Truly humbling, the courage and compassion of health workers caring for Ebola patients. Unsung and unnamed, with no more obituary than ‘a nurse died’, these heroes risk their lives in the service of others.
Simply … awesome
God
The wonder and curiosity which welcomes what is new and regards it not as threatening but enriching life – that wonder is God. The confidence which leads us to abandon the shelter of our disguises and to open up the doors of our personality so that others may enter there, and both we and they be richer for the contact – that confidence is God. The vision which enables us to see the majesty of men, of all men including ourselves, piercing through the ugliness of the obscuring pathology to the beauty of the real person – that power of wisdom is God. H. A. Williams
Wicker Woman
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When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.
Lao Tzu
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The greatest obstacle to living is expectancy, which hangs upon tomorrow, and loses today. – Seneca
Living in mid air
Consider life through the metaphor of being in a trapeze act. As we move through the air with no safety net, we find our security whilst clinging to one trapeze or another. This trapeze can be in the form of a relationship, a job, money, or even something abstract like a belief. We are most at ease in our act if we keep one hand on the present trapeze until the other hand is firmly grasping the next trapeze. But sometimes we choose or are forced to release both hands before grasping the next trapeze. We find ourselves without security, we find ourselves in mid air. Sometimes we’re not just in mid air but in the midst of a triple somersault with no sight of the next trapeze. That time between trapezes can be scary, but mid air is where the talent and creativity of the artist is revealed. The freedom to spin, tumble and flip – to fly. And like a trapeze artist, we too must embrace the freedom and exhilaration of the time between trapezes. We too must embrace living in mid air.
Conflict
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To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting. e. e. cummings
Fountains at Trafalgar Square
Simple advice
“One of the first things that Munindra said to me when we met [in Bodh Gaya, 1967] was that if I wanted to understand the mind, I should sit down and observe it. The great simplicity and pragmatism of this advice struck a very resonant chord within me. There was no dogma to believe, no rituals to observe; rather, there was the understanding that liberating wisdom can grow from one’s own systematic and sustained investigation.”
– Joseph Goldstein (via the-starpilot-has-landed)
Best Friends
Do we really have the right to abuse and kill animals?
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“Once you learn to live as your true self, you can never be satisfied with this charade again: it thens feels so silly and superficial.” – Richard Rohr
Unconditional Love?
The term unconditional love is like saying wet water. Affection with conditions attached isn’t love. When we say ‘I love you’ , are we are actually saying, ‘in this moment, under these conditions, I feel deep affection for you’? How easy it is for this mirage of love to disappear when the conditions change. Water never needs to be qualified as wet. Love never needs to be qualified as unconditional. Love is never conditional. Love is simply love. Love is rare.