Sister Christer

hardly ever

Reality continues to do its tedious dance, only occasionally colorful, and hardly ever at the right time.

Jon Carroll

-- betcha thought I was gone for good.  no such luck.

i'm with...

We should do as few stupid things as possible; but to wait for a time when we would do none would be the stupidest thing of all.

- St. Madeleine Sophie Barat (RSCJ)

(I have the not waiting to do stupid things down pretty good; the few part, not so much.)

quotes on thursday: Halloween edition

Clothes make a statement.  Costumes tell a story.  ~Mason Cooley

I'm quoted here about Halloween and those ubiquitous nun costumes, particularly the naughty kind.  Interesting column by Dr. Christine Whelan for the ever-intriguing BustedHalo site.

 

 

Hold on, man.  We don't go anywhere with "scary," "spooky," "haunted," or "forbidden" in the title.  ~From Scooby-Doo

Backward, turn backward,
O Time, in your flight
make me a child again
just for to-night!
~Elizabeth Akers Allen

oh yeah

". . . let's put men dressed like European candy bars in jail for a traffic violation."

- Jon Carrol

did i tell you this before?

Why is it that our memory is good enough to retain the least triviality that happens to us, and yet not good enough to recollect how often we have told it to the same person?
  - Francois de La Rochefoucauld

innocent and unafraid

“We are strong, and brave, and innocent, and unafraid. We are better than we think and not quite what we want to be. We are alive to the imaginations and the possibilities. We will continue to invent the future through our blood and tears and through all our sadness.”

Nikki Giovanni

lostness and yet

 

So I go forward, and I don’t believe I could ever go back . . . but I go on in fear and trembling and often with a sense of lostness, trying to be careful what I do because I am beginning to see that every false step is paid for dearly.

        --Thomas Merton

i love word salad

But I am making something, a word salad of uncertain value, just like a shoemaker or a chemist or a teacher.

be one

Unity in the Heart of God
 
 Love unites all, whether created or uncreated. The heart of God, the heart of all creation, and our own hearts become one in love. That's what all the great mystics have been trying to tell us through the ages. Benedict, Francis, Hildegard of Bingen, Hadewijch of Brabant, Meister Eckhart, Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross, Dag Hammarskjeld, Thomas Merton, and many others, all in their own ways and their own languages, have witnessed to the unifying power of the divine love. All of them, however, spoke with a knowledge that came to them not through intellectual arguments but through contemplative prayer. The Spirit of Jesus allowed them to see the heart of God, the heart of the universe, and their own hearts as one. It is in the heart of God that we can come to the full realisation of the unity of all that is, created and uncreated.  -- Henri Nouwen

golden broken

When the Japanese mend broken objects, they aggrandize the damage by filling the cracks with gold.  They believe that when something's suffered damage and has a history it becomes more beautiful.  ~Barbara Bloom