Holiness, not in the fire, wind or quake, but in the silence that comes after: It is about sweeping in when we are too comfortable and moving us out of those places we cling to when we fear the unknowns and try to avoid the pain and injustice around us. It is about empowering us to do the things that so many others – and even sometimes our own systems – have told us we cannot do because of our gender, age, or economic situation, our education status, color of skin, or sexual orientation. It is about equipping ALL of us to be prophets by speaking truth, spreading love, and fighting for justice and equality for all of God’s children. — Nadia Bolz-Weber
Song: The Climb performed by Miley Cyrus (video link)
Zazen on Ching-t’ing Mountain
— Li Po, Translated by Sam Hamill
The birds have vanished down the sky.
Now the last cloud drains away.
We sit together, the mountain and me,
until only the mountain remains.
To me a mountain is a buddha. think of the patience, hundreds of thousands of years just sittin there bein perfectly perfectly silent and like praying for all living creatures in that silence and just waitin for us to stop all our frettin and foolin. ― Jack Kerouac
No matter how sophisticated you may be, a large granite mountain cannot be denied – it speaks in silence to the very core of your being. ― Ansel Adams
So, if you cannot understand that there is something in man which responds to the challenge of this mountain and goes out to meet it, that the struggle is the struggle of life itself upward and forever upward, then you won’t see why we go. What we get from this adventure is just sheer joy. ― George Mallory
It is not the mountains that we conquer, but ourselves.— Sir Edmund Hillary
Climb the mountain not to plant your flag, but to embrace the challenge, enjoy the air and behold the view. Climb it so you can see the world, not so the world can see you.― David McCullough Jr.
Mountain, Stone (excerpt) — Lena Khalaf Tuffaha
… Do not name your children. Let them live nameless, seal their eyelids and sell their voices to the nightingale. Do not name your children and if you must call them by what withstands this endless season of decay. Name them mountains, call them stone.
On Earthquakes
It is not light that we need, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. — Frederick Douglass
There is no such thing as a life of passion any more than a continuous earthquake, or an eternal fever. — Lord Byron
God speaks to me not through the thunder and the earthquake, nor through the ocean and the stars, but through the Son of Man, and speaks in a language adapted to my imperfect sight and hearing. — William Lyon Phelps
We still carry this old caveman-imprint idea that we’re small, nature’s big, and it’s everything we can manage to hang on and survive. When big geophysical events happen – a huge earthquake, tsunami, or volcanic eruption – we’re reminded of that. — James Balog
Once you have been in an earthquake you know, even if you survive without a scratch, that like a stroke in the heart, it remains in the earth’s breast, horribly potential, always promising to return, to hit you again, with an even more devastating force. ― Salman Rushdie
On Fire
Set your life on fire. Seek those who fan your flames. ― Rumi
And she pours herself out onto all who are present: filling them, empowering them, and lighting their hearts on fire. — Nadia Bolz-Weber
In everyone’s life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit. — Albert Schweitzer
Doubt thou the stars are fire, Doubt that the sun doth move. Doubt truth to be a liar, But never doubt I love. — William Shakespeare
A house is not a home unless it contains food and fire for the mind as well as the body. — Benjamin Franklin
Time is a river which carries me along, but I am the river; it is a tiger that devours me, but I am the tiger; it is a fire that consumes me, but I am the fire. — Jorge Luis Borges
On Wind
On Wind
I am a being of Heaven and Earth, of thunder and lightning, of rain and wind, of the galaxies. — Eden Ahbez
The world is always going to be dangerous, and people get badly banged up, but how can there be more meaning than helping one another stand up in a wind and stay warm? — Anne Lamott
Instead … she comes unexpectedly, loudly and boldly sweeping through the house like a sudden cold Chicago blizzard wind roaring through the tunnels between the high-rise buildings along the lake, knocking her beloved ones off their feet, and pulling them out of their comfort zones. — Nadia Bolz-Weber
On Silence
The fruit of silence is prayer.
The fruit of prayer is faith.
The fruit of faith is love.
The fruit of love is service.
The fruit of service is peace.
— St Theresa of Calcutta prayer
Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing. And when you have reached the mountain top, then you shall begin to climb. And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance. — Khalil Gibran
Everything that’s created comes out of silence. Your thoughts emerge from the nothingness of silence. Your words come out of this void. Your very essence emerged from emptiness. All creativity requires some stillness. — Wayne Dyer
We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence. See how nature – trees, flowers, grass- grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence… We need silence to be able to touch souls. — Mother Teresa
Silence is true wisdom’s best reply. — Euripides
Learn to get in touch with the silence within yourself, and know that everything in life has purpose. There are no mistakes, no coincidences, all events are blessings given to us to learn from. — Elisabeth Kubler-Ross