Living

As long as you live keep learning how to live.
- Seneca

The words you speak become the house you live in.
- Hafiz

We do not stop playing because we grow old, we grow old when we stop playing.
- Benjamin Franklin

You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself, and that person is not to be found anywhere. You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe deserve your love and affection.
- The Buddha

The glory of God is a person fully alive. - St. Irenaeus

Hopeful people do hopeful things. - John Dear

You are here to enable the divine purpose of the universe to unfold. That is how important you are.
- Eckhart Tolle.

In this life we cannot do great things. We can only do small things
with great love - Mother Teresa

Before I can tell my life what I want to do with it, I must listen to my life telling me who I am.
- Parker J. Palmer

All the way to heaven is heaven. - Catherine of Siena

“You can't think your way into a new way of living but you can live your way into a new way of thinking.” Richard Rohr

“What can be healthy in one season may be unhealthy in another season” Tony Campolo

“Include and trancend.” Ken Wilbur

“I want to make good citizens. If a child hears fine music from the day of his birth and learns to play it himself, he develops sensitivity, discipline and endurance. He gets a beautiful heart.” Shin'ichi Suzuki

“All around you, people will be tiptoeing through life, just to arrive at death safely. But dear children, do not tiptoe. Run, hop, skip, or dance, just don't tiptoe.”
A Professor of Shane Claiborne's (from 'The Irresistable Revolution')

“Jesus lived and died in vain if he did not teach us to regulate the whole of life by the eternal law of love.” Mahatma Gandhi

“We need a coat with two pockets. In one pocket there is dust, and in the other pocket there is gold. We need a coat with two pockets to remind us who we are.” Parker J. Palmer"

Jesus Christ was not a Christian, didn’t want his own religion but he showed us how to live life beautifully. Dave Andrews

“One act of obedience is better than one hundred sermons”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer

“The place God calls you to is where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet." Frederick Buechner

"The soul is like a wild animal…tough, resilient, resourceful, savvy, and self-sufficient: it knows how to survive in hard places. Yet despite its toughness, the soul is also shy. Just like a wild animal, it seeks safety in the dense underbrush, especially when other people are around. If we want to see a wild animal, we know that the last thing we should do is go crashing through the woods yelling for it to come out. But if we will walk quietly into the woods, sit patiently at the base of a tree...the wild creature we seek might put in an appearance." Parker J. Palmer (From 'A Hidden Wholeness')

“...it is never to late to do something beautiful for God.” Mother Teresa

“My life is my message” Gandhi

“We do not see things as they are; we see things as we are. Richard Rohr

You can never be happy at the expense of the happiness of others.
- Chinese Proverb

If your freedom robs someone else of theirs, it's not true freedom.
- Anonymous

The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance, the wise grows it under his feet.
- James Oppenheim

It is not length of life, but depth of life.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson



Hardship

"A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty." Winston Churchill

When anything tempts you to be bitter don't say “this is a misfortune” but rather “to bear this worthily is good fortune”. Marcus Aurelius

“Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.” Winston Churchill

Spiritual maturity looks outwards, it sees the "us in them" not "us and them". Imam Muhammad Ashafa

Egocentricity dies a hard death.
- John Samford

“No matter how broken our world may be, there is a hidden wholeness just beneath the surface of all visible things.” Thomas Merton



Peace and Justice (Fairness)

True peace is not merely the absence of tension: it is the presence of justice. MLK

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for justice”. Jesus

“Love and truth will meet; justice and peace will kiss.” Psalm 85:9

“Our deepest calling is to grow into our own authentic self-hood, whether or not it conforms to some image of who we ought to be. As we do so, we will not only find the joy that every human being seeks - we will also find our path of authentic service in the world.” Parker J. Palmer

"The poor tell us who we are, 
The prophets tell us who we could be, 
So we hide the poor, 
And kill the prophets." 
Phil Berrigan

When asked if he were a Christian Gandhi said, “Ask the poor, they will tell you who the Christians are”.

He who lends to the poor gets his interest from God.
- German Proverb

The miracle is this – the more we share, the more we have.
- Leonard Nimoy

Education's purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one.
- Malcolm Forbes



Leadership

The pessimist complains about the wind. The optimist expects it to change. The leader adjusts the sails.
- John Maxwell

The function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers.
- Ralph Nader

Let's not just transform those in need, we can also find ways to help transform those in power.
-Anonymous

Each time someone stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope.
- Robert F. Kennedy

Don't walk in front of me, I may not follow.
Don't walk behind me, I may not lead.
Just walk beside me and be my friend. Albert Camus

"If the young are not initiated into the village, they will burn it down just to feel the heat." African Proverb.
Politics

Aristotle argued is his book Politics that human beings develop virtue (that is, develop their excellence as human beings) through social interaction.

