Reflections about being the Good Samaritan and needing the Good Samaritan
Asking for help is never a sign of weakness. It’s one of the bravest things you can do. And it can save your life. ― Lily Collins
Being asked to help can sometimes be as difficult as asking for it, because it can feel awkward, uncomfortable, aggravating and inconvenient. Yet we are called to open the door to inconvenience. ― Cindee Snider Re
From what I’ve seen, it isn’t so much the act of asking that paralyzes us–it’s what lies beneath: the fear of being vulnerable, the fear of rejection, the fear of looking needy or weak. The fear of being seen as a burdensome member of the community instead of a productive one.It points, fundamentally, to our separation from one another.― Amanda Palmer
There are many different kinds of power. True power comes from serving and helping others.— Dalai Lama
Never worry about numbers. Help one person at a time and always start with the person nearest you. — Mother Teresa
You can always give something, even if it is only kindness. — Anne Frank
Love and kindness are never wasted. They always make a difference. They bless the one who receives them, and they bless you, the giver. — Barbara De Angelis
SONGS about ASKING FOR or GIVING HELP:
- How Did You Love? by Shinedown (rock): https://youtu.be/GA1Sm3tvS0c
- How To Save a Life by The Fray (pop rock): https://youtu.be/cjVQ36NhbMk
- Hold On, I’m Comin’ by Sam and Dave (rock): https://youtu.be/6JElrEbAcwY
- Do Something by Matthew West (Christian): https://youtu.be/b_RjndG0IX8
- Rescue Me by Kerrie Roberts (rock): https://youtu.be/WnJv9gvXp4A
- I Won’t Let Go by Rascal Flatts (country): https://youtu.be/4fqPcnuVPR8
- Count on Me by Bruno Mars (pop): https://youtu.be/6k8cpUkKK4c
- Umbrella by Rihanna ft Jay-Z (hip-hop/R&B): https://youtu.be/CvBfHwUxHIk
- Keep Your Head Up by Birdy (pop): https://youtu.be/m8AXUq5uA0Y
- Everybody Hurts by R.E.M. (folk/pop): https://youtu.be/5rOiW_xY-kc
- Stand by You by Rachel Platten (pop): https://youtu.be/bwB9EMpW8eY
- The Promise by Sturgill Simpson (country): https://youtu.be/1uKKfz6bAAQ
- Anyway by Martina McBride (country): https://youtu.be/6uLtyzRgmyI
- One Call Away by Charlie Puth (pop): https://youtu.be/BxuY9FET9Y4
- 11th Dimension by Julian Casablancas (pop/funk/new wave): https://youtu.be/pl15PlIXHIk
- Breathe Me by Sia (pop): https://youtu.be/ghPcYqn0p4Y
- Follow My Feet by The Candidates (pop/folk): https://youtu.be/ejLveeg_RnU
- You Are Loved by Stars Go Dim (pop): https://youtu.be/thSOeSduSDQ
- You’re Gonna Be Okay by Jenn & Brian Johnson (Christian): https://youtu.be/LjF9IqvXDjY
- Carry You by Ruelle (pop): https://youtu.be/-rKwPblSdQA
- I’ll Be There for You by The Rembrandts (pop): https://youtu.be/RIjTq_OdFvo
- Here for You by Kygo ft Ella Henderson (pop): https://youtu.be/b8PPap4dJog
- I’m Gonna Love You Through It by Martina McBride (country): https://youtu.be/ZYNOXRifXKQ
- Let It Start with Me by No Other Name (Christian): https://youtu.be/9H_hmNqls7A
- Fix You by Coldplay (pop): https://youtu.be/k4V3Mo61fJM
- Something Good Can Work by Two Door Cinema Club (indie): https://youtu.be/Wxu02vp_Vm0
- If We Have Each Other by Alec Benjamin (pop): https://youtu.be/D9F50YtFejo
- You’ll Never Walk Alone cover by Josh Groban (pop): https://youtu.be/G1WpGqEOCOg
- Better Than an Hallelujah by Amy Grant (Christian/country): https://youtu.be/Rm5kx3xqmg0
- Try a Little Kindness by Glen Campbell (country): https://youtu.be/JX7NNMKBPsw
- Hey Brother by Avicii (country): https://youtu.be/6Cp6mKbRTQY
- You’ve Got a Friend (folk/pop): https://youtu.be/xEkIou3WFnM
- Give Me Your Eyes by Brandon Heath (Christian): https://youtu.be/P5AkNqLuVgY
- I Will Carry You by Michael Smith (Christian): https://youtu.be/EMZj0520v0g
- I’ll Stand By You by Carrie Underwood (country): https://youtu.be/-Y4lYF3Ic_E
- If We Are the Body by Casting Crowns (Christian): https://youtu.be/Fouqn5Xg5-E
- Anytime You Need a Friend by Mariah Carey (pop): https://youtu.be/Li6vpAMmfw0
- Keep Holding On by Avril Lavigne (pop): https://youtu.be/5VRVPHWI9Dc
- Be Still by The Fray (pop rock): https://youtu.be/tlbw4k4taXI
- We Build by Nichole Nordeman (Christian): https://youtu.be/sG3KSZuq64I
May we realize that this earth is sacred and live accordingly.
May the suffering arising from oppression, hatred, and fear be righted and remedied.
May all those in the grips of insecurity be released to the safety of understanding.
May those weighed down by grief be given over to compassion.
May those lost in delusion find relief in the path of wisdom.
May all wounds to forests, rivers, deserts, oceans, all wounds to the earth be witnessed and healed through our right action.
May we work for the ending of suffering from consumerism, the climate catastrophe, war, economic disparity, racism, sexual violence, and the abuse of children.
May those in refugee camps and prisons find their way home, with our support.
May those who are alone or abandoned by friends and family, and those who are unsheltered find a safe and loving harbor in community.
May we have deep time in practice with each other and in the solitudes, to be taught by sangha and by silence, so that we have the courage and equanimity to be a source of love and wisdom for all beings.
May we all have the health, wisdom, and energy to serve in the years ahead.
May all awaken and awaken others.
— Roshi Joan Halifax
His Holiness Dalai Lama’s DAILY PRAYER
Excerpt from Shantideva’s Way of the Bodhisattva
May all beings everywhere
Plagued by sufferings of body and mind
Obtain an ocean of happiness and joy
By virtue of my merits.
May no living creature suffer,
Commit evil, or ever fall ill.
May no one be afraid or belittled,
With a mind weighed down by depression.
May the blind see forms
And the deaf hear sounds,
May those whose bodies are worn with toil
Be restored on finding repose.
May the naked find clothing,
The hungry find food;
May the thirsty find water
And delicious drinks.
May the poor find wealth,
Those weak with sorrow find joy;
May the forlorn find hope,
Constant happiness, and prosperity.
May there be timely rains
And bountiful harvests;
May all medicines be effective
And wholesome prayers bear fruit.
May all who are sick and ill
Quickly be freed from their ailments.
Whatever diseases there are in the world,
May they never occur again.
May the frightened cease to be afraid
And those bound be freed;
May the powerless find power,
And may people think of benefiting each other.
For as long as space remains,
For as long as sentient beings remain,
Until then may I too remain
To dispel the miseries of the world.
PRAYER — Thomas Merton
My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.
ABOUT NEEDING HELP
Dependence starts when we are born and lasts until we die. We accept our dependence as babies and ultimately, with varying degrees of resistance, we accept help when we get to the end of our lives. But in the middle of our lives, we mistakenly fall prey to the myth that successful people are those that help rather than need, and broken people need rather than help. Given enough resources, we can even pay for help and create the mirage that we are completely self-sufficient. But the truth is that no amount of money, influence, resources, or determination will change our physical, emotional, and spiritual dependence on others. ― Brené Brown
Brene Brown has found through her research that women tend to feel shame around the idea of being ‘never enough’… at home, at work, in bed, never pretty enough, never smart enough, never thin enough, never good enough… Men tend to feel shame around the fear of being perceived as weak, or more academically, ‘fear of being called a pussy’. Both sexes get trapped in the same box for different reasons.
If I ask for help… I am not enough.
If I ask for help… I’m weak.
