“Each morning is new now. I wake to the inner music of thanks for the dear gift of life and with eager plans for the uses of the day. The first sound I hear, whether a flock of chirping birds, or the whispering wind, or of traffic with its urgency, is dear. The growing light is an omen, and a good one. Thoughts crowd in, and the mind’s wheels begin their busy turning like those of the cars and trucks out on the main road.”
“We must be confident that there is still more ‘life’ to be ‘lived’ and yet more heights to be scaled. The tragedy of middle age is that, so often, men and women cease to press ‘towards the goal of their high calling’. They cease learning, cease growing; they give up and resign from life. As wisdom dawns with age, we begin to measure our experiences not by what life gives to us, not by the things withheld from us, but by their power to help us to grow in spiritual wisdom.”
Who made the world? / Who made the swan, and the black bear? / Who made the grasshopper? / This grasshopper, I mean— / the one who has flung herself out of the grass, / the one who is eating sugar out of my hand, / who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down— / who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
“I pray most for courage, especially as I get older and my bones can be broken more easily. The last time I was arrested, the roadway that I lay on was extremely hard, and I didn’t know what the police… might have in their minds.”
“All that you touch You Change. All that you Change Changes you. The only lasting truth Is Change. God is Change.”
“It is very hard to find anything joyful if you are suffering grief, loss, pain or sadness. However, joy can emerge as a result of our faith; it is one of the “fruits of the spirit”. For Quakers, this can mean silent worship or prayer, either individually or in a group. We seek to come closer to the Spirit and to be open to Divine Guidance. As a result of worship, many of us feel deep connection to each other, to society, to the universe.”
“In the end, people don’t view their life as merely the average of all its moments—which, after all, is mostly nothing much plus some sleep. For human beings, life is meaningful because it is a story. A story has a sense of a whole, and its arc is determined by the significant moments, the ones where something happens.”
“In old age, a person may give birth to new things, in ways that seemed laughable when he or she was young. We strive in our youth for what we want from life. As we mature and grow in our spiritual journeys, we come to understand that what we desire may not accord with God’s will for us.”
“In the end, people don’t view their life as merely the average of all its moments—which, after all, is mostly nothing much plus some sleep. For human beings, life is meaningful because it is a story. A story has a sense of a whole, and its arc is determined by the significant moments, the ones where something happens.”
“There are fewer and fewer things that truly matter. The years have accumulated such a store of inner lasting value that I no longer feel the weight of the perishable…. My life is becoming intensely focused on presence and Presence.”
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