New Meaning ~ The Quaker Dharma

"My understanding of simplicity continues to evolve.For a long time, I thought it was about having very little in the way of material objects. And, what was owned was not to be very ornate. I call this aesthetic simplicity and it is really only a part of the picture, if even a part. Now, simplicity is starting to mean something else to me. Simplicity is a form of freedom and an opportunity to heal. It really no longer has to do with whether something I own or use is ornate or not. In fact, complex physical objects, objects as art, are taking on new meaning and importance for me. No, simplicity is a means, an opportunity to discover who I am and what’s meaningful in my life."

"
More at  http://thequakerdharma.blogspot.com/2005/03/simplicity.html

We Choose to Love ~ M. Scott Peck

"Love is the will to extend one's self for the purpose of nurturing one's own or another's spiritual growth... Love is as love does. Love is an act of will -- namely, both an intention and an action. Will also implies choice. We do not have to love. We choose to love.”

― M. Scott Peck

More at  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M._Scott_Peck

Complete Emotions ~ Virginia Woolf

“I can only note that the past is beautiful because one never realises an emotion at the time. It expands later, and thus we don't have complete emotions about the present, only about the past. ”

― Virginia Woolf

VirginiaWoolf and the Quakers  http://hayquaker1.blogspot.com/2010/11/virginia-woolf-and-quakers.html

Free eBooks and Kindle editions by Virginia Woolf
http://www.manybooks.net/authors/woolfvir.html

Quiet to the Mind ~ Jonathan Edwards

“Surely there is something in the unruffled calm of nature that overawes our little anxieties and doubts; the sight of the deep-blue sky and the clustering stars above seems to impart a quiet to the mind.”

― Jonathan Edwards

More at  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Edwards_(theologian)

Take Hold ~ Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh

"Take hold of your own life. 
See that the whole existence is celebrating. 
These trees are not serious, these birds are not serious. 
The rivers and the oceans are wild, 
and everywhere there is fun, 
everywhere there is joy and delight. 
Watch existence, 
listen to the existence and become part of it." 


~Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh

More at  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osho_(Bhagwan_Shree_Rajneesh)

Failed Beneath the Bitterness ~ Charles H. Spurgeon

"Friendship is one of the sweetest joys of life. Many might have failed beneath the bitterness of their trial had they not found a friend."

— Charles H. Spurgeon

More at  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Spurgeon

On Christmas Day ~ Thomas Traherne

Shake off thy Sloth, my drowsy Soul, awake;
With Angels sing
Unto thy King,
And pleasant Music make;
Thy Lute, thy Harp, or else thy Heart-strings take,
And with thy Music let thy sense awake.
See how each one the other calls
To fix his Ivy on the walls.

Transplanted there it seems to grow
As if it rooted were below:
Thus He, who is thy King,
Makes Winter, Spring.

 'On Christmas Day' by Thomas Traherne (1652-1674)

More at  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Traherne

With the Gate Open ~ Henry Van Dyke

 “Are you willing to stoop down and consider the needs and desires of little children; to remember the weaknesses and loneliness of people who are growing old; to stop asking how much your friends love you, and to ask yourself if you love them enough; to bear in mind the things that other people have to bear on their hearts; to trim your lamp so that it will give more light and less smoke, and to carry it in front so that your shadow will fall behind you; to make a grave for your ugly thoughts and a garden for your kindly feelings, with the gate open? Are you willing to do these things for a day? Then you are ready to keep Christmas!” 


― Henry Van Dyke

More at  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_van_Dyke

Christmas-time ~ Laura Ingalls Wilder

“Our hearts grow tender with childhood memories and love of kindred, and we are better throughout the year for having, in spirit, become a child again at Christmas-time.”

― Laura Ingalls Wilder

More at  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laura_Ingalls_Wilder

Able to Drink ~ Henri Nouwen

"We need to be angels for each other, to give each other strength and consolation. Because only when we fully realize that the cup of life is not only a cup of sorrow but also a cup of joy will we be able to drink it."