It’s no wonder so many of us don’t bother to ask, it’s too painful. ― Amanda Palmer
Praying is admitting you don’t got this, but you know God does. ― Richelle E. Goodrich
There is no weakness in asking. If we wait for someone to give us what we want, chances are we might never get it. ― Abhishek Ratna
It may sound paradoxical, but strength comes from vulnerability. You have to ask the question to get the answer, even though asking the question means you didn’t know. ― Majid Kazmi
Until we can receive with an open heart, we’re never really giving with an open heart. When we attach judgment to receiving help, we knowingly or unknowingly attach judgment to giving help. — Brené Brown.Say and do something positive that will help the situation; it doesn’t take any brains to complain. — Robert A. Cook
When a person’s down in the world, I think an ounce of help is better than a pound of preaching. — Edward Bulwer-Lytton
When we feel weak, we drop our heads on the shoulders of others. Don’t get mad when someone does that…Be honored. For that person trusted you enough to, even if subtly, ask you for help. — Lori Goodwin
If you’re in trouble, or hurt or need – go to the poor people. They’re the only ones that’ll help – the only ones. — John Steinbeck
When you’re too religious, you tend to point your finger to judge instead of extending your hand to help. — Steve Maraboli
Life provides ample opportunity to test our mettle. When circumstances call for it, let’s give ourselves a break and ask for help. — Gina Greenlee
Refusing to ask for help when you need it is refusing someone the chance to be helpful. — Ric Ocasek
Being first to ask for help in a friendship takes courage and humility. — Afton Rorvik
Take the risk to ask for whatever you need and want. If someone says no, you will not lose anything. If someone says yes, you have a lot to gain. — Abhishek RatnaHowever, if you find you can’t help yourself, there’s no shame in asking others for help. Sometimes asking for help is just as heroic as giving it. — Chris Colfer
In our communion with God, we are so busy presenting our problems, asking for help, seeking relief that we leave no moments of silence to listen for God’s answers. — Alice Hegan Rice
The only mistake you can make is not asking for help. — Sandeep Jauhar
There is no shame in asking for help; it is one the most courageous things you’ll ever do and will lead to greater connection with those around you. — Laura Lane
Sometimes the loudest cries for help are silent. — Harlan Coben
There’s freedom in hitting bottom, in seeing that you won’t be able to save or rescue your daughter, her spouse, his parents, or your career, relief in admitting you’ve reached the place of great unknowing. This is where restoration can begin, because when you’re still in the state of trying to fix the unfixable, everything bad is engaged: the chatter of your mind, the tension of your physiology, all the trunks and wheel-ons you carry from the past. It’s exhausting, crazy-making. — Anne Lamott
SOURCES of HELP
With our love, we could save the world. — George Harrison
Great leaders are willing to sacrifice the numbers to save the people. Poor leaders sacrifice the people to save the numbers. — Simon Sinek
In our obscurity – in all this vastness – there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. It is up to us. — Carl Sagan
If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich. — John F. Kennedy
God has cared for these trees, saved them from drought, disease, avalanches, and a thousand tempests and floods. But he cannot save them from fools. — John Muir
If we pollute the air, water and soil that keep us alive and well, and destroy the biodiversity that allows natural systems to function, no amount of money will save us. — David Suzuki
I write for those women who do not speak, for those who do not have a voice because they were so terrified, because we are taught to respect fear more than ourselves. We’ve been taught that silence would save us, but it won’t. — Audre Lord
Music will save the world. — Pablo Casals
You can have everything in life you want if you will just help other people get what they want. — Zig Ziglar
The power of the ballot we need in sheer defense, else what shall save us from a second slavery? — W.E.B. Dubois
I learned that I can’t save the world, but I can help a child at a time. — Afeni Shakur
Beliefs have the power to create and the power to destroy. Human beings have the awesome ability to take any experience of their lives and create a meaning that disempowers them or one that can literally save their lives. — Tony Robbins
There are good people who are dealt a bad hand by fate, and bad people who live long, comfortable, privileged lives. A small twist of fate can save or end a life; random chance is a permanent, powerful player in each of our lives, and in human history as well. — Jeff Greenfield
If you want what you’re saying heard, then take your time and say it so that the listener will actually hear it. You might save somebody’s life. Your own, first. — Maya Angelou
The only thing that can save the world is the reclaiming of the awareness of the world. That’s what poetry does. — Allen Ginsberg
Mental health can improve overall well-being and prevent other illnesses. And since mental health problems have a serious economic impact on vulnerable communities, making them a priority can save lives and markedly improve people’s quality of life. — Vikram Patel
There is no person that love cannot heal; there is no soul that love cannot save. — Carlos Santana
I don’t believe our works save us, but I believe they follow us into heaven and bring glory to God. — Max Lucado
Bullying is killing our kids. Being different is killing our kids and the kids who are bullying are dying inside. We have to save our kids whether they are bullied or they are bullying. They are all in pain. — Cat Cora
It’s not new that architecture can profoundly affect a place, sometimes transform it. Architecture and any art can transform a person, even save someone. — Frank Gehry
But where do we even start on the daily walk of restoration and awakening? We start where we are. We find God in our human lives, and that includes the suffering. I get thirsty people glasses of water, even if that thirsty person is just me. My friend Tom goes through the neighborhood and picks up litter, knowing there will be just as much tomorrow. We visit those shut-ins whom a higher power seems to have entrusted to our care – various relatives, often aging and possibly annoying, or stricken friends from our church communities, people in jails or mental institutions who might be related to us, who benefit from hearing our own resurrection stories. My personal belief is that God looks through Her Rolodex when She has a certain kind of desperate person in Her care, and assigns that person to some screwed-up soul like you or me, and makes it hard for us to ignore that person’s suffering, so we show up even when it is extremely inconvenient or just awful to be there. ― Anne Lamott
Meditations on who is invited? Sitting down to the wedding banquet (or not)
That you need a village, if only for the pleasure of leaving it. Your own village means that you’re not alone, that you know there’s something of you in the people and the plants and the soil, that even when you are not there it waits to welcome you. — Cesare Pavese
Welcome home my dear, you are arrived. — Elton John
If you’ve ever been homesick, or felt exiled from all the things and people that once defined you, you’ll know how important welcoming words and friendly smiles can be. – Stephen King
Small cheer and great welcome makes a merry feast. — William Shakespeare
Welcome the present moment as if you had invited it. Why? Because it is all we ever have. — Pema Chodron
Welcome those big, sticky, complicated problems. In them are your most powerful opportunities. — Ralph Marston
Welcome to my house! Enter freely. Go safely, and leave something of the happiness you bring! — Bram Stoker
A smile is the universal welcome. — Max Eastman
SONGS about WELCOME & INVITATION (Or Not):
- Family Table by Zac Brown Band (country):https://youtu.be/Ic9CqnOCcI4
- Invitation performed by Rosemary Clooney (blues/jazz): https://youtu.be/z3IkB48eFjc
- Welcome to the Occupation by R.E.M. (rock): https://youtu.be/XARqoTAJFuM
- You’re Welcome from Disney’s Moana (musical): https://youtu.be/79DijItQXMM
- Uninvited by Alanis Morissette (indie/pop): https://youtu.be/uvgi7P97lu0
- We’re Not Invited, Are We? (The Party Song) by Daniel Konikoff (indie/pop): https://youtu.be/E2dfxzzOwWY
- Welcome to New York by Taylor Swift (pop): https://youtu.be/RvYysauPsMc
- Welcome to the Jungle by Guns n Roses (rock): https://youtu.be/o1tj2zJ2Wvg
- Roots / Welcome Home by Zac Brown Band (country): https://youtu.be/bW75vz11K98
- E.T. by Katy Perry ft Kanye West (pop/hiphop – explicit lyrics): https://youtu.be/t5Sd5c4o9UM
- Welcome Home by Dolly Parton (country): https://youtu.be/dHYoLrfkbKc
- Welcome to the Future by Brad Paisley (country): https://youtu.be/Y0Yg9wjctRw
- Who Invited You by The Donnas (rock): https://youtu.be/0cO7Cz9J_NU
- Life’s a Party and You’re Not Invited by Arvo to Me (instrumental/blues): https://youtu.be/UDyIptn28EI
- Welcome by Fort Minor (hip hop – explicit lyrics/cursing): https://youtu.be/REAwGmv0Fuk
- Not Invited by Holychild ft Mereki (pop/hiphop): https://youtu.be/z3IkB48eFjc
- Welcome to Paradise by Green Day (rock): https://youtu.be/OR7R9Kuw2fY
- Welcome Back performed https://youtu.be/Ic9CqnOCcI4by Mika Singh & John Abraham (pop/Bollywood): https://youtu.be/tbBFVpRmtvg
- I’m Not Invited by Biianco, Trace (pop): https://youtu.be/ZHQmjtJ4KhE
- Invitation by Why Don’t We (pop): https://youtu.be/941Bl3oxk8Y
- Welcome to the Machine by Pink Floyd (rock): https://youtu.be/lt-udg9zQSE
- Invited by Marcus & Martinus (pop): https://youtu.be/N_D45ZxViww
- Invite Me to Your Party by Tyler Ward (pop): https://youtu.be/bPqlvgAn0Q0
- Be Welcome by Atmosphere ft Ryan Kennedy (Christian): https://youtu.be/i6qu1nPKWtA
- Invitation by Byron Cage (Gospel): https://youtu.be/l4CYQRm1GXk
- Welcome the Healer by Passion (Christian): https://youtu.be/AjThJzjtOBo
- Welcome Here by Chris Quilala (Christian): https://youtu.be/69q9sOhhxnk
- Invited by Switch (Christian): https://youtu.be/bGMp-wxMvRc
- Welcome Back by John Sebastian (pop): https://youtu.be/IhzzAUaOzs
- Not Invited by 2 Chinz (rap / explicit lyrics – cursing): https://youtu.be/2KqpwJygUUM
- The Invitation by Meredith Andrews (Christian): https://youtu.be/kDe-dZNKeoE
- Bring It All by Hillsong (Christian): https://youtu.be/wA4IY8XMNYY
- Not Invited by Thomas Silver (rock): https://youtu.be/vxJHh7Ru_lc
- You’re Not Invited by Las Tetas (punk rock): https://youtu.be/1vf2trWzHRs
- Not Invited by Ann Beretta (rock): https://youtu.be/9RoawIj00fA
- You’re Not Invited to My Party by Neil Johnson (country): https://youtu.be/Qzac66Qu9pQ
WELCOMING BLESSING — Jan Richardson
When you are lost
in your own life.
When the landscape
you have known
falls away.
When your familiar path
becomes foreign
and you find yourself
a stranger
in the story you had held
most dear.
Then let yourself
be lost.
Let yourself leave
for a place
whose contours
you do not already know,
whose cadences
you have not learned
by heart.
Let yourself land
on a threshold
that mirrors the mystery
of your own
bewildered soul.
It will come
as a surprise,
what arrives
to welcome you
through the door,
making a place for you
at the table
and calling you
by your name.
Let what comes,
come.
Let the glass
be filled.
Let the light
be tended.
Let the hands
lay before you
what will meet you
in your hunger.
Let the laughter.
Let the sweetness
that enters
the sorrow.
Let the solace
that comes
as sustenance
and sudden, unbidden
grace.
For what comes,
offer gladness.
For what greets you
with kindly welcome,
offer thanks.
Offer blessing
for those
who gathered you in
and will not
be forgotten—
those who,
when you were
a stranger,
made a place for you
at the table
and called you
by your name.
Every day, think as you wake up, today I am fortunate to be alive, I have a precious human life, I am not going to waste it. I am going to use all my energies to develop myself, to expand my heart out to others; to achieve enlightenment for the benefit of all beings. I am going to have kind thoughts towards others, I am not going to get angry or think badly about others. I am going to benefit others as much as I can. — Dalai Lama
BLESSING THE THRESHOLD — Jan Richardson
This blessing
has been waiting for you
for a long time.
While you have been
making your way here,
this blessing has been
gathering itself,
making ready,
biding its time,
praying.
This blessing has been
polishing the door,
oiling the hinges,
sweeping the steps,
lighting candles
in the windows.
This blessing has been
setting the table
as it hums a tune
from an old song
it knows,
something about
a spiraling road
and bread
and grace.
All this time
it has kept an eye
on the horizon,
watching,
keeping vigil,
hardly aware of how
it was leaning itself
in your direction.
