Reflections on taking action, many members of one body at work in the world

Sometimes even to live is an act of courage. — Seneca

We cannot wish that human beings were not subject to the forces of nature, including the mortality… we cannot wish for the seas to dry up, that the waves grow still, that the tectonic plates cease to exist, that nature ceases to be beyond our abilities to predict and control… But the terms of that nature include such catastrophe and suffering, which leaves us with sorrow as not a problem to be solved but a fact. And it leaves us with compassion as the work we will never finish. — Rebecca Solnit, Storming the Gates of Paradise: Landscapes for Politics

When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’ To this day, especially in times of ‘disaster,’ I remember my mother’s words and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers–so many caring people in this world. — Fred Rogers

Never confuse movement with action. — Ernest Hemingway

The future depends on what you do today. — Mahatma Gandhi

You are what you do, not what you say you’ll do. — C.G. Jung

We don’t always feel God’s presence, just as we don’t feel the sun on a rainy day. But the presence never grows dim, and the confidence that it is there and will shine again keeps us hopeful. — Evan Drake Howard

Theologians talk about a prevenient grace that precedes grace itself and allows us to accept it. I think there must also be a prevenient courage that allows us to be brave–that is, to acknowledge that there is more beauty than our eyes can bear, that precious things have been put into our hands and to do nothing to honor them is to do great harm. And therefore, this courage allows us, as the old men said, to make ourselves useful. It allows us to be generous, which is another way of saying exactly the same thing. — Marilynne Robinson, Gilead

Bon Dieu! may I some day do something truly great. amen. — e.e. cummings

Be great in little things. — Francis Xavier

I am not a champion of lost causes, but of causes not yet won. — Norman Thomas