— Henri Nouwen

More at  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Nouwen

The Life of Things ~ William Wordsworth

"With an eye made quiet by the power of harmony, and the deep power of joy, we see into the life of things."

— William Wordsworth

More at; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Wordsworth

Simple and True ~ Rainer Maria Rilke

"Therefore, dear Sir, love your solitude and try to sing out with the pain it causes you. For those who are near you are far away... and this shows that the space around you is beginning to grow vast.... be happy about your growth, in which of course you can't take anyone with you, and be gentle with those who stay behind; be confident and calm in front of them and don't torment them with your doubts and don't frighten them with your faith or joy, which they wouldn't be able to comprehend. Seek out some simple and true feeling of what you have in common with them, which doesn't necessarily have to alter when you yourself change again and again; when you see them, love life in a form that is not your own and be indulgent toward those who are growing old, who are afraid of the aloneness that you trust.... and don't expect any understanding; but believe in a love that is being stored up for you like an inheritance, and have faith that in this love there is a strength and a blessing so large that you can travel as far as you wish without having to step outside it."

— Rainer Maria Rilke

More at  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainer_Maria_Rilke

Growth and Possibilities ~ Shannon L. Alder

“When you see people only as personalities, rather than souls with life missions to fulfill, you forever limit the growth and possibilities of what God has in store for another person.”

~ Shannon L. Alder

What the Donkey Saw ~ U.A. Fanthorpe

No room in the inn, of course,
And not that much in the stable
What with the shepherds, Magi, Mary,
Joseph, the heavenly host –
Not to mention the baby
Using our manger as a cot.
You couldn’t have squeezed another cherub in
For love or money.

Still, in spite of the overcrowding,
I did my best to make them feel wanted.
I could see the baby and I

Would be going places together.

U.A. Fanthorpe

More at  http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/may/02/obituary-u-a-ua-fanthorpe

Snatched from Life~ Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

“Satiety depends not at all on how much we eat, but on how we eat. It's the same with happiness, the very same...happiness doesn't depend on how many external blessings we have snatched from life. It depends only on our attitude toward them. There's a saying about it in the Taoist ethic: 'Whoever is capable of contentment will always be satisfied.”

~ Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

More at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleksandr_Solzhenitsyn

Artwork from Sarah Young http://www.sarah-young.co.uk/

Sweetness of this Solitude ~ Michel de Montaigne

“When I dance, I dance; when I sleep, I sleep; yes, and when I walk alone in a beautiful orchard, if my thoughts drift to far-off matters for some part of the time for some other part I lead them back again to the walk, the orchard, to the sweetness of this solitude, to myself.”

― Michel de Montaigne

More at   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_de_Montaigne

Bless Yourself ~ Henry David Thoreau

"If the day and the night are such that you greet them with joy, and life emits a fragrance like flowers and sweet-scented herbs, is more elastic, more starry, more immortal- that is your success. All nature is your congratulation, and you have cause momentarily to bless yourself. The greatest gains and values are farthest from being appreciated. We easily come to doubt if they exist. We soon forget them. They are the highest reality. Perhaps the facts most astounding and most real are never communicated by man to man. The true harvest of my daily life is somewhat as intangible and indescribable as the tints of morning or evening. It is a little star-dust caught, a segment of the rainbow which I have clutched."

— Henry David Thoreau

More at  http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/transcendentalism/authors/thoreau/

Good is an Overflow ~ Iris Murdoch

"I know how much you grieve over those who are under your care: those you try to help and fail, those you cannot help. Have faith in God and remember that He will is His own way and in His own time complete what we so poorly attempt. Often we do not achieve for others the good that we intend but achieve something, something that goes on from our effort. Good is an overflow. Where we generously and sincerely intend it, we are engaged in a work of creation which may be mysterious even to ourselves - and because it is mysterious we may be afraid of it. But this should not make us draw back. God can always show us, if we will, a higher and a better way; and we can only learn to love by loving. Remember that all our failures are ultimately failures in love. Imperfect love must not be condemned and rejected but made perfect. The way is always forward, never back." 