And now that
you are here,
this blessing
can hardly believe
its good fortune
that you have finally arrived,
that it can drop everything
at last
to fling its arms wide
to you, crying
welcome,
welcome,
welcome.
TO COME HOME to YOURSELF — John O’Donohue
May all that is unforgiven in you,
Be released.
May your fears yield
Their deepest tranquilities.
May all that is unlived in you,
Blossom into a future,
Graced with love.
Inspired by Joy Harjo’s Perhaps the World Ends Here, a collection of student poetry about everyday objects such as the kitchen table:
Mrs. Nazimek, 8th Grade, Washington
At The Table — Bryanna P.
At the table I play / games like Monopoly.
At the table I sometimes / get yelled at.
The table is like a sign / of bringing everyone together.
The table has been / through a lot and still
has not managed to chip / or break.
The table is a very / special thing.
At the table we laugh, / talk and sometimes even / fall asleep.
At the table there are / so many memories that / will never be forgotten.
Untitled — Maribel R.
The world begins at a dining room table.
You would eat at this table
This table had all my birthday cakes
This table had all my family dinners
All my homework has been done at this table.
After having so much homework on this
table I thought the table would collapse
Under the table are legs and my
dog spread out in the middle.
This table had our family gatherings.
This table has never been moved.
At this table we talk about anything.
This table has held my life together.
this table has seen sadness and
happiness.
This world will end at the dining
room table, while we are laughing
and having happiness.
Kitchen Table — Emily A.
We eat at this table,
delicious food that we can’t get sick of.
each day we converse at this talbe.
we talk about the good
and the bad…
We have heard some tragic things.
Other things were wonderful
We all reunite at this table.
It’s the only time we can be together.
It’s what got us closer,
What made us stronger,
What made us weaker,
What made us happier.
But whatever happens in the end,
we’ll all be together,
laughing, talking and gossiping
at the kitchen table.
Mrs. Strus, 7th Grade, Washington
Table of Memories — Gabriella S.
The table si where I enjoyed eating dinner with my
family.
The table is where I aged, and where everyone would
sing for me at each birthday.
the table is where we had long talks about life
and what it’s become.
The table is where I told my parents what I wanted to
be when I grew up.
the table is where I was taught to behave.
The table is where we played hours of games
as a family.
Lastly, the table is where I live and learn the
meaning of life.
The Table — Cesar L.
I have worked very hard
at the table. I hope to meet
family members I have never seen
at this table. There have been
fights at this table. Tears have
dropped on this table. I have cleaned
this table. It’s a brown wooden
table.
WELCOME — Stephen Dunne
if you believe nothing is always what’s left
after a while, as I did,
If you believe you have this collection
of ungiven gifts, as I do (right here
behind the silence and the averted eyes)
If you believe an afternoon can collapse
into strange privacies-
how in your backyard, for example,
the shyness of flowers can be suddenly
overwhelming, and in the distance
the clear goddamn of thunder
personal, like a voice,
If you believe there’s no correct response
to death, as I do; that even in grief
(where I’ve sat making plans)
there are small corners of joy
If your body sometimes is a light switch
in a house of insomniacs
If you can feel yourself straining
to be yourself every waking minute
If, as I am, you are almost smiling . . .
About WELCOME
The soul should always stand ajar, ready to welcome the ecstatic experience.— Emily Dickinson
The stories we love best do live in us forever. So, whether you come back by page or by the big screen, Hogwarts will always be there to welcome you home.— J.K. Rowling
One of the marvelous things about community is that it enables us to welcome and help people in a way we couldn’t as individuals. – Jean Vanier
To all my friends without distinction I am ready to display my opulence: come one, come all; and whosoever likes to take a share is welcome to the wealth that lies within my soul. — Antisthenese
God sends a welcome. — John Herschel
We are made for goodness. We are made for love…We are made for all of the beautiful things that you and I know. We are made to tell the world that there are no outsiders…all are welcome. – Desmond Tutu
Welcome to the present moment. Here. Now. The only moment there ever is. — Eckhart Tolle
Sometimes the hurdles aren’t really hurdles at all. They’re welcome challenges, tests. — Paul Walker
I’m open for choices. I always welcome new ideas. I’m always eager to learn. I’m never going to close my mind from learning. — Cesar Millan
Good company, good wine, good welcome, can make good people. — William Shakespeare, from The Life of King Henry the Eighth
Welcome every morning with a smile. Look on the new day as another special gift from your Creator, another golden opportunity to complete what you were unable to finish yesterday. Be a self-starter. Let your first hour set the theme of success and positive action that is certain to echo through your entire day. Today will never happen again. Don’t waste it with a false start or no start at all. You were not born to fail.— Og Mandino
Welcome the challenges. Look for the opportunities in every situation to learn and grow in wisdom. — Brian Tracy
If the sign on your heart says “WELCOME”, the love will come pouring in from everywhere. — Susan Jeffers
Welcome out of the cave, my friend. It’s a bit colder out here, but the stars are just beautiful. —Plato
Joy waits on welcome, not time. – Robert Holden
When we are generous in welcoming people and sharing something with them some food, a place in our homes, our time-not only do we no longer remain poor: we are enriched. — Pope Francis
Sometimes, challenges and struggles are exactly what we need in our lives…May you welcome every effort, every struggle, and every challenge…May you open your wings and fly! — Miranda Kerr
For each and all I bid thee a grateful welcome home. — John Greenleaf Whittier
Listening is much more than allowing another to talk while waiting for a chance to respond. Listening is paying full attention to others and welcoming them into our very beings. — Henry Nouwen
There’s no substitute for a great love who says, ‘No matter what’s wrong with you, you’re welcome at this table. – Tom Hanks
Like a welcome summer rain, humor may suddenly cleanse and cool the earth, the air, and you. — Langston Hughes
I will always welcome joyfully any opportunity that comes my way to be of service to you. – Vincent de Paul
Only flowers of buckwheat
Can still be served on the mountain road,
To welcome you here.
— Matsuo Basho, translated by Toshiharu
Oseko
Cuckoo,
were you invited by the barley
plumed with seed?
— Matsuo Basho translated by David Landis Barnhill
The GUEST HOUSE — Rumi
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.
MORNING OFFERING
— John O’Donohue
Bless the night that nourished my heart
To set the ghosts of longing free
Into the flow and figure of dream
That went to harvest from the dark
Bread for the hunger no one sees.
All that is eternal in me
Welcomes the wonder of this day,
The field of brightness it creates
Offering time for each thing
To arise and illuminate.
I place on the altar of dawn:
The quiet loyalty of breath,
The tent of thought where I shelter,
Waves of desire I am shore to
And all beauty drawn to the eye.
May my mind come alive today
To the invisible geography
That invites me to new frontiers,
To break the dead shell of yesterdays,
To risk being disturbed and changed.
May I have the courage today
To live the life that I would love,
To postpone my dream no longer
But do at last what I came here for
And waste my heart on fear no more.
REMEMBER — Joy Harjo
Remember the sky that you were born under,
know each of the star’s stories.
Remember the moon, know who she is.
Remember the sun’s birth at dawn, that is the
strongest point of time. Remember sundown
and the giving away to night.
Remember your birth, how your mother struggled
to give you form and breath. You are evidence of
her life, and her mother’s, and hers.
Remember your father. He is your life, also.
Remember the earth whose skin you are:
red earth, black earth, yellow earth, white earth
brown earth, we are earth.
Remember the plants, trees, animal life who all have their
tribes, their families, their histories, too. Talk to them,
listen to them. They are alive poems.
Remember the wind. Remember her voice. She knows the
origin of this universe.
Remember you are all people and all people
are you.
Remember you are this universe and this
universe is you.
Remember all is in motion, is growing, is you.
Remember language comes from this.
Remember the dance language is, that life is.
Remember.
POEMS that WRESTLE with WELCOME
WELCOME — Susan Eisenberg
Everything you thought you knew
must be relearned overnight.
How to walk.
Walk, not trip, over cords, 2x4s,
used coffee cups, concrete cores.
Walk, 40 pounds on your shoulder, across
rebar or a wood plank; glide,
not wobble, not look like the bounce
beneath each bootstep scares you.
How to dress yourself
to work outdoors all day midwinter
and keep warm, keep working, fingers moving;
or midsummer, with no hint of breasts.
How to climb ladders–
not a stepstool or a 4-footer–
ladders that stretch up two stories
where someone’s impatient
for that bundle of pipe.
How to get coffee–
hot and how they like it–to a crew
spread out 10 floors; to carry muffins
three blocks in a paper sack
through sheets of rain.
How to look.
To never go back empty-handed
when you’re told, Grab me a This/That
from the gangbox, if all you’ve done
is move things around, poke here and there;
if you haven’t emptied out the full contents
so the journeyman won’t shame you
by finding This/That in a quick minute,
after you’ve said, We don’t have any.
How to be dependable
but not predictable-provokable.
Not the lunch break entertainment.
How to read
blueprints,
delivery orders,
the mood on the job;
how long it’s okay to sit down for coffee;
how early you can start rolling up cords.
How to do well in school
from the back row
of a seats-assigned-Jim-Crow classroom
How to learn tricks-of-the-trade
from someone who does not like you.
How to listen, to act-don’t-ask.
To duck when someone motions, Duck!
Or when someone tells you, Don’t talk to Zeke,
to know what they mean
so you don’t even look
at Zeke, the ironworker who’s always first out,
last in, standing there, so four times a day–
start, lunch, quit–all the workers walk past him,
like a sandbar, waves washing back and forth,
that catches debris.
How to pick up the phone and call your friend,
the only one of the women not at class
the night the apprenticeship director met you all
at the door
carrying the nervous rumor
that one of the women had been raped
and you all look at each other
and it wasn’t any of you five.
How to respond–within protocol–
when someone takes your ladder or tools,
imitates your voices on the loudspeaker,
spraypaints Cunt on your Baker staging,
urinates in your hardhat,
drives to your home
where you live alone
with your daughter
and keys your truck parked
in your own driveway.
Later, you’ll need the advanced skills:
how–without dislodging the keystone–
to humiliate a person, how to threaten
a person. Deftly.
So no one’s certain for absolute
that’s what happened. Not even you.
