On the Edge
A door like this has cracked open
only five or six times
since we got up on our hind legs.
It’s the best possible time to be alive,
when almost everything you know is wrong.
-- Tom Stoppard
“Precisely here and now,
when nothing works,
what are you going to do?”
— Shin'ichi Hisamatsu
I am in a spot where I can neither
be what I always am,
nor turn into what I could be.
-- Claire Keegnan
When medieval mapmakers came to the limit
of their knowledge of the known world,
they oftimes wrote in the empty space,
"Here be dragons."
​
-- Elizabeth A. Johnson
We must be very careful of anyone who suggests that she or he has an answer to questions that have been with us for thousands of years.
A great teacher once said, “in reality as we know it,
many questions are meant only to be asked
- never answered.”
​
— rabbi david a. cooper
You can get to the ends of the earth by lying, but you'll never get back. -- Bernard Guilbert Guerney
A con artist isn’t a good speaker...
A con artist is a good listener.
— Marie Konnkovia, The Biggest Bluff
… down the long path
is the door through which
he has not come,
on his lips
what all women desire to hear,
in his hand
the flowers
that he has taken from her.
— R.S.Thomas
Don’t worry about the future... The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind, the kind that blindside you at 4pm on some idle Tuesday. -- Kurt Vonnegut
When it was day they came into my house and said,
“We shall only take the smallest room here…
We shall help you in the worship of your God” …
and then they took their seat in a corner
and they sat quiet and meek.
But in the darkness of night I find
they break into my sacred shrine,
strong and turbulent,
and snatch with unholy greed
the offerings from my altar.
-- Rabindranath Tagore, Gitanjali #33
Anything worth loving
will break your heart.
-- David Whyte
Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness.
It took me years to understand that this, too, was a gift.
-- Mary Oliver
… When the shoe fits,
the foot is forgotten.
​
When the belt fits,
the belly is forgotten.
​
When the heart is right,
“for” and “against” are forgotten.
​
-- [Zhuangtzu xix.12.]
Thomas Merton translation
The art of the deal is to bear both
your happiness and your sorrow
in such a manner that it does not isolate you from your neighbor.
-- Bieke Vandekerckhove, A Taste of Silence
It’s all about discovering
how often you have to say yes
to so much brokenness.
​
Yes also,
to the realization that
the broken pieces remain.
​
That you have to pick them up every day,
and carry them along for another day,
day in, day out.
​
— Hans Fortmann
Last night I had a dream --
I dreamt of a hive at work
deep down in my heart.
​
Within were the golden bees
straining out the bitter past
to make sweet-tasting honey,
and white honey-comb.
​
--Antonio Machado (transl. Alan S. Trueblood)
The mind creates the abyss, and the heart crosses it. — Sri Nisargadatta
The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain. -- Khalil Gibran
​For to stay wholly with each moment is
the death of the ego, who lives
always in either
the past or the future.
— Helen Luke
(Apple Farm Community, Three Rivers, Michigan)
There is more consolation in the heart of stillness, than in an answer to the question. — Thomas Merton
Enough. These few words are enough.
If not these words, this breath.
If not this breath, this sitting here.
This opening to life
we have refused
again and again
until now.
​
Until now.
​
-- David Whyte
All authentic life is encounter. — Martin Buber
By having been picked up,
you become somebody
who can pick up others.
​​
— Bieke Vandekerckhove
If I must fall,
then let me fall.
​
The One I will become,
will catch me.
-- Baal Shem Tov
Dare to declare who you are.
​
It is not far from the shores of silence
to the boundaries of speech.
The path is not long,
but the way is deep.
​
You must not only walk there,
you must be prepared to leap.
-- St Hildegard of Bingen
