To make conversation, to share a joke, to perform mutual acts of kindness, to read together well-written books, to share in trifling and in serious matters, to disagree though without animosity—just as a person debates with himself—and in the very rarity of disagreement to find the salt of normal harmony, to teach each other something or to learn from one another, to long with impatience for those absent, to welcome them with gladness on their arrival. —Augustine
"I do not know if other people are made like me in this matter; but to me it is always dreary weather, what may be called useless weather, that slings into life a sense of action and romance. On bright blue days I do not want anything to happen; the world is complete and beautiful, a thing for contemplation. I no more ask for adventures under that turquoise dome than I ask for adventures in church. But when the background of man’s life is a grey background, then, in the name of man’s sacred supremacy, I desire to paint on it in fire and gore. When the heavens fail man refuses to fail; when the sky seems to have written on it, in letters of lead and pale silver, the decree that nothing shall happen, then the immortal soul, the prince of the creatures, rises up an decrees that something shall happen, if it be only the slaughter of a policeman."
"I’m not crazy about reality, but it’s still the only place to get a decent meal."
"There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in."
"…we shouldn’t be surprised if sometimes we wake up feeling as though tanks had rolled over us. There’s a war going on and sometimes we feel the fallout from it."
"I know there is poor and hideous suffering, and I’ve seen the hungry and the guns that go to war. I have lived pain, and my life can tell: I only deepen the wound of the world when I neglect to give thanks for early light dappled through leaves and the heavy perfume of wild roses in early July and the song of crickets on humid nights and the rivers that run and the stars that rise and the rain that falls and all the good things that a good God gives. Why would the world need more anger, more outrage? How does it save the world to reject unabashed joy when it is joy that saves us? Rejecting joy to stand in solidarity with the suffering doesn’t rescue the suffering. The converse does. The brave who focus on all things good and all things beautiful and all things true, even in the small, who give thanks for it and discover joy even in the here and now, they are the change agents who bring fullest Light to all the world. When we lay the soil of our hard lives open to the rain of grace and let joy penetrate our cracked and dry places, let joy soak into our broken skin and deep crevices, life grows. How can this not be the best thing for the world? For us? The clouds open when we mouth thanks."
won’t you let me give you a hand
i have an extra i’m not using
won’t you let me lighten your load
i mean after all your legs are shaking
"Never consider the battle lost. The battle is not lost if you live to fight another day. The battle can continue at another company or with another product or service. The battle is truly lost only when you surrender. For that matter, never consider the battle won. At the moment you consider the battle won, there are two guys in a garage, a guy and a gal in a garage, or two gals in a garage plotting the next revolution that wil do to you what you did to the status quo."
♥ 1
→ 18 Jul 11 at 4 pm
→ 18 Jul 11 at 4 pm
These are my people!
On the plight of the modern gypsy in Europe.
| Moment | Jul 2011
(Source: longform)