“Action springs not from thought, but from a readiness for responsibility.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer

"It is often said, democracy is the worst form of government, except all the others that have been tried." Winston Churchill

First they came for the Communists, but I was not a Communist so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Socialists and the Trade Unionists, but I was neither, so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Jews, but I was not a Jew so I did not speak out. And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer

We musn't love ideas more than people. (Paraphrase of a Bonhoeffer quote)



Civil Disobedience

"An unjust law is no law at all." St Augustine

One has not only a legal, but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws
MLK

“The greatest crimes in the world are not committed by people breaking the rules but by people following the rules. It's people who follow orders that drop bombs and massacre villages.” Banksy

“Dissent is the highest form of patriotism.” Howard Zinn

‎"Capitalism sees everything as a commodity, including human beings and natural resources, that can be exploited." Chris Hedges (from the film "Capitalism-A Love Story")

Property monopolised or in the possesion of a few is a curse to mankind. John Adams

“Propagander is the ability to convince people who are victimized by the system, to support the very system and see it as good”. Father Peter Dougherty

“Power works from the outside in, but authority works from the inside out”. Parker Palmer

"If I can't dance to it, it's not my revolution" Emma Goldman



War

“Perhaps spending the military budget on schools, hospitals and clean water for other countries is a wiser approach to national security” Anne Lamott

Did you know...The money spent by the world's governments on weapons in one week is enough to feed all the people on earth for a year?

“They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore”. Isaiah 2:4 & Micah 4:3

“It will be a great day when our schools have all the money they need, and our air force has to have a bake-sale to buy a bomber.”
Robert Fulghum

“Imagine nothing to kill or die for”. John Lennon



Peace

“The price of peace is eternal vigilance.”
G. P. Gooch 1920

If you have peace you have everything – Anon




Environment

We are house sitting the earth for our grandchildren.

“How can you buy or sell the sky, the warmth of the land? The idea is strange to us. If we do not own the freshness of the air and the sparkle of the water, how can you buy them.” Chief Seattle

We must move from a paradigm of host/parasite to one of symbiosis. - Anon


“In the present circumstances, no one can afford to assume that someone else will solve their problems. Every individual has a responsibility to help guide our global family in the right direction. Good wishes are not sufficient; we must become actively engaged.”
Dalai Lama

"Let ours be a time remembered for the awakening of a new reverence for life, the firm resolve to achieve sustainability, the quickening of the struggle for justice and peace, and the joyful celebration of life." The Earth Charter

“Love all God's creation, the whole and every grain of sand of it.
Love every leaf, every ray of God's light. Love the animals, love the plants, love everything.
If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery in things.
Once you perceive it, you will begin to comprehend it better every day.
And you will come at last to love the whole world with an all-embracing love.
Fydor Dostoevsky



Beauty

Think of all the beauty still left around you and be happy.
- Anne Frank

A heart in love with beauty never grows old.
- Turkish Proverb

There is nothing that makes its way more directly into the soul than beauty.
- Joseph Addison

Anything will give up its secrets if you love it enough. Not only have I found that when I talk to the little flower or to the little peanut they will give up their secrets, but I have found that when I silently commune with people they give up their secrets also - if you love them enough.
- George Washington Carver

“Love one another, but make not a bond of love.
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each of you be alone,
Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.
And stand together, yet not too near together. For the pillars of the temple stand apart, And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow.” Kallil Gabrihn

“Breath is the bridge which connects life to consciousness, which unites your body to your thoughts.” -Thich Nhat Hanh

"Everyone has been made for some particular work, and the desire for that work has been put in every heart." "Let the beauty of what you love be what you do." –Rumi

You, yes you. You have something special and unique inside of you. Have you expressed or shared it, or have you buried it up within? You have talents, gifts, and wisdom that can positively affect lives, and someone out there is waiting for you to shine. Believe and trust in yourself to shine on! -Kat Zaghi

"People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it." -Chinese Proverb

Form and the Formless

“Clarity is good, but sometimes intrigue may be even more precious; clarity tends to put an end to further thinking, where as intrigue makes one think more intensely, broadly and deeply. Jesus’ teaching on the kingdom of God is a case in point; his parables don’t score too well on clarity but they excel in intrigue.” Brian McLaren (Introduction to “The Last word and the Word After That”)

“A model helps us work with a mystery”. Brian McLaren

“Don’t marry a model”. Dave Andrews

“All real living is meeting.” Martin Buber



The Kingdom of Heaven

The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed...Jesus

“Preaching the kingdom of God and the image of a new creation are the primary ways Jesus speaks of his apocalyptic invasion into our world as the creator come to his creation in order to set it free from the bondage to sin, death, and the devil”.
—Arthur A. Just, Jr.

The kingdom is always here and not here. It is always now and not yet. No institution can encompass it. That is rather clear in the texts where Jesus describes the kingdom. All false religion proceeds in a certain sense from one illusion. When people say piously, “Thy kingdom come” out of one side of their mouth, they need also to say, “My kingdom go!” out of the other side. The kingdom of God supersedes and far surpasses all kingdoms of self and society or personal reward. - Richard Rohr

We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

“Jesus discovered that humanity was like a fish in the sea ignorant of its being in the sea, searching for the sea. He announced to humanity 'you are already in God'.” John Martin Sahajananda



The Beatitudes (The Sermon on The Mount)

1. Blessed are the poor - or poor in spirit – who do not trust in status or riches
2. Blessed are those who mourn – who grieve over the injustice in the world
3. Blessed are the meek – who get angry but who never get aggressive
4. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness - who seek justice
5. Blessed are the merciful – who are compassionate to all in need
6. Blessed are the are pure in heart – who are whole-hearted in desire to do right
7. Blessed are the peacemakers – who work for peace in a world at war
8. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness - who suffer for just causes