THE UNITED STATES WELCOMES YOU — Tracy K. Smith
Why and by whose power were you sent?
What do you see that you may wish to steal?
Why this dancing? Why do your dark bodies
Drink up all the light? What are you demanding
That we feel? Have you stolen something? Then
What is that leaping in your chest? What is
The nature of your mission? Do you seek
To offer a confession? Have you anything to do
With others brought by us to harm? Then
Why are you afraid? And why do you invade
Our night, hands raised, eyes wide, mute
As ghosts? Is there something you wish to confess?
Is this some enigmatic type of test? What if we
Fail? How and to whom do we address our appeal?
SONG of WELCOME — Joseph Brodsky
Here’s your mom, here’s your dad.
Welcome to being their flesh and blood.
Why do you look so sad?
Here’s your food, here’s your drink.
Also some thoughts, if you care to think.
Welcome to everything.
Here’s your practically clean slate.
Welcome to it, though it’s kind of late.
Welcome at any rate.
____
Here’s your paycheck, here’s your rent.
Money is nature’s fifth element.
Welcome to every cent.
Here’s your swarm and your huge beehive.
Welcome to the place with its roughly five
billion like you alive.
Welcome to the phone book that stars your name.
Digits are democracy’s secret aim.
Welcome to your claim to fame.
____
Here’s your marriage, and here’s divorce.
Now that’s the order you can’t reverse.
Welcome to it; up yours,
Here’s your blade, here’s your wrist.
Welcome to playing your own terrorist;
call it your Middle East.
Here’s your mirror, your dental gleam.
Here’s an octopus in your dream.
Why do you try to scream?
____
Here’s your corncob, your TV set.
Your candidate suffering an upset.
Welcome to what he said.
Here’s your porch, see the cars pass by.
Here’s your shitting dog’s guilty eye.
Welcome to its alibi.
Here are your cicadas, then a chickadee,
the bulb’s dry tear in your lemon tea.
Welcome to infinity.
____
Here are your pills on the plastic tray,
your disappointing, crisp X-ray.
You are welcome to pray.
Here’s your cemetery, a well-kept glen.
Welcome to a voice that says “Amen.”
The end of the rope, old man.
Here’s your will, and here’s a few
takers. Here’s an empty pew.
Here’s life after you.
____
And here are your stars which appear still keen
on shining as though you had never been.
They might have a point, old bean.
Here’s your afterlife, with no trace
of you, especially of your face.
Welcome, and call it space.
Welcome to where one cannot breathe.
This way, space resembles what’s underneath,
and Saturn holds the wreath.
Of seeds & sowers, gardens & growing
When people try to bury you, remind yourself you are a seed.
― Matshona Dhliwayo
Your heart is full of fertile seeds, waiting to sprout. — Morihei Ueshiba
The seed is in the ground. Now may we rest in hope, while darkness does its work.
~ Wendell Berry
Every problem has in it the seeds of its own solution.— Norman Vincent Peale
From seeds of his body blossomed the flower that liberated a people and touched the soul of a nation. — Jesse Jackson
We are a seed patiently waiting in the earth: waiting to come up a flower in the Gardener’s good time, up into the real world, the real waking. I suppose that our whole present life, looked back on from there, will seem only a drowsy half-waking. We are here in the land of dreams. But cock-crow is coming. — CS Lewis
I the grain and the furrow,
The plough-cloven clod
And the ploughshare drawn thorough,
The germ and the sod,
The deed and the doer, the seed and the sower,
the dust which is God.
— Algernon Charles Swinburne, Hertha (excerpt)
SONGS about SEEDS & GARDENS • Planting Seeds by Nimo ft. Daniel Nahmod (folk/rap): https://youtu.be/5AmqYcWjBmc • The Seed by Aurora (pop/indie): https://youtu.be/_Mc_OM5oNA8 • Garden Song performed by John Denver & Muppet (folk): https://youtu.be/D3FkaN0HQgs • Garden Song by Dave Mallett (folk): https://youtu.be/2m0LewjkO4s • My Little Seed by Woodie Guthrie (folk): https://youtu.be/aO1HSp2soiA • A Seed’s a Star by Stevie Wonder (rock/pop): https://youtu.be/KEK7tMxXRpo • Plant the Seeds by Digging Roots (folk/indie): https://youtu.be/9EmLqdmvUDQ • Sowing the Seeds of Love by Tears for Fears (rock): https://youtu.be/VAtGOESO7W8 • Will It Grow by Jake Dylan (pop/folk): https://youtu.be/b0nFyEM0aHU • Secret Garden by Rolf Lovland (piano/instrumental): https://youtu.be/-sWnEWpS_fA • Seeds by Kathy Mattea (folk): https://youtu.be/61D5AU3SG7A • Octopus’s Garden by The Beatles (rock): https://youtu.be/De1LCQvbqV4 • Poppy Seed Heart by Tom Billington (folk/rock): https://youtu.be/KdHpYiBoxKs • The Olive Tree by Judith Durham (folk): https://youtu.be/agvbSC2rmDg • Seed Song by Giants in the Trees (pop): https://youtu.be/RDpftwzTdjk • The Seed by The Roots (rap/soul): https://youtu.be/ojC0mg2hJCc • Seed Song by the Mountain Goats (country): https://youtu.be/bZi2FhOOXKc • Mustard Seed by David Ashley Trent (Christan): https://youtu.be/uS6Er6I2nbM • Rain Only Matters / Expecting a Harvest by William McDowell Music (gospel): https://youtu.be/JgBSwIGnS-s • Planting Seeds of Love by Pam Donkin (folk): https://youtu.be/B5uUyM128M0 SEED SONGS (Kid Music): • Seed Song by the Ark Collective (kids music): https://youtu.be/OBatjl0BRQg • Roots, Stems, Leaves, Flower by Firefly Family Theater (kid music): https://youtu.be/9bFU_wJgvBI • I’m a Little Seed by Leslie Bixler (kids music): https://youtu.be/9oRarzP4oyU • One Seed by Laurie Berkner (kids song): https://youtu.be/jDtehB-BpIA • Seed Dispersal by Mr R’s Teaching Songs (kids music): https://youtu.be/3CCOWHa-qfc • Una Semilla/The Seed by 123 Andres (kid music): https://youtu.be/02L8Y9z7McM • The Farmer Plants the Seeds by Kiboomer (kids music): https://youtu.be/VxlGDAMqFkU • The Seed Song by Let’s Roll Snowball (kids music): https://youtu.be/Cd2O4utPw6c • Take a Little Seed by Tom Pease & Stuart Stotts (kid music/storytelling song session): https://youtu.be/O7St5L8fzX4 |
A Short Story of Falling — Alice Oswald It is the story of the falling rain to turn into a leaf and fall again it is the secret of a summer shower to steal the light and hide it in a flower and every flower a tiny tributary that from the ground flows green and momentary is one of water’s wishes and this tale hangs in a seed-head smaller than my thumbnail if only I a passerby could pass as clear as water through a plume of grass to find the sunlight hidden at the tip turning to seed a kind of lifting rain drip then I might know like water how to balance the weight of hope against the light of patience water which is so raw so earthy-strong and lurks in cast-iron tanks and leaks along drawn under gravity t owards my tongue to cool and fill the pipe-work of this song which is the story of the falling rain that rises to the light and falls again |
Earth, Teach Me — Native American Prayer, unattributed
Earth teach me quiet ~ as the grasses are still with new light.
Earth teach me suffering ~ as old stones suffer with memory.
Earth teach me humility ~ as blossoms are humble with beginning.
Earth teach me caring ~ as mothers nurture their young.
Earth teach me courage ~ as the tree that stands alone.
Earth teach me limitation ~ as the ant that crawls on the ground.
Earth teach me freedom ~ as the eagle that soars in the sky.
Earth teach me acceptance ~ as the leaves that die each fall.
Earth teach me renewal ~ as the seed that rises in the spring.
Earth teach me to forget myself ~ as melted snow forgets its life.
Earth teach me to remember kindness ~ as dry fields weep with rain.
Prayer for a Garden — Maren Tirabassi
God, we need peace – so we come to the garden for quiet.
We need joy – so we come to the garden for our senses —
the green of leaf,
the rich crumbling smell of soil,
and the scent of pine needle,
the sounds of small life, of chipmunk and bird,
that come and go in all places natural,
the rough texture of gravel, the delicacy of a flower petal.
We need to let things go – so we come to the garden for rest,
and we need to let people go,
so we come to the garden to remember them.
We need hope – so we come to the garden to watch things grow
reminding ourselves to be planters
and to enjoy what others have planted.
We need benches where we can begin to let Sabbath in our lives.
We need paths to help us recognize our own journeys.
We need a justice commitment to environment,
a global commitment that calls us to action,
but we also need a small square of real earth
to root our speeches and to get our hands dirty.