— Iris Murdoch

More at  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iris_Murdoch

Prize Life ~ Charlotte Brontë

"God surely did not create us, and cause us to live, with the sole end of wishing always to die. I believe, in my heart, we were intended to prize life and enjoy it, so long as we retain it. Existence never was originally meant to be that useless, blank, pale, slow-trailing thing it often becomes to many, and is becoming to me, among the rest."

— Charlotte Brontë

More at  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlotte_Bront%C3%AB

Free Charlotte Brontë eBooks and Kindle editions

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Inborn Sense of Wonder ~ Rachel Carson

"If a child is to keep alive his inborn sense of wonder, he needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with him the joy, excitement, and mystery of the world we live in." 

~ Rachel Carson

More at  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachel_Carson

Free Man In Powys: Less Pleased you than the Stars? ~ Ray Lovegrove

Free Man In Powys: Less Pleased you than the Stars?: The Ancient Celts had some strange ideas. However, strange is not necessarily bad, and value does not usually depreciate with age, so perha...

Alchemy in Sorrow ~ Pearl S. Buck

"Sorrow fully accepted brings its own gifts. For there is alchemy in sorrow. It can be transmitted into wisdom, which, if it does not bring joy, can yet bring happiness."

— Pearl S. Buck

More at  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pearl_S._Buck

I Have no Wit ~ Christina Rossetti

I have no wit, no words, no tears;
My heart within me like a stone
Is numb'd too much for hopes or fears;
Look right, look left, I dwell alone;
I lift mine eyes, but dimm'd with grief
No everlasting hills I see;
My life is in the falling leaf:
O Jesus, quicken me.

My life is like a faded leaf,
My harvest dwindled to a husk:
Truly my life is void and brief
And tedious in the barren dusk;
My life is like a frozen thing,
No bud nor greenness can I see:
Yet rise it shall--the sap of Spring;
O Jesus, rise in me.

My life is like a broken bowl,
A broken bowl that cannot hold
One drop of water for my soul
Or cordial in the searching cold;
Cast in the fire the perish'd thing;
Melt and remould it, till it be
A royal cup for Him, my King:
O Jesus, drink of me.

~ Christina Rossetti

More at http://www.englishonline.co.uk/freesite_tour/resource/literature/rossetti.html

Seeds and Water of Compassion ~ Herb Walters

"....Listening is both a spiritual and a social change process. It is a process of opening to the potential and the goodness of other people. It’s a process of understanding the basic differences that separate us and the common human values that connect us. Thus we can appreciate and care about other people. We can learn to love, not because we think we should be loving, but because we experience empathy – the ability to truly understand the other person. Understanding and listening are the seeds and water of compassion. That’s something that we as Friends can strive for in all areas of our lives. I am very grateful for the opportunities I have to use listening in my work and I am continually challenged by my need to incorporate listening into my personal life."

Herb Walters

More at  http://www.universalistfriends.org/walters.html

Subtle Feelings ~ Gustave Flaubert

"What better occupation, really, than to spend the evening at the fireside with a book, with the wind beating on the windows and the lamp burning bright...Haven't you ever happened to come across in a book some vague notion that you've had, some obscure idea that returns from afar and that seems to express completely your most subtle feelings?"

— Gustave Flaubert

More at  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustave_Flaubert

Free Gustave Flaubert eBooks and Kindle editions;

http://www.manybooks.net/authors/flaubert.html
Artwork by Edna Clarke Hall http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edna_Clarke_Hall

Understand More ~ Woody Allen

"We're all faced throughout our lives with agonizing decisions, moral choices. Some are on a grand scale, most of these choices are on lesser points. But we define ourselves by the choices we have made. We are, in fact, the sum total of our choices. Events unfold so unpredictably, so unfairly, Human happiness does not seem to be included in the design of creation. it is only we, with our capacity to love that give meaning to the indifferent universe. And yet, most human beings seem to have the ability to keep trying and even try to find joy from simple things, like their family, their work, and from the hope that future generations might understand more"

— Woody Allen

More at  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woody_Allen

The Fox ~ Wendell Berry

"Be like the fox who makes more tracks than necessary, some in the wrong direction. Practice resurrection."

