what we leave behind

Meditations on themes from Exodus 33:12-23 and Matthew 22: 15-22 — What blessing will we leave to the land and the people of our lives? What is our legacy?

A Legacy (excerpt) — James Lovell
… I leave to you a curious loom
That I have wrought my dreams upon
I beg you lay your hand to it
And weave a pattern when I’m gone.

We are leaves of one branch, the drops of one sea, the flowers of one garden. — Jean Baptiste Lacordaire

Never separate the life you live from the words you speak. — Paul Wellstone

May you walk in the center of your life in balance and abundance. —Dakota/Lakota Saying

Today, more than ever before, life must be characterized by a sense of Universal responsibility, not only nation to nation and human to human, but also human to other forms of life. —  Dalai Lama

In the evening, we will be judged on love. — St John of the Cross

I am not sure exactly what heaven will be like, but I know that when we die and it comes time for God to judge us, he will not ask, ‘How many good things have you done in your life?’ rather he will ask, ‘How much love did you put into what you did?’ — Mother Teresa

The beginning of love is the will to let those we love be perfectly themselves, the resolution not to twist them to fit our own image. If in loving them we do not love what they are, but only their potential likeness to ourselves, then we do not love them: we only love the reflection of ourselves we find in them. — Thomas Merton, No Man Is an Island

It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important. — Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince