Contemplation is meeting as much reality as we can handle in its most simple and immediate form – without filters, judgements, or commentaries.*
Brian McLaren
Familiarity breeds love, not contempt.**
Edward Slingerland
Aw, but I like my shortcuts
to understanding and knowing;
Oh well, maybe getting lost
in something or someone
will have some benefit–
*Brian McLaren’s Faith After Doubt;
**Edward Slingerland’s Trying Not To Try.
Spirit needs form.
That was the giant truth I was feeling my way into.
Spirit needs form,
and form needs Spirit.
That was the other truth I was finding my way into.
Both are needed.*
Rob Bell
This may be the hardest of skills
I am learning:
That what comes new to me
and what prompts change for me
appearing in pictures or words
must become a first expression
and eventually an openness of form
urging more pictures and words–
*Rob Bell’s Everything Is Spiritual.
Shallow happy is pursuing pleasure.
Deep happy is pursuing fulfilment.*
Derek Sivers
When we lose our tolerance for discomfort, we lose joy.**
Brené Brown
Strange how happy starts me full and leaves me empty
whilst joy starts me empty and leaves me full–
*Derek Sivers’ How To Live;
**Brené Brown’s The Gifts Of Imperfection.
Great teachers set it up, and great students find the aha.* Sooner or later, we’re all self taught.**
Seth Godin
Use other people’s ideas.
Ideas are worth almost nothing.
Execution is everything…
Better to be filled with action than ideas.^^
Derek Sivers
To open ourselves up
to learning in body, heart, and soul
(as well as mind)
is one of the most
powerful things we can do.
*Seth Godin’s blog: Don’t steal the revelation;
**Seth Godin’s blog: Aha!;
^Derek Sivers’ How To Live.
He had no notion of the preciousness of life – the fragility. He had no idea how difficult, but essential, it is to love the world and to treat the world with mercy. And like I said, he had no idea what was coming down the road. He was entirely innocent of all that.*
Nick Cave
There is inherent sadness and tragedy in almost all situations: in our relationships, our mistakes, our failures large and small, and even our victories … grief and sadness are doorways to understanding life in a non egocentric way.**
Richard Rohr
I cringe when I think of some of what I did
or thought or said when I was younger
and what I avoided, too,
And I hope I’ll still be cringing in the future
when I think about now,
Meaning I’ll still be learning,
Becoming–
*Nick Cave’s Faith, Hope and Carnage; describing himself as a young man;
**Richard Rohr’s The Tears Of Things.
Remember, once you eliminate what you wish would happen or what you think should happen, then it becomes clear that the particular is where the ultimate and the universal have the chance to appear, in a moment of time and space, and become concrete.**
Bill Barrett and Dave Evans
*Bill Burnett and Dave Evans’ How To Live A Meaningful Life.
On the journey toward “true home,” though we may, from time to time, turn back to record or measure from whence we came, we do not turn back in order to turn back.*
Clarissa Pinkola Estés
*Clarissa Pinkola Estés’ Women Who Run With The Wolves.
I’ve come to believe that wise people don’t tell us what to do; they start by witnessing our story. They take the anecdotes, rationalisations, and episodes we tell, and see us in a noble struggle.*
David Brooks
If you would come closer
and listen, then you no longer
are information or even knowledge–
You are wisdom to me.
*David Brooks’ How To Know A Person.
To cross a threshold is to leave behind the husks and arrive at the grain.*
John O’Donohue
You have wrenched some knowledge from the deepest abyss of your unknown self, and now the demons have been closed to wreak their revenge.**
Joseph Campbell
This journey is not over–
After realisation and resolve
rfor what this lifetime can be,
There can be no time or space
for ease–
The Furies and Gorgons
begin their pursuit.
*John O’Donohue’s Benedictus;
**Joseph Campbell’s Pathways To Bliss.
Beliefs exist to guide your actions. If you’re not acting in alignment with your beliefs, you’ve missed the point of beliefs.*
Derek Sivers
Ritual is simply a myth enacted; by participating in a rite, you are participating directly in a myth.**
Joseph Campbell
If I don’t live it
I don’t believe it
not really–
I form
my ‘liturgy’
build foundations–
To be playful
be creative
today–
Learning a skill and caring enough to implement it, again and again, can give us the firm foundation to see what others might miss.^
*Derek Sivers’ Useful Not True;
**Joseph Campbell’s Pathways To Bliss;
^Seth Godin’s blog: In defense of the hard parts.
THIN|SILENCE 
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