— Wendell Berry

More at  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wendell_Berry

Full text  http://www.context.org/ICLIB/IC30/Berry.htm

God's Echo ~ Sean Stewart

“Look for Joy: that's God's echo, and his footprint. Happiness and wittiness and cleverness do not count for much when the darkness falls. Joy is tougher.”

~ Sean Stewart

More at  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sean_Stewart

Artwork from Robert Tavener
 http://www.independentW.co.uk/news/obituaries/robert-tavener-755540.html

To Forget is a Form of Suicide ~ Madeleine L'Engle

"I am still every age that I have been. Because I was once a child, I am always a child. Because I was once a searching adolescent, given to moods and ecstasies, these are still part of me, and always will be... This does not mean that I ought to be trapped or enclosed in any of these ages...the delayed adolescent, the childish adult, but that they are in me to be drawn on; to forget is a form of suicide... Far too many people misunderstand what 'putting away childish things' means, and think that forgetting what it is like to think and feel and touch and smell and taste and see and hear like a three-year-old or a thirteen-year-old or a twenty-three-year-old means being grownup. When I'm with these people I, like the kids, feel that if this is what it means to be a grown-up, then I don't ever want to be one. Instead of which, if I can retain a child's awareness and joy, and 'be' fifty-one, then I will really learn what it means to be grownup." 

— Madeleine L'Engle

More at  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madeleine_L'Engle

It Was Winter ~ John Milton

"It was the winter wild,
While the Heav'n-born child,
  All meanly wrapt in the rude manger lies;
Nature in awe to him
Had doffed her gaudy trim,
  With her great Master so to sympathize:
It was no season then for her
To wanton with the Sun, her lusty paramour."

More at http://shakespeareauthorship.com/xmas/jm.html (If you have the time the reward is great.)

Done With Love ~ Vincent van Gogh

“It is good to love many things, for therein lies strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done with love is well done.”

― Vincent van Gogh

More at (get your eyes ready for a feast) http://www.vangoghgallery.com/

Someone Else's Music ~ Oscar Wilde

"To influence a person is to give him one's own soul. He does not think his natural thoughts, or burn with his natural passions. His virtues are not real to him. His sins, if there are such things as sins, are borrowed. He becomes an echo of someone else's music, an actor of a part that has not been written for him. The aim of life is self-development. To realize one's nature perfectly - that is what each of us is here for. People are afraid of themselves, nowadays. They have forgotten the highest of all duties, the duty that one owes to one's self. Of course they are charitable. They feed the hungry, and clothe the beggar. But their own souls starve, and are naked. "

~ Oscar Wilde

More at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_Wilde

Free eBooks and Kindle editions from Oscar Wilde at
http://www.manybooks.net/search.php?search=Oscar+Wilde

A Word to the Wise ~ James Thurber

“Do not look back in anger, or forward in fear, but around in awareness.”
― James Thurber

"Why do you have to be a nonconformist like everyone else?”
― James Thurber

“All men should try to learn before they die what they are running from, and to, and why.”
― James Thurber

"A word to the wise is not sufficient if it doesn't make sense.”
― James Thurber

More at  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Thurber

Where the Wind Hit Heavy on the Borderline... ~ Ray Lovegrove

Free Man In Powys: Where the Wind Hit Heavy on the Borderline...: I am a borderliner. I live so close to a border that my cats regularly travel from one country to another by paw... take a look around and ...

The Voice Inside ~ Betty Friedan

“It is easier to live through someone else than to complete yourself. The freedom to lead and plan your own life is frightening if you have never faced it before. It is frightening when a woman finally realizes that there is no answer to the question 'who am I' except the voice inside herself.”

