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Volume 19, # 6 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . February, 2004 |
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Volume 19, # 6 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . February, 2004 |
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On Genius . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . George Louis Leclerc de Buffon
"Genius is nothing but a great aptitude for patience."
Divine Providence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . George Washington
"I am sure that never was a people, who had more reason to acknowledge a Divine interposition in their affairs, than those of the United States; and I should be pained to believe that they have forgotten that agency, which was so often manifested during our Revolution, or that they failed to consider the omnipotence of that God who is alone able to protect them."
Your Conscience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Richard Bach, Illusions: Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah
"Your conscience is the measure of the honesty of your selfishness. Listen to it carefully."
Power Corrupts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Adm. Ben Moreell, Reader’s Digest, Nov. 1990, p. 185
"The person who uses…power to force others to conform to his ideas seems inevitably to become corrupted by the power he holds. In due course he comes to believe that power and wisdom are the same thing and since he has power, he must also have wisdom. At this point he begins to lose his ability to distinguish between what is morally right and what is…expedient."
Love is to be Vulnerable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C.S. Lewis
"To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket—safe, dark motionless, airless—it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable…The only safe place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers of love…is Hell."
A Little Knowledge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Norman Cousins, Human Options, p. 25
"Alexander Pope is quoted as saying, ‘A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.’ T.H. Huxley pondered its implications. ‘Where is the person,’ he asked, ‘who has enough of it to be out of danger.’"
One Day at a Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Anonymous
"No one ever collapsed under the burdens of a single day. It is when the burdens of tomorrow are added to it that it becomes unbearable. Live one day at a time—it’s all we have that is a certainty, anyway."
Married Life Happiness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . John Selden
"The happiness of married life depends upon making small sacrifices with readiness and cheerfulness."
Wisdom Seeds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . William Arthur Ward
"It’s wise to learn and practice the art of browsing receptively, loafing creatively, and day-dreaming productively."
"Open your eyes to beauty, your mind to ideas, your heart to others, and your hands to needs."
As a Man Thinketh . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . James Allen, p. vii
"This little volume…is suggestive rather than explanatory, its object being to stimulate men and women to the discovery and perception of the truth that—‘they themselves are makers of themselves’ by virtue of the thoughts which they choose and encourage; that the mind is the master weaver, both of the inner garment of character and the outer garment of circumstance, and that, as they may have hitherto woven in ignorance and pain they may now weave in enlightenment and happiness."
The Hour—the Leader . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Talmud
"In every age there comes a time when leadership suddenly comes forth to meet the needs of the hour. And so there is no individual who does not find one’s time, and there is no hour that does not have its leader."
Hell Begins… . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Gian-Carlo Menotti
"Hell begins on the day when God grants us a clear vision of all that we might have achieved, of all the gifts which we have wasted, of all that we might have done which we did not do…Of me, the conception of hell lies in two words: too late!"
Be Prepared . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dr. Albert Schweitzer
"We must all be prepared to find that life tries to take from us our belief in the true and the good when we find it."
Guilt or Forgiven . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Alan Paton, Instrument of Thy Peace
"I should like to write a few words for those who have repented and who have been forgiven, but who still cannot feel forgiven. You are not literally understanding the gospel. You are not understanding the injunction of Jesus to you that you must forgive seventy times seven. For if you are expected to do that, what do you think God may be expected to do? What is more, you are making it difficult, if not impossible, for God to use you as an instrument because of your feeling of guilt for something that has been forgiven.
First Principle . . . . . . . . . . . Jack Canfield & Mark V. Hanson, The Aladdin Factor, p. 123
"The first and most important principle in asking for and getting what you want is the ‘ground of being’ from which you ask. By ‘ground of being’ we mean your state of thinking in regard to your level of certainty about getting what you are asking for. If your expectation is that you will get what you are asking for, it will affect everything else—your body posture, eye contact, tone of voice and choice of words.…
Start with the assumption that you can get what you want."
Weight of a Snowflake . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Fresh Packet of Sower’s Seeds, # 70
Not too long ago in a place not too far away, a field mouse asked a wise old owl what is the weight of a snowflake. "Why nothing more than nothing," answered the owl.
The mouse went on to tell the owl about the time he was resting on a branch in a fir tree, counting each snowflake until the number was exactly 3 million, 471 thousand, 952. Then with the settling of the very next flake—crack. The branch suddenly snapped, tumbling the mouse and the snow to the ground. "Humph …Such was the weight of nothing," said the mouse.
So the next time you think your contributions, your acts of charity, your works for justice, your gifts of love, and your talents are nothing, or that they are small in comparison to those of others, remember that when one is added to another, and then to another and so forth, great things can happen from nothing. In the same way, what seems to be ordinary can be transformed into something extraordinary with just a little extra nothing.
So, too, [United Way] transforms a community that shares with each other’s own nothingness, and one’s ordinary gifts and talents are united to strengthen the whole. [United Way’s] mission is to create great things once again out of nothingness, to transform the ordinary into the extraordinary.
Hardness of Petrified Hearts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Anonymous
There are six great "forests" in the 94,189 square-mile Petrified Forest National Park within the Painted Desert of northern Arizona.
Virtually unknown until the late 1870s, the 135-million-year-old "stone trees" had been killed by natural processes and deeply buried in mud and sand that contained silica-rich volcanic ash. The logs became petrified as the mineral, carried into the wood by ground water, replaced the wood cells. Eventually, the surrounding material eroded away, and the petrified logs of varied colors became exposed. The stone is of such hardness that it will scratch all but the hardest alloy steels.
Have you ever wondered if refusing to forgive others or unconfessed sins would, likewise, petrify human hearts…
Ash Wednesday,
February 25, 2004
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