Saint Augustine speaks

Do you wish to rise? Begin by descending. You plan a tower that shall pierce the clouds? Lay first the foundation of humility.
Saint Augustine

advice from Saint Francis of Assisi

Keep a clear eye toward life's end. Do not forget your purpose and destiny as God's creature. What you are in his sight is what you are and nothing more. Remember that when you leave this earth, you can take nothing that you have received...but only what you have given; a full heart enriched by honest service, love, sacrifice, and courage.
-Saint Francis of Assisi

I am done with great things

I am done with great things and big plans, great institutions and big success. I am for those tiny, invisible, loving, human forces that work from individual to individual, creeping through the crannies of the world like so many rootlets, or like the capillary oozing of water, which, if given time, will rend the hardest monuments of pride. -William James

A Deep Question from Rabbi Menachem-Mendel

A disciple of Rabbi Menachem-Mendel complained: "I come from Rizhin. There, everything is simple, everything is clear. I prayed and I knew I was praying; I studied and I knew I was studying. Here in Kotzk, everything is mixed up, confused; I suffer from it. Please help me so I can pray and study as before. Please help me to stop suffering." 
Menachem-Mendel replied: "And whoever told you that God is interested in your studies and your prayers? And what if he preferred your tears and your suffering?"

Rumi translated by Coleman Barks

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. 

I'll meet you there. 

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. 

I'll meet you there. 

When the soul lies down in that grass, 

the world is too full to talk about ideas, language, 

even the phrase each other doesn't make any sense.

Who makes these changes? 

I shoot an arrow right, 

It lands left. 

I ride after a deer and find myself chased by a hog. 

I plot to get what I want and end up in prison. 

I dig pits to trap others and fall in. 

I should be suspicious of what I want.

Today, like every other day, we woke up empty and frightened. 

Don't open the door to the study and begin reading.

Take down a musical instrument.

Let the beauty we love be what we do.

The mind cannot understand Rumi's poetry. Neither can desire. Mind and desire are not enough. There's something else, some other way of knowing, some deeper part of our being that knows we're not in grief, that knows we're in eternity, you know, that sings out of that. That's the mystery, I think, that cannot be said.

Let the beauty we love be what we do. 

There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground. 

There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.

Old Inuit Song

I think over again my small adventures, my fears, those small ones that seemed so big, all those vital things I had to get and to reach, and yet there is only one great thing: to live and see the great day that dawns, and the light that fills the world.

Levidrome - Let's get this word in the dictionary

from The Elder

Is the life that you are living the life that you truly want to be living? If you could do just exactly what you want to do, what would you do?

Gratitude -

"To be grateful is to recognize the Love of God in everything He has given us - and He has given us everything. Every breath we draw is a gift of His love, every moment of existence is a grace, for it brings with it immense graces from Him. Gratitude therefore takes nothing for granted, is never unresponsive, is constantly awakening to new wonder and to praise of the goodness of God. For the grateful person knows that God is good, not by hearsay but by experience. And that is what makes all the difference." - Thomas Merton