― Betty Friedan

More at  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betty_Friedan

What are You Whispering? ~ Virginia Woolf

“The melancholy river bears us on. When the moon comes through the trailing willow boughs, I see your face, I hear your voice and the bird singing as we pass the osier bed. What are you whispering? Sorrow, sorrow. Joy, joy. Woven together, like reeds in moonlight.”

― Virginia Woolf

VirginiaWoolf and the Quakers  http://hayquaker1.blogspot.com/2010/11/virginia-woolf-and-quakers.html

Free eBooks and Kindle editions by Virginia Woolf
http://www.manybooks.net/authors/woolfvir.html

Simple Sorrows, Simple Joys ~ Lewis Carroll

"Lastly, she pictured to herself how this same little sister of hers would, in the after-time, be herself a grown woman; and how she would keep, through all her riper years, the simple and loving heart of her childhood: and how she would gather about her other little children, and make their eyes bright and eager with many a strange tale, perhaps even with the dream of Wonderland of long ago: and how she would feel with all their simple sorrows, and find a pleasure in all their simple joys, remembering her own child-life, and the happy summer days."

— Lewis Carroll

More at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Carroll

Joy and Sorrow ~ Joseph Conrad

"Joy and sorrow in this world pass into each other, mingling their forms and their murmurs in the twilight of life as mysterious as an overshadowed ocean, while the dazzling brightness of supreme hopes lies far off, fascinating and still, on the distant edge of the horizon"

— Joseph Conrad

More at  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Conrad

Free e-books and kindle editions of Joseph Conrad works at;

http://www.manybooks.net/authors/conradjo.html

Seed Time ~ Lorraine Anderson

"Nature offers us a thousand simple pleasers - plays of light and color, fragrance in the air, the sun's warmth on skin and muscle, the audible rhythm of life's stir and push- for the price of merely paying attention. What joy! But how unwilling or unable many of us are to pay this price in an age when manufactured sources of stimulation and pleasure are everywhere at hand. For me, enjoying nature's pleasures takes conscious choice, a choice to slow down to seed time or rock time, to still the clamoring ego, to set aside plans and busyness, and to simply to be present in my body, to offer myself up."

— Lorraine Anderson

More at  http://www.coyoteclan.com/great_chorus.html

Artwork from Mary Azarian  http://www.maryazarian.com/

Elastic String ~ John Steinbeck

"Man is ... related inextricably to all reality, known and unknowable ... plankton, a shimmering phosphorescence on the sea and the spinning planets and an expanding universe, all bound together by the elastic string of time. It is advisable to look from the tide pool to the stars and then back to the tide pool again."

~ John Steinbeck

More at  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Steinbeck

What we Have ~ Daniel Defoe

"I learned to look more upon the bright side of my condition, and less upon the dark side, and to consider what I enjoyed, rather than what I wanted : and this gave me sometimes such secret comforts, that I cannot express them ; and which I take notice of here, to put those discontented people in mind of it, who cannot enjoy comfortably what God has given them, because they see and covet something that he has not given them. All our discontents about what we want appeared to me to spring from the want of thankfulness for what we have." 

— Daniel Defoe

More at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Defoe

Free Daniel Defoe e-books and Kindle editions

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True Comfort ~ John Woolman

"First, my dear friends, dwell in humility; and take heed that no views of outward gain get too deep hold of you, that so, your eyes being single to the Lord, you may be preserved in the way of safety. Where people let loose their minds after the love of outward things, and are more engaged in pursuing the profits and seeking the friendships of this world, than to be inwardly acquainted with the way of true peace, they walk in a vain shadow, while the true comfort of life is wanting. Their examples are often hurtful to others; and their treasures thus collected do many times prove dangerous snares to their children…."

John Woolman

More at  http://www.strecorsoc.org/jwoolman/w04.html

Free Man In Powys: Is it a Gift to be Simple? ~ Ray Lovegrove

Free Man In Powys: Is it a Gift to be Simple?: It is a dingy South London classroom, sometime in the past - my past. In the room are at least two people; one of them is Miss O’Keefe, my ...