from Bird by Bird

The garden is one of the two great metaphors for humanity. The garden is about life and beauty and the impermanence of all living things. The garden is about feeding your children, providing food for the tribe– it’s part of an urgent territorial drive that we can probably trace back to animals storing food. It’s a competitive display mechanism, like having a prized bull for the best tomatoes and English tea roses. It’s about winning, about providing society with superior things and about proving that you have taste and good values and you work hard. And what a wonderful relief every so often to know who the enemy is, because in the garden the enemy is everything– the aphids, the weather, time. And so you pour yourself into it, care so much and see up close so much birth and growth and beauty and danger and triumph and then everything dies anyway–life. But you just keep doing it.
          Anne Lamott 

from Soren Kierkegaard

There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true. The other is to refuse to believe what is true.
              

You Are God

You are the peace of all things calm

You are the place to hide from harm

You are the light that shines in dark

You are the heart's eternal spark

You are the door that's open wide

You are the guest who waits inside

You are the stranger at the door

You are the calling of the poor

You are my Lord and with me still

You are my love, keep me from ill

You are the light, the truth, the way

You are my Saviour this very day.

         Celtic oral tradition 

When I Despair

When I despair, I remember that all through history the ways of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time they can seem invincible, but in the end they always fall. – Think of it - always.
Mahatma Gandhi

Eulogy for the Martyred children -1963

Now I say to you, in conclusion,
life is hard,
at times as hard as crucible steel. (Mmm)
It has its bleak and difficult moments.
Like the ever-flowing waters of the river,
life has its moments of drought and its moments of flood. (Yeah)
Like the ever-changing cycle of the seasons,
life has the soothing warmth of its summers
and the piercing chill of its winters. (Yeah)
But if one will hold on,
he will discover that God walks with him, (Yeah. Well)
and that God is able (Yeah) to lift you from the fatigue of despair
to the buoyancy of hope
and transform dark and desolate valleys
into sunlit paths of inner peace. (Mmm)
               Martin Luther King jr.