Cricket in Berlin - The End of an Era: Things that make me smile

Friday, April 17, 2009

Things that make me smile

I guess I have been missing my family lately. I think probably once every 6 weeks or so it comes in a really big wave and I tear up thinking about them, or wishing they were here, or thinking about how loved and supported I feel by them. Last night on the photo blog I posted what turned out to be a somewhat vulnerable post about insecurity and I had this moment of revelation this morning that really with AM&UK I don't really feel those things, I feel OK if there are places of disagreement, because I know that they believe in me, and therefor trust my decisions. Why? Why with them and not so many other places. I don't know, but it made me kind of homesick this morning and then I read this little thing and have all week been remembering a quote my Aunt sent me, so I thought I would share them.

I also have been doing a lot of research on the Home for the Dying today and how to volunteer there. It's been keeping things in perspective for me. I am really looking forward to that opportunity.

"If the world was merely seductive, that would be easy. If it were merely challenging, that would be no problem. But I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day." E.B. White - courtesy of Aunt Marla

0 comments:

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)

Some believe there is nothing one man or one woman can do against the enormous array of the world's ills— against misery, against ignorance, or injustice and violence. Yet many of the world's great movements, of thought and action, have flowed from the work of a single man. A young monk began the Protestant reformation, a young general extended an empire from Macedonia to the borders of the earth, and a young woman reclaimed the territory of France. It was a young Italian explorer who discovered the New World, and 32 year old Thomas Jefferson who proclaimed that all men are created equal. "Give me a place to stand," said Archimedes,"and I will move the world." These men moved the world, and so can we all. Bobby Kennedy

The entrance into the Kingdom is through the panging pains of repentance crashing into a man's respectable goodness; then the Holy Ghost, Who produces these agonies, begins the formation of the Son of God in the life. The new life will manifest itself in conscious repentance and unconscious holiness, never the other way about. The bedrock of Christianity is repentance. Strictly speaking, a man cannot repent when he chooses; repentance is a gift of God. The old Puritans used to pray for "the gift of tears." If ever you cease to know the virtue of repentance, you are in darkness. Examine yourself and see if you have forgotten how to be sorry. My Utmost for His Highest

It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man 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, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance. Few men are willing to brave the disapproval of their fellows, the censure of their colleagues, the wrath of their society. Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence. Yet it is the one essential, vital quality for those who seek to change a world that yields most painfully to change. And again... Bobby Kennedy