Fully Human, Fully Alive . . . . . John Powell, SJ

     "Our participation in the fullness of life is always in direct proportion to our vision. Whoever is not living fully is not seeing rightly. However, to give up an old vision in favor of a radically different perspective always involves the limbo of the in-between, the temporary experience of chaos. This is why there is always an initial period of disorientation or disintegration. It is a necessary part of the growth process…

     It is likewise foolish to think that human growth can be accomplished instantly and without pain. There is no painless entrance into a new and fully human life."

"The wind of God is always blowing,
but you must hoist your sail."

Of Confusing Activity . . . . . Zig Ziglar

     "Many people make the mistake of confusing activity with accomplishment, and as a result, reap only a small fraction of life’s harvest."

     "Sometimes listening is the opposite of giving answers. If someone wants to explore feelings about an issue, the most likely way for another to prevent an effective conversation from taking place would be to give advice. In this situation, advice-giving is tantamount to telling the other person to stop expressing feelings because they don’t count."

     "Forgiveness is the key that unlocks the door of resentment and the handcuffs of hate. It is a power that breaks the chains of bitterness and the shackles of selfishness."

Ability to Reason . . . . . Bits & Pieces, May `86

     "Without the ability to reason, all other things become valueless. We have never sufficiently emphasized the real value of being able to reason and think as compared with the ability to study and remember what we read. The ability to reason and think explains why some men and women without much formal education manage to achieve places of importance and leadership in the world."

Visions and Dreams . . . . . Napoleon Hill

     "Cherish your visions and your dreams as they are the children of your soul, the blueprints of your ultimate achievements."

     "Every time you become a better-version-of-yourself, the consequences of your transformation echo through your family, friends, … and beyond to people and places in the future. It is God who does the transforming, but only to the extent that we cooperate. God’s grace is constant, never lacking. So our cooperation with God’s desire to transform us is essential; it is the variable. Are you willing to let God transform you"

     "Freedom is not an heirloom, but life. Once received, it does not continue to exist without effort … As life must be nourished, defended, and preserved; so freedom must be re-purchased in each generation."

A Life Lived . . . . . Forbes, 10-30-89

"How shall the soul of a man or woman
be larger than the life he or she has lived?"

     "How we see what we do is vitally related to our capacity to live with ourselves. We were born to become — to grow in wisdom and in knowledge, and to translate the possibilities of our hands and minds into realities. To stagnate in inertia, to cease growing, is to defy the ends of our own creation. What is more, it is to beget an inner dissatisfaction with ourselves that is difficult to endure."

The Spoken Word . . . . . Arab proverb

"While the word is yet unspoken, you are master of it;
when once it is spoken, it is master of you."

     "How many times it thundered before Franklin took the hint? How many apples fell on Newton’s head before he took the hint? Nature is always hinting at us. It hints over and over again. And suddenly we take the hint."

     "There is nothing wrong with harping on the same theme if the theme is a grand one and the harp well-tuned."

     "We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that fact. This enables us to do something and to do it very, very, well. We may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a stop along the way, an opportunity for grace to enter in and do the rest. We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the Master Builder and the workers. We are the workers, not Master Builders…ministers, not Messiahs. We are prophets of a future that is not our own."

     The quality of anything depends upon the quality of the imagination and judgment that goes into it. And there is nothing that we do that will not be improved by adding these great ingredients."

     "Haola (how-lay) is a word used by native Hawaiians to describe visitors to the island. This practice began when Christian missionaries first arrived in the Hawaiian Islands to convert the natives from their pagan ways. The missionaries provided little chapels in which to worship God.

     A congenial people, the natives were easily persuaded to participate in the new style of worship introduced by the missionaries. However, the natives found one thing strange. In their former ritual of worship they always ended with a period of silence in order to breathe life into their devotions…

     But the Christians who came to evangelize them just rattled off their prayers and hymns and then got up and walked out of the house of worship. And that’s why the natives called the Christians (and later, all visitors to the islands), Haola — which means without breath."