We need community – so we come to this garden
to give and receive a shared blessing
(not the result of our personal winter catalogues,
spring compost, summer weeding)
to give and receive a shared blessing
from the hand of the Sower of seeds. Amen
OF SEEDS
By cultivating the beautiful we scatter the seeds of heavenly flowers, as by doing good we cultivate those that belong to humanity. — Robert A. Heinlein
We know we cannot plant seeds with closed fists. To sow, we must open our hands. — Adolfo Perez Esquivel
By cultivating the beautiful we scatter the seeds of heavenly flowers, as by doing good we cultivate those that belong to humanity. Share this Quote Robert A. Heinlein
Read more at https://www.brainyquote.com/topics/seeds-quotes A seed neither fears light nor darkness, but uses both to grow.― Matshona Dhliwayo
Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant. — Robert Louis Stevenson
Inside the seed are many trees… Inside You are many kingdoms. ― Bert McCoy
Anyone can count the seeds in an apple, but only God can count the number of apples in a seed. — Robert H. Schulle
You were designed for accomplishment, engineered for success, and endowed with the seeds of greatness. — Zig Ziglar
Deep in the secret world of winter’s darkness, deep in the heart of the Earth, the scattered seed dreams of what it will accomplish, some warm day when its wild beauty has grown strong and wise. ― Solstice
The greater part of our happiness or misery depends on our dispositions and not on our circumstances. We carry the seeds of the one or the other about with us in our minds wherever we go. — Martha Washington
Failure holds the seeds for greatness – so long as you water those seeds with introspection, they can be the root of your success. —Daniel Lubetzky
The season of failure is the best time for sowing the seeds of success.— Paramahansa Yogananda
I think that any time of great pain is a time of transformation, a fertile time to plant new seeds. — Debbie Ford
Help young people. Help small guys. Because small guys will be big. Young people will have the seeds you bury in their minds, and when they grow up, they will change the world.— Jack Ma
Dreams are the seeds of change. Nothing ever grows without a seed, and nothing ever changes without a dream. — Debby Boone
Words are also seeds, and when dropped into the invisible spiritual substance, they grow and bring forth after their kind.— Charles Fillmore
Man is a competitive creature, and the seeds of conflict are built deep into our genes. We fought each other on the savannah and only survived against great odds by organising ourselves into groups which would have had a common purpose, giving morale and fortitude. — Robert Winston
I hope that upon this scorched earth we have planted the seeds of ideas that will bear the fruit of more diverse and inclusive stories …. Wilson Cruz
The vegetable life does not content itself with casting from the flower or the tree a single seed, but it fills the air and earth with a prodigality of seeds, that, if thousands perish, thousands may plant themselves, that hundreds may come up, that tens may live to maturity; that, at least one may replace the parent.— Ralph Waldo Emerson
The dispersal of juniper seeds is effected by the plum and cherry plan of hiring birds at the cost of their board, and thus obtaining the use of a pair of extra good wings. — John Muir
Women of this planet need some essential resources: wells, seeds and roads. That is primarily all we have ever needed. Added to that, women need righteous and strong men who will help us to use our most cherished gifts: the ability to multitask and problem solve. — Roseanne Barr
Harvest Gathering — Phoebe Cary
The last days of the summer: bright and clear
Shines the warm sun down on the quiet land,
Where corn-fields, thick and heavy in the ear,
Are slowly ripening for the laborer’s hand;
Seed-time and harvest — since the bow was set,
Not vainly has man hoped your coming yet!
To the quick rush of sickles, joyously
The reapers in the yellow wheat-fields sung,
And bound the pale sheaves of the ripened rye,
When the first tassels of the maize were hung;
That precious seed into the furrow cast
Earliest in spring-time, crowns the harvest last.
Ever, when summer’s sun burns faint and dim,
And rare and few the pleasant days are given,
When the sweet praise of our thankgiving hymn
Makes beautiful music in the ear of Heaven,
I think of other harvests whence the sound
Of singing comes not as the sheaves are bound.
Not where the rice-fields whiten in the sun,
And the warm South casts down her yellow fruit,
Shout they the labors of the autumn done —
For there Oppression casts her deadly root,
And they, who sow and gather in that clime
Share not the treasures of the harvest-time.
God of the seasons! thou who didst ordain
Bread for the eater who shall plant the soil,
How have they heard thee, who have forged the chain
And built the dungeon for the sons of toil?
Burdening their hearts, not with the voice of prayer,
But the dull cries of almost dumb despair.
They who would see that growth of wickedness
Planted where now the peaceful prairie waves,
And make the green paths of our wilderness
Red with the torn and bleeding feet of slaves —
Forbid it, Heaven! and let the sharp axe be
Laid at the root of that most poison tree!
Let us behold its deadly leaves begin
A fainter shadow o’er the world to cast,
And the long day that nursed its growth of sin
Wane to a sunset that shall be its last;
So that the day-star, rising from the sea,
Shall light a land whose children will be free!
LETS PLANT SOME SEEDS TOGETHER — Rachel Held Evans, full article: https://rachelheldevans.com/blog/plant-seeds-women
… the most effective thing we can do is participate in the life-giving and subversive act of planting new trees:
- trees that have the roots of equality from the very beginning.
- trees that gain nourishment from a free-er gospel and soil that is enriched with freedom and hope instead of fear and absolute certainty.
- trees that have men and women and rich and poor and educated and uneducated and black and white and gay and straight all tangled up together from the beginning.
- trees that are tended to gently and naturally instead of pumped with unnatural growth agents & pesticides that try to advance the progression of development to “catch up faster” to other churches that will always have the advantage of time and power on their side.
- trees that get their strength from the beatitudes not the latest and greatest how-to-grow books and conferences.trees that are well-watered by people who are tired of talk and are ready for action.
- trees that over time will flourish and bring shade and fruit and all kinds of other goodness for generations to come in the communities & cultures where they are planted.
- a diverse ecosystem of trees that more accurately reflect the fullness of God’s image.
[Read the rest of the post here.] …
1. What sort of seeds will you start planting in your life … ?
KINGDOM of GOD & MUSTARD SEEDS
The kingdom is like a tiny mustard seed, he said, that grows into an enormous tree with branches wide and strong enough to make a home for all the birds. It is like a buried treasure, a delicious feast, or a net that catches an abundance of fish. The kingdom is right here, Jesus said. It is present and yet hidden, immanent yet transcendent. The kingdom isn’t some far-off place you go when you die; the kingdom is at hand—among us and beyond us, now and not-yet. It is the wheat growing in the midst of weeds, the yeast working its magic in the dough, the pearl germinating in a sepulchral shell. It can come and go in the twinkling of an eye, Jesus said. So pay attention; don’t miss it. ― Rachel Held Evans
The Reign of God is Jesus’ message, but he never describes it literally. He walks around it and keeps giving different images of the Real. For example, the mustard seed is very small and insignificant, and the kingdom is “like” that. Pliny the Elder, a contemporary of Jesus, wrote an encyclopedic book called Natural History, in which he describes all the plants that were known in the Mediterranean world. He says two main things about the mustard plant: it’s medicinal, and it’s a weed that cannot be stopped:
Mustard . . . with its pungent taste and fiery effect is extremely beneficial for the health. It grows entirely wild, though it is improved by being transplanted: but on the other hand when it has once been sown it is scarcely possible to get the place free of it, as the seed when it falls germinates at once. [1]
The two images on which Jesus is building in this parable of the mustard seed are a therapeutic image of life and healing, and a fast-growing weed. What a strange thing for Jesus to say: “I’m planting a weed in the world!” Jesus’ teachings of nonviolence and simplicity are planted and they’re going to flourish, even wildly so. The old world is over.
— Richard Rohr, entire article: https://cac.org/daily-meditations/the-kingdom-is-like-a-mustard-seed-2020-11-16/
To climb these coming crests
one word to you, to
you and your children:
stay together
learn the flowers
go light
— Gary Snyder
SPIRITUAL SEEDS
Everyone, from almost every tradition, agrees on five things:
Rule 1: We are all family.
Rule 2: You reap exactly what you sow, that is, you cannot grow tulips from zucchini seeds.
Rule 3: Try to breathe every few minutes or so.
Rule 4: It helps beyond words to plant bulbs in the dark of winter.
Rule 5: It is immoral to hit first.
— Anne Lamott
Although nature has proven season in and season out that if the thing that is planted bears at all, it will yield more of itself, there are those who seem certain that if they plant tomato seeds, at harvesttime they can reap onions.
Too many times for comfort I have expected to reap good when I know I have sown evil. My lame excuse is that I have not always known that actions can only reproduce themselves, or rather, I have not always allowed myself to be aware of that knowledge. Now, after years of observation and enough courage to admit what I have observed, I try to plant peace if I do not want discord; to plant loyalty and honesty if I want to avoid betrayal and lies.
Of course, there is no absolute assurance that those things I plant will always fall upon arable land and will take root and grow, nor can I know if another cultivator did not leave contrary seeds before I arrived. I do know, however, that if I leave little to chance, if I am careful about the kinds of seeds I plant, about their potency and nature, I can, within reason, trust my expectations. — Maya Angelou
It is memory that provides the heart with impetus, fuels the brain, and propels the corn plant from seed to fruit. — Joy Harjo
There are two kinds of compassion. The first comes from a natural concern for friends and family who are close to us. This has limited range but can be the seed for something bigger. We can also learn to extend a genuine concern for others’ well-being, whoever they are. That is real compassion, and only human beings are capable of developing it. — Dalai Lama
Everything we do seeds the future. No action is an empty one. — Joan D. Chittister
Whether we have happiness or not depends on the seeds in our consciousness. If our seeds of compassion, understanding, and love are strong, those qualities will be able to manifest in us. If the seeds of anger, hostility and sadness in us are strong, then we will experience much suffering. To understand someone, we have to be aware of the quality of the seeds in his consciousness. And we need to remember that his is not solely responsible for those seeds. His ancestors, parents, and society are co-responsible for the quality of the seeds in his consciousness. When we understand this, we are able to feel compassion for that person. With understanding and love, we will know how to water our own beautiful seeds and those of others, and we will recognize seeds of suffering and find ways to transform them. — Thich Nhat Hanh
… our capacity to listen, to be plowed up by what we hear so that we can nurture the seeds of divinity when we encounter them. If we resist being unsettled and loosened and turned into good soil, then the religiosity that has gotten us this far will begin to slip away. We will abandon the spiritual life and say that it was doing nothing for us. But if we accept our discomfort and truly listen with open ears, even knowing that what we hear might change and disrupt us, we will begin to grow, and find our capacity to see and hear expanding day by day. — Karl Stevens, article: https://dsobeloved.org/luke-81-25-being-the-good-soil/
Every moment and every event of every man’s life on earth plants something in his soul. For just as the wind carries thousands of winged seeds, so each moment brings with it gems of spiritual vitality that come to rest imperceptibly in the minds and wills of men. Most of these unnumbered seeds perish and are lost, because men are not prepared to receive them: for such seeds as these cannot spring up anywhere except in the good soil of freedom, spontaneity and love. — Thomas Merton
We are all trying to let our mind and heart go their own way—centred on money or pleasure or ambition—and hoping, in spite of this, to behave honestly and chastely and humbly. And that is exactly what Christ warned us you could not do. As He said, a thistle cannot produce figs. If I am a field that contains nothing but grass-seed, I cannot produce wheat. Cutting the grass may keep it short: but I shall still produce grass and no wheat. If I want to produce wheat, the change must go deeper than the surface. I must be ploughed up and re-sown. — CS Lewis
Carbonized grains of wheat unearthed
From the seventh millennium B.C. town of Jarmo
In the Tigris-Euphrates basin
Match the grains of three kinds of wheat still extant,
Two wild, one found only in cultivation.
