to day." ~ Mahatma Gandhi

"In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends." ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

"You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face." ~ Eleanor Roosevelt

"When we are ignorant we live in His prison; when we become prudent we live in His palace; when we fall asleep we become intoxicated; when we are awakened we are in His hands." ~ Rumi, "Mathnawi"

"The fairest graciousness, they say, is a kindly look. Wherever it thrives, the whole world flourishes." ~ Tirukkural 58:571

"Let a smile be your ambassador." ~ anon.

"Compassion is the willingness to play in the field of dreams even though you are awake." ~ Matthew Flickstein, "Swallowing the River Ganges"

"If we divide into two camps--even into violent and the nonviolent--and stand in one camp while attacking the other, the world will never have peace. We will always blame and condemn those we feel are responsible for wars and social injustice, without recognizing the degree of violence within ourselves. We must work on ourselves and also with those we condemn if we want to have a real impact."
~ Ayya Khema, "Be An Island"

"We never know the worth of water till the well is dry." ~ France

"Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards"
~ Danish philosopher, Soren Kierkegaard

"Compassion is the chief law of human existence." ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

"As for those who seek the transcendental Reality, without name, without form, contemplating the Unmanifested, beyond the reach of thought and of feeling, with their senses subdued and mind serene and striving for the good of all beings, they too will verily come unto me." ~ Bhagavad Gita, 12:3-4

"It is the theory that decides what we can observe." ~ Albert Einstein

"We who lived in concentration camps can remember the people who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a person but one thing: the last of the human freedoms -- to choose one's attitude in any given set of
circumstances, to choose one's own way." ~ Viktor Frankl (1905-1997)

"When we have chosen the vocation in which burdens cannot overwhelm, then we experience no meagre limited egotistic joy, but our deeds go on forever and when we die the tears of noble men will fall on our ashes." ~ Karl Marx

"The Master said, "A man who is not humane, what can he have to do
with ritual?"" ~ Confucianism, Analects 3.3.

"There was undoubtedly much in primitive Christianity to appeal to the Indians, and Jesus' hard sayings to the rich, and about the rich were entirely comprehensible to us. Yet, the religion that we heard preached in churches and saw practiced by congregations, with its element of display and self-aggrandizement, its active proselytism, and its open contempt of all religions but its own, was for a long time extremely repellent."
~ Ohiyesa, Charles Alexander Eastman, `The Soul Of An Indian'.

“All people, as all life, are threads in the whole of the fabric of life, which will always need mending; yet, "we" can't allow it to be torn asunder". ~ james m nordlund

Thurgood Marshall ~ "By recognizing the humanity in our fellow human being, we pay ourself the highest tribute".

"Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength; loving someone deeply gives you courage." ~ Lao-Tzu

"Never borrow for what you don't need. Never think you need what you have to borrow for. ~ Irish Proverb"

"We're not human beings having a spiritual experience, we're spiritual beings having a human experience." - Wayne Dyer (supposedly)

Well, thanx, for a great read. "Painting is poetry which is seen and not heard, and poetry is a painting which is heard but not seen." ~ Leonardo da Vinci. Enjoy a festive eve' as you can. Lest "we" forget, if you don't exercise responsibility, its Siamese twin sister, freedom, will wither, like a muscle, as well. Sadly, now, it first needs to be exorcized before its exercised. Viva la evolution!

Matutinally Yours,

james m nordlund   reality (aja)

Music is life's song accompanying the abundance of joy's Spring. For those interested: "of or pertaining to the morning, day: relating to or happening in the morning or in the early part of the day (formal), (Mid-16th century, from late Latin matutinalis, from Matuta, goddess of the dawn.)". I look forward to hearing from you. Copy, share, as you will. Au revoir.