The separate grains
Were parched and eaten,
Or soaked into gruel, yeasted, fermented.
Took to the idea of bread,
Ceres, while you were gone.
Wind whistles in the smokey thatch,
Oven browns its lifted loaf,
And in the spring the nourished seeds,
Hybrid with wild grass,
Easily open in a hundred days,
And seeded fruits, compact and dry,
Store well together.
They make the straw for beds,
They ask the caring hand to sow, the resting foot
To stay, to court the seasons.
— Josephine Miles, Fields of Learning (excerpt)
The Pomegranate — Kahlil Gibran
Once when I was living in the heart of a pomegranate, I heard a seed
saying, “Someday I shall become a tree, and the wind will sing in
my branches, and the sun will dance on my leaves, and I shall be
strong and beautiful through all the seasons.”
Then another seed spoke and said, “When I was as young as you, I
too held such views; but now that I can weigh and measure things,
I see that my hopes were vain.”
And a third seed spoke also, “I see in us nothing that promises so
great a future.”
And a fourth said, “But what a mockery our life would be, without
a greater future!”
Said a fifth, “Why dispute what we shall be, when we know not even
what we are.”
But a sixth replied, “Whatever we are, that we shall continue to
be.”
And a seventh said, “I have such a clear idea how everything will
be, but I cannot put it into words.”
Then an eight spoke—and a ninth—and a tenth—and then many—until
all were speaking, and I could distinguish nothing for the many
voices.
And so I moved that very day into the heart of a quince, where the
seeds are few and almost silent.
By the Waters of Babylon:
III. The Sower.
— Emma Lazarus
1. Over a boundless plain went a man, carrying seed.
2. His face was blackened by sun and rugged from tempest, scarred and distorted by pain. Naked to the loins, his back was ridged with furrows, his breast was plowed with stripes.
3. From his hand dropped the fecund seed.
4. And behold, instantly started from the prepared soil blade, a sheaf, a springing trunk, a myriad-branching, cloud-aspiring tree. Its arms touched the ends of the horizon, the heavens were darkened with its shadow.
5. It bare blossoms of gold and blossoms of blood, fruitage of health and fruitage of poison; birds sang amid its foliage, and a serpent was coiled about its stem.
6. Under its branches a divinely beautiful man, crowned with thorns, was nailed to a cross.
7. And the tree put forth treacherous boughs to strangle the Sower; his flesh was bruised and torn, but cunningly he disentangled the murderous knot and passed to the eastward.
8. Again there dropped from his hand the fecund seed.
9. And behold, instantly started from the prepared soil a blade, a sheaf, a springing trunk, a myriad-branching, cloud-aspiring tree. Crescent shaped like little emerald moons were the leaves; it bare blossoms of silver and blossoms of blood, fruitage of health and fruitage of poison; birds sang amid its foilage and a serpent was coiled about its stem.
10. Under its branches a turbaned mighty-limbed Prophet brandished a drawn sword.
11. And behold, this tree likewise puts forth perfidious arms to strangle the Sower; but cunningly he disentangles the murderous knot and passes on.
12. Lo, his hands are not empty of grain, the strength of his arm is not spent.
13. What germ hast thou saved for the future, O miraculous Husbandman? Tell me, thou Planter of Christhood and Islam; tell me, thou seed-bearing Israel!
Seeding an Alphabet
— Emily Warn
To invent the alef-beit,
decipher the grammar of crows,
read a tangle of bare branches
with vowels of the last leaves
scrawling their jittery speech
on the sky’s pale page.
Choose a beginning.
See what God yields and dirt cedes
when tines disturb fescue, vetch, and sage,
when your hand dips grain from a sack,
scattering it among engraved furrows.
Beyond the hill, a plume of dust
where oxen track the hours.
Does God lead or follow or scout?
To answer, count to one again and again:
a red maple leaf and a yellow maple leaf
that wind rifles and rain shines until they let go,
blazing their scripted nothingness on air.
Love and Liberty
Love is the bridge between you and everything. ~ Rumi
The greatest thing you’ll ever learn is to love and be loved in return. – Natalie Cole
Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage. – Lao Tzu
Do love. Don’t just think love, say love, have faith in love, or believe that God is love. Give up the idea that your ideas alone can save you. If you know the right words, then bring those words to life by giving them your own flesh. Put them into practice. Do love, and you will live. — Barbara Brown Taylor
SONGS about LOVE:
- Higher Love cover by Whitney Houston, Kygo (pop/anthem):https://youtu.be/k9olaIio3l8
- Love Song by Sara Bareilles (folk/pop): https://youtu.be/qi7Yh16dA0w
- What a Wonderful World by Louis Armstrong (blues/rock): https://youtu.be/CWzrABouyeE
- One Day by Matisyahu (Jewish rock): https://youtu.be/WRmBChQjZPs
- Shower the People by James Taylor (pop): https://youtu.be/GfJWqjoekow
- One Love by Bob Marley ft Manu Chao (rock/raggae): https://youtu.be/4xjPODksI08
- Give Love by MC Yoga (rock/rap): https://youtu.be/rpVUih5nY9g
- Will the Circle Be Unbroken by Nitty Gritty Band w/ Johnny Cash & Ricky Skagg (country): https://youtu.be/7bRJLkNqNXI
- The Proof of Your Love by King & Country (Christian): https://youtu.be/b-2dKOfbC9c
- Shine It All Around by Robert Plant & The Strange Sensation (rock): https://youtu.be/fJoarBi19QM
- Forever and Ever, Amen by Randy Travis (country): https://youtu.be/sgJXbIP83A8
- Your Love Keeps Lifting Me Higher by Jackie Wilson (rock): https://youtu.be/mzDVaKRApcg
- Grateful: A Love Song to the World by Empty Hands Music (rap): https://youtu.be/sO2o98Zpzg8
- Ain’t No Mountain High by Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell (rock): https://youtu.be/-C_3eYj-pOM
- Amazed by Lonestar (country): https://youtu.be/x-skFgrV59A
- All of Me by John Legend (pop): https://youtu.be/450p7goxZqg
- Bless the Broken Road by Rascal Flatts (country): https://youtu.be/8-vZlrBYLSU
- All for Love by Bryan Adam, Rod Stewart & Sting (rock):: https://youtu.be/n-AB7RJpOjY
- Love Is My Religion by Ziggy Marley (raggae): https://youtu.be/r-eXYJnV3V4
- We Shall Be Free by Garth Brooks (country): https://fb.watch/dZicIUjBxP/
- Big Love by Tracy Byrd (country): https://youtu.be/QFMcKdmrPvU
- Love Like This by Lauren Daigle (Christian): https://youtu.be/Br1q_i1RHPU
- Can You Feel the Love Tonight by Elton John (ballad): https://youtu.be/lFYBLwb3I84
- Union by Black-Eyed Peas & Sting (rock/rap): https://youtu.be/rT_-Ln7eWpw
- I Want to Know What Love Is by Foreigner (rock): https://youtu.be/4jA-_g_iSY0
- You Say by Lauren Daigle (Christian): https://youtu.be/sIaT8Jl2zpI
- God Only Knows by The Beach Boys (rock): https://youtu.be/AOMyS78o5YI
- Just the Way You Are by Billy Joel (jazz): https://youtu.be/tJWM5FmZyqU
- It’s Your Love by Tim McGraw & Faith Hill country): https://youtu.be/XRa7lP5–lE
- Best of My Love by The Emotions (soul): https://youtu.be/B-Tb80rmPt4
- Thinking Out Loud by Ed Sheeran (pop): https://youtu.be/lp-EO5I60KA
- We Are Here by Alicia Keyes (pop): https://youtu.be/HrKmDgk8Edg
- I Swear by All-4-One (rock): https://youtu.be/25rL-ooWICU
- I Will Always Love You by Whitney Houston (rock): https://youtu.be/3JWTaaS7LdU=
- I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing by Aerosmith (rock): https://youtu.be/JkK8g6FMEXE
- I Just Called to Say I Love You by Stevie Wonder (rock): https://youtu.be/1bGOgY1CmiU
- Tonight I Celebrate My Love for You by Roberta Slack & Peabo Bryson (pop): https://youtu.be/4t0Xo3-Ga_4
- Just the Way Your Are by Billy Joel (rock): https://youtu.be/tJWM5FmZyqU
- I’ll Stand by You by The Pretenders (pop): https://youtu.be/bLpmj059JFA
SONGS about FREEDOM:
- Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Round by The Freedom Singers (gospel/protest): https://youtu.be/WPuBGcng6Tw
- Freedom by Pharrell Wiliams (pop): https://youtu.be/LlY90lG_Fuw
- Woke Up This Monring by John Legend (gospel/Christian/protest): https://youtu.be/0pOVElQFNMs
- We Shall Be Free by Garth Brooks (country/Gospel): https://youtu.be/wyZI9HwnAiY
- Chimes of Freedom by Bob Dylan (folk): https://youtu.be/zDOHhx_dk1g
- Ode to Freedom by ABBA (rock/disco/pop): https://youtu.be/YtNJybve8j4
- Freedom by Beyonce (R&B/country/alt): https://youtu.be/7FWF9375hUA
- American Soldier by Toby Keith (country): https://youtu.be/DWrMeBR8W-c
- Freedom by Jon Batiste (R&B/soul): https://youtu.be/3YHVC1DcHmo
- Chainbreaker by Zach Williams (Christian): https://youtu.be/JGYjKR69M6U
- Freedom by Richie Havens (rock/folk): https://youtu.be/rynxqdNMry4
- Born Free by Kid Rock (country): https://youtu.be/bu3rsha1ZtI
- Free Fallin by Tom Petty (rock): https://youtu.be/1lWJXDG2i0A
- I‘m Free by The Who (rock): https://youtu.be/uRD_gIoVOmY
- I Want to Break Free by Queen (rock): https://youtu.be/f4Mc-NYPHaQ
- I’m Set Free by The Velvet Undergorund (rock/indie): https://youtu.be/wfzoyDOXfzY
- Freedom by Anthony Hamilton & Elayna Boynton (country/R&B): https://youtu.be/_bdOTUocn5w
- Free Bird byt Lynnrd Skynnrd (rock): https://youtu.be/CqnU_sJ8V-E
- God Bless the USA by Lee Greenwood (country): https://youtu.be/-KoXt9pZLGM
- Freedom by Rage Against the Machine (rock): https://youtu.be/H_vQt_v8Jmw
- Weightless by Natasha Bedingfield (pop): https://youtu.be/AUxLeytLHVk
- Freedom by Pitbull (rap/rock): https://youtu.be/zKKF_vFshMM
- Free Your Mind by En Vogue (rock/pop): https://youtu.be/i7iQbBbMAFE
- Independence Day by Martina McBride (country): https://youtu.be/4VPpAZ9_qAw
LOVE LIBERATES — Maya Angelou
I am grateful to have been loved
and to be loved now
and to be able to love,
because that liberates.
Love liberates.
It doesn’t just hold—that’s ego.
Love liberates.
When my son was born, I was seventeen.
My mother had a huge house, fourteen-room house,
At seventeen, I went to her and said, “I’m leaving.”
She asked me “you’re leaving my house?” and she had live-in help.
I said “yes. I’ve found a job and I’ve got a room
with cooking privileges down the hall
and the landlady will be the babysitter.
She asked me, “you’re leaving my house?”
I said “Yes, Ma’am,”
“And you’re taking the baby?”
I said yes.
She said “alright, remember this:
when you step over my doorsill, you’ve been raised.
You know the difference between right and wrong.
Do right.
Don’t let anybody raise you and make you change.
And remember this:
You can always come home.”
I went home every time life slapped me down and made me call it uncle.
I went home with my baby.
My mother never once acted as “I told you so,”
She said, “Oh, baby’s home! Oh my darlin!
Mother’s gonna cook you something,
Mother’s gonna make this for you!”
Love.
She liberated me to life.
She continued to do that.
When my son may have been five years old
My mother would pick him up all the time and feed him.
I went to her once a month and she would cook for me.
So, one day I went to her house and she had cooked red rice, which I love.
After we finished eating, we walked down the hill and she started across the street and she said
“wait a minute, baby.”
I was twenty-two years old.
She said “wait a minute, baby,
you know, I think you’re the greatest woman I’ve ever met.
Mary McCleod Bethune,
Eleanor Roosevelt,
and my mother.
You’re in that category.”
Then she said “give me a kiss”
I gave her a kiss and I got onto the streetcar.
I can remember the way the sun fell on the slats of wooden seats.
I sat there and I thought about her.
I thought:
Suppose she’s right.
She’s intelligent.
And she says she’s too mean to lie.
So suppose I am gonna be somebody.
She released me.
She freed me.
To say I may have something in me
that would be of value,
maybe not just to me,
that’s love.
When she was in her final sickness,
I went out to San Francisco.
The doctors said she had three weeks to live.
I asked her “would you come to North Carolina?”
She said “yes,”
She had emphysema and lung cancer.
I brought her to my home.
She lived for a year and a half.
And when she was finally, finally, in extremis,
she was on oxygen, fighting cancer for her life,
and I remembered her liberating me.
And I said “I hope I’ll be able to liberate her.”
She deserved that from me.
She deserved a great daughter and she got one.
So, in her last days, I said,
“ now I understand that some people need permission to go.
As I understand it, you may have done what God put you here to do:
You were a great worker.
You must have been a great lover because a lot of men
and, if I’m not wrong, maybe a couple of women risked their lives to love you.
You were a piss poor mother of small children,
but you were a great, great mother of young adults.
and if you need permission to go
I liberate you.
I went back to my house
and something said “go back,”
I was in my pajamas,
I jumped in my car and ran.
And the nurse said,
“she’s just gone.”
You see, love liberates.
It doesn’t bind.
Love says, “I love you,
I love you if you’re in China,
I love you if you’re across town,
I love you if you’re in Harlem,
I love you.
I would like to be near you.
I’d like to have your arms around me,
I’d like to hear your voice in my ear,
but that’s not possible now,
so I love you.
Go.”
Touched By An Angel— Maya Angelou
We, unaccustomed to courage
exiles from delight
live coiled in shells of loneliness
until love leaves its high holy temple
and comes into our sight
to liberate us into life.
Love arrives
and in its train come ecstasies
old memories of pleasure
ancient histories of pain.
Yet if we are bold,
love strikes away the chains of fear
from our souls.
We are weaned from our timidity
In the flush of love’s light
we dare be brave
And suddenly we see
that love costs all we are
and will ever be.
Yet it is only love
which sets us free.
Of Love — Mary Oliver
I have been in love more times than one,
thank the Lord.
Sometimes it was lasting
whether active or not.
Sometimes it was all but ephemeral,
maybe only an afternoon,
but not less real for that.’
They stay in my mind,
these beautiful people,
or anyway beautiful people to me,
of which there are so many.
You and you and you,
whom I have the fortune to meet,
or maybe missed.
Love, love, love, it was the core of my life,
from which of course comes the word for the heart.
And, oh, have I mentioned
that some of them were men and some were women’
and some – now carry my revelation with you –
were trees.
Or places.
Or music flying above the names of their makers.
Or clouds, or the sun
which was the first, and the best,
the most loyal for certain,’
who looked so faithfully into my eyes, every morning.
So I imagine such love of the world –
its fervency, its shining,
its innocence and anger to give of itself
I imagine this is how it began.
INVITATION— Mary Oliver
Oh do you have time
to linger for just a little while
out of your busy
and very important day
for the goldfinches
that have gathered
in a field of thistles
for a musical battle,
to see who can sing
the highest note,
or the lowest,
or the most expressive of mirth,
or the most tender?
Their strong, blunt beaks
drink the air
as they strive
melodiously
not for your sake
and not for mine
and not for the sake of winning
but for sheer delight and gratitude –
believe us, they say,
it is a serious thing
just to be alive
on this fresh morning
in the broken world.
I beg of you,
do not walk by
without pausing
to attend to this
rather ridiculous performance.
It could mean something.
It could mean everything.
It could be what Rilke meant, when he wrote:
You must change your life.
ABOUT LOVE
Where there is love there is life. – Mahatma Gandhi
The greatest degree of inner tranquility comes from the development of love and compassion. The more we care for the happiness of others, the greater is our own sense of well-being. – Dalai Lama
Love is more than a noun – it is a verb; it is more than a feeling – it is caring, sharing, helping, sacrificing. – William Arthur Ward
Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it. ~ Rumi
Love is not really an action that you do. Love is what and who you are, in your deepest essence. Love is a place that already exists inside of you, but is also greater than you. That’s the paradox. It’s within you and yet beyond you. This creates a sense of abundance and more-than-enoughness, which is precisely the satisfaction and deep peace of the True Self. You know you’ve found a well that will never go dry, as Jesus says (see John 4:13-14). Your True Self, God’s Love in you, cannot be exhausted. — Richard Rohr
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. — Martin Luther King Jr. Love is or it ain’t. Thin love ain’t love at all. ― Toni Morrison, Beloved
When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace.― Jimi Hendrix
The greatest happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved; loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves. — Victor Hugo
“Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love.” & “I believe God loves the world through us—through you and me.” — St Mother Teresa
There are no strangers here; Only friends you haven’t yet met. — William Butler Yeats
Many can give money to those in need, but to personally serve the needy readily, out of love, and in a fraternal spirit, requires a truly great soul. — Saint John Chrysostom
… the action and behavior produced by love is distinctly countercultural. … In a society where so much is presented in terms of “self”—self-awareness, self-esteem, self-acceptance, self-image, self-realization—to present a way of existence in which a person lives for the other in a life of loving self-sacrifice will be highly provocative. Following the one who gave his life as a sacrifice for us will be humbling and undoubtedly costly in terms of human recognition and progress in life as secular society defines it.— zondervanacademic.com
LOVE COMMENTARY
Love, in the New Testament, is not something you feel; it is something you do….Love seeks the well-being of others and is embodied in concrete efforts in their behalf. — Francis Taylor Gench
DANCE — Wendell Berry
… And I love you
as I love the dance that brings you
out of the multitude
in which you come and go.
Love changes, and in change is true.
OF LOVE
I love you not only for what you are, but for what I am when I am with you. I love you not only for what you have made of yourself, but for what you are making of me. I love you for the part of me that you bring out. – Elizabeth Barrett Browning
In the end we discover that to love and let go can be the same thing.— Jack Kornfield
Let the beauty of what you love be what you do. – Rumi
You’ve gotta dance like there’s nobody watching, Love like you’ll never be hurt, Sing like there’s nobody listening, And live like it’s heaven on earth. – William W. Purkey
“Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that. – Martin Luther King Jr.
Love is never lost. If not reciprocated, it will flow back and soften and purify the heart. – Washington Irving
Life is the first gift, love is the second, and understanding the third. – Marge Piercy
Love makes your soul crawl out from its hiding place. – Zora Neale Hurston
The chance to love and be loved exists no matter where you are. – Oprah Winfrey
No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another. – Charles Dickens, Dr. Marigold
Recognition of pride month (June). Before July arrives, in the midst of so many other national and global events, let us remember and celebrate Pride month.
What is straight? A line can be straight, or a street, but the human heart, oh, no, it’s curved like a road through mountains. — Tennessee Williams
Please remember, especially in these times of group-think and the right-on chorus, that no person is your friend (or kin) who demands your silence, or denies your right to grow and be perceived as fully blossomed as you were intended. – Alice Walker
This year’s theme across the Department of Defense is: “All Together” The fight for respect and dignity in the LGBTQ+ community has been ongoing for decades: From the Stonewall Riots in New York in 1969, to today’s social revolution for equality, we have seen what progression looks like. We have seen where we started, and what it has taken for the LGBTQ+ community to gain a foothold in the mountainous climb for rights. Without victimizing our own community, it has been a waiting game that spans over a time period of decades, married with protests, political action, court cases, prevention of violent/non-violent discriminatory acts, and best of all, lives saved. And it has all been made possible by the advocates and activists that were [and are] passionate about doing one thing: elevating pride. — Hills Air Force Base Pride Committee
Closer to Fine (excerpt) — Indigo Girls
I’m tryin’ to tell you somethin’ ’bout my life
Maybe give me insight between black and white
And the best thing you’ve ever done for me
Is to help me take my life less seriously
It’s only life after all, yeah
Well darkness has a hunger that’s insatiable
And lightness has a call that’s hard to hear
I wrap my fear around me like a blanket
I sailed my ship of safety ’til I sank it
I’m crawling on your shores
… I went to the doctor, I went to the mountains
I looked to the children, I drank from the fountains
We go to the doctor, we go to the mountains
We look to the children, we drink from the fountain
Yeah, we go to the Bible, we go through the work out
We read up on revival, we stand up for the lookout
There’s more than one answer to these questions
Pointing me in a crooked line
And the less I seek my source for some definitive
The closer I am to fine
The closer I am to fine
The closer I am to fine, yeah
Some songs to celebrate Pride Month:
- We Stand United by Ray Isaac (ballad/anthem/rap)
- Closer to Fine by Indigo Girls (Indie/folk)
- The Official Coming Out Song by Ally Hills (pop)
- Come to my Window by Melissa Etheridge (folk rock)
- I’m Coming Out by Diana Ross (rock)
- Beautiful by Christina Aguilera (pop)
- True Colors by Cyndi Lauper (rock)
- Anthem by Pansy Division (punk rock)
- Boys Keep Swinging by David Bowie (rock)
- Freedom! by George Michael (rock/pop)
Questions to consider:
- Who has helped you understand LGBTQ experience on a more personal level? Who has humanized this social justice issue for you, if it wasn’t already a human experience with which you are familiar or connected?
- What view or belief are you glad to have overcome or changed? What learning has helped you the most? What learning do you still need or want to do?
- What does it mean that all people are created in the image and likeness of God?
Love as a Revolutionary Act: Love of Self, Love for Others, The Right to Love Whom You Choose
Burst down those closet doors once and for all, and stand up, and start to fight. — Harvey Milk
Love, in the New Testament, is not something you feel; it is something you do… Love seeks the well-being of others and is embodied in concrete efforts in their behalf. — Francis Taylor Gench
The beauty of standing up for your rights is others see you standing and stand up as well. — Cassandra Duffy
You never completely have your rights, one person, until you all have your rights. — Marsha P. Johnson
All of us who are openly gay are living and writing the history of our movement. We are no more — and no less — heroic than the suffragists and abolitionists of the 19th century; and the labor organizers, Freedom Riders, Stonewall demonstrators, and environmentalists of the 20th century. — Tammy Baldwin
This community has fought and continues to fight a war of acceptance, a war of tolerance and the most relentless bravery. You are the definition of courage, do you know that? — Lady Gaga
I believe that telling our stories, first to ourselves and then to one another and the world, is a revolutionary act. — Janet Mock
Being born gay, black and female is not a revolutionary act. Being proud to be a gay, black female is. — Lena Waithe
Our society needs to recognize the unstoppable momentum toward unequivocal civil equality for every gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender citizen of this country. — Zachary Quinto
Who would give a law to lovers? Love is unto itself a higher law. — Boethius
Every single courageous act of coming out chips away at the curse of homophobia. Most importantly it’s destroyed within yourself, and that one act creates the potential for its destruction where it exists in friends, family and society. — Anthony Venn-Brown
Surviving and Thriving
We are powerful because we have survived. — Audre Lorde
Know Thyself! Understand yourself fully and find your peace of mind. Peace comes when you are not trying to copy someone else or be someone else other than you. When you find that stability within yourself, share with others how you got there without selling them something, or trying to fix them. — Rev Yolanda
Every gay and lesbian person who has been lucky enough to survive the turmoil of growing up is a survivor. Survivors always have an obligation to those who will face the same challenges. — Bob Paris
I want to do the right thing and not hide anymore. I want to march for tolerance, acceptance, and understanding. I want to take a stand and say, “Me, too.’“ — Jason Collins
I want to make sure that any young person or anyone really who is looking up to me—who sees a glimpse of who I am as a person—that they see no shame, that they see pride, and that I’m truly unabashed about the person that I am. — Samira Wiley
It is better to live one day on this planet being true to yourself than an entire lifetime which is a lie. — Anthony Venn-Brown
Beauty in Diversity
We should indeed keep calm in the face of difference, and live our lives in a state of inclusion and wonder at the diversity of humanity. — George Takei
What I preach is: People fall in love with people, not gender, not looks, not whatever. What I’m in love with exists on almost a spiritual level. — Miley Cyrus
It is not our differences that divide us. It is our inability to recognize, accept, and celebrate those differences. — Audre Lord
When all Americans are treated as equal, no matter who they are or whom they love, we are all more free. — Former U.S. President, Barack Obama
I was not ladylike, nor was I manly. I was something else altogether. There were so many different ways to be beautiful. — Michael Cunningham
True hospitality is marked by an open response to the dignity of each and every person. Henri Nouwen has described it as receiving the stranger on his own terms, and asserts that it can be offered only by those who ‘have found the center of their lives in their own hearts.’ — Kathleen Norris
A Litany for Survival — Audre Lord
For those of us who live at the shoreline
standing upon the constant edges of decision
crucial and alone
for those of us who cannot indulge
the passing dreams of choice
who love in doorways coming and going
in the hours between dawns
looking inward and outward
at once before and after
seeking a now that can breed
futures
like bread in our children’s mouths
so their dreams will not reflect
the death of ours;
For those of us
who were imprinted with fear
like a faint line in the center of our foreheads
learning to be afraid with our mother’s milk
for by this weapon
this illusion of some safety to be found
the heavy-footed hoped to silence us
For all of us
this instant and this triumph
We were never meant to survive.
And when the sun rises we are afraid
it might not remain
when the sun sets we are afraid
it might not rise in the morning
when our stomachs are full we are afraid
of indigestion
when our stomachs are empty we are afraid
we may never eat again
when we are loved we are afraid
love will vanish
when we are alone we are afraid
love will never return
and when we speak we are afraid
our words will not be heard
nor welcomed
but when we are silent
we are still afraid
So it is better to speak
remembering
we were never meant to survive.
Beyond Fear & Shame: Embracing & Celebrating
Openness may not completely disarm prejudice, but it’s a good place to start. — Jason Collins
To be afraid is to behave as if the truth were not true. — Bayard Rustin
We deserve to experience love fully, equally, without shame, and without compromise. — Ellen Page
I’ve never been interested in being invisible and erased. — Laverne Cox
I learned compassion from being discriminated against. Everything bad that’s ever happened to me has taught me compassion. — Ellen DeGeneres
I’ve been embraced by a new community. That’s what happens when you’re finally honest about who you are; you find others like you. — Chaz Bono
I am a strong, black, lesbian woman. Every single time I say it, I feel so much better. — Brittney Griner
We have to do it because we can no longer stay invisible. We have to be visible. We should not be ashamed of who we are. — Sylvia Rivera
I’m living by example by continuing on with my career and having a full, rich life, and I am incidentally gay. — Portia de Rossi
All young people, regardless of sexual orientation or identity, deserve a safe and supportive environment in which to achieve their full potential. — Harvey Milk
I’m a young, bisexual woman, and I’ve spent a large part of my life trying to validate myself — to my friends, to my family, to myself — trying to prove that who I love and how I feel is not a phase. — Halsey
You have to go the way your blood beats. If you don’t live the only life you have, you won’t live some other life, you won’t live any life at all. — James Baldwin
I am always amazed how powerful that three letter word ‘gay’ can be. Many of us rejected it and wouldn’t even let the word come out of our mouth because of all the negative connotations attached to it…sin…. promiscuity….a ‘lifestyle’ etc etc. We would definitely never ever use it to label ourselves. We didn’t want to own it. When we break free and we use the word with empowerment, ownership and pride…..then we have moved from a world of denial to finally being real. — Anthony Venn-Brown
Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one’s definition of your life; define yourself. — Harvey Fierstein
I think being gay is a blessing, and it’s something I am thankful for every single day. — Anderson Cooper
Learn More: Stonewall as Milestone
- Stonewall: wikipedia
- Stonewall Beginnings & History: Time.com
- Stonewall Legacy: Harvard Gazette
When we look back at the Stonewall uprising and activism that grew out of that moment, even the most basic progress seemed like it would take a revolution to achieve. So we had one. And that’s how we’ve made such enormous progress over the last 50 years. Today, we should remain inspired by the courage of the story of Stonewall. — Tammy Baldwin
Stonewall represented, absolutely, the first time that the LGBT community successfully fought back and forged an organized movement and community. — Mark Segal
Faith and Pride
There is God. And then there is the church. The less we conflate the two, the better. The church may reject God’s children, but God never does. To my queer siblings, I’m so sorry. You are glorious. — Nadia Bolz-Weber
The Lord is my Shepherd and he knows I’m gay. — Troy Perry
“God is love,” Christians remind one another. This means that Christians experience love as something alive and living and personal and true. This Love that is God and God that is Love is the creating and healing power within life. This Love that is God is kind and patient and humble and free–never trying to control nor manipulate. Every human being has experienced and knows this capital “L” Love that Christians call God. Christians believe that to receive and share this reality of Love, this God within who live and move and have our being, is the meaning and purpose of life. Why would we stop anyone from experiencing and expressing love? Or to put it another way, why would we stop gay, lesbian, bisexual, straight, transgendered–anyone from experiencing, celebrating, and expressing God? — Mark Yaconelli
You can safely assume you have created God in your own image when God hates all the same people you do. — Anne Lamott
Sexuality and gender identity elicit so many strong feelings and even irrational opinions because they touch upon something foundational. If you don’t recognize the sacred at this deep level of identity and desire, I don’t know if you will be able to see it anywhere else. When Christians label LGBTQIA individuals as ‘other,’ sinful, or ‘disordered,’” we hurt these precious people and the larger community, and we actually limit ourselves. Fear of difference creates a very constricted, exclusive, and small religion and life, the very opposite of what God invites us into … Even as we acknowledge the sacredness of gender and sex, we also need to realize that there’s something deeper than our gender, anatomy, or physical passion: our ontological self, who we are forever in Christ. You are beyond the metaphor of male and female; you are a child of the Resurrection, a creature of Eternal Life. As Paul courageously puts it, ‘There is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus’ (Galatians 3:28). Those who have already begun to experience their divine union will usually find it very easy to be compassionate toward all ‘Two Spirit’ people because they know they share the same ontological, essential self that is ‘hidden with Christ in God’ (Colossians 3:3). — Richard Rohr