life: acoustic & amplified

poetry, quotes & thoughts about life

Archive for the category “Quotes”

our words become us

A Courageous Life

“Have courage,” we often say to one another.  Courage is a spiritual virtue.  The word courage comes from the Latin word cor, which means “heart.  A courageous act is an act coming from the heart.  A courageous word is a word arising from the heart.  The heart, however, is not just the place where our emotions are located.  The heart is the centre of our being, the centre of all thoughts, feelings, passions, and decisions.

When the flesh – the lived human experience – becomes word, community can develop.  When we say,  “Let me tell you what we saw.  Come and listen to what we did.  Sit down and let me explain to you what happened to us.  Wait until you hear whom we met,”  we call people together and make our lives into lives for others.   The word brings us together and calls us into community.  When the flesh becomes word, our bodies become part of a body of people.

– Henri Nouwen
http://www.henrinouwen.org/

for the love of all elements of writing: words. paper. pen. thoughts. reading. imagination.

and I open a fresh page
paper lined with endless possibility

20120625-092023.jpgof meaning, of words,
of understanding, of hope,

of choices, of thoughts,
of who I am and
who I desire to be

space between words

holding it all together
in a framework of idea

I write this with ‘ink joy’ flowing
a smile on my lips
for the gold foil polka dots
and the quotes that make my heart sing –
the simple
yet so rich and complex gift
of a pen and a piece of paper…

– al
4/13/12

 

 

Hope against hope, and ask till ye receive. -James Montgomery

…yet you have not, because you ask not.
James 4:2

Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: 8  For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. 9  Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? 10  Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? 11  If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?                               Matthew 7:7 -11

speaking with love

Growing into the Truth We Speak

Can we only speak when we are fully living what we are saying?  If all our words had to cover all our actions, we would be doomed to permanent silence!  Sometimes we are called to proclaim God’s love even when we are not yet fully able to live it.  Does that mean we are hypocrites?  Only when our own words no longer call us to conversion.  Nobody completely lives up to his or her own ideals and visions.  But by proclaiming our ideals and visions with great conviction and great humility, we may gradually grow into the truth we speak.  As long as we know that our lives always will speak louder than our words, we can trust that our words will remain humble.

– Henri Nouwen
http://www.henrinouwen.org/

let go and grow your faith

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Truth

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How to have a beautiful life! Loving it!!

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life is made up of tiny stories, fairy tales and great adventures

I Believe…

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Don’t wait…

http://www.yaledailynews.com/news/2012/may/27/keegan-opposite-loneliness/

I read the article above this morning posted on the Yale facebook link – Marina Keegan died in a car accident this past weekend. This is one of her statements in this piece as she faced graduation from Yale:

We’re so young.  We’re so young. We’re twenty-two years old. We have so much time. There’s this sentiment I sometimes sense, creeping in our collective conscious as we lay alone after a party, or pack up our books when we give in and go out – that it is somehow too late. That others are somehow ahead. More accomplished, more specialized. More on the path to somehow saving the world, somehow creating or inventing or improving. That it’s too late now to BEGIN a beginning and we must settle for continuance, for commencement.

There are no guarantees in this life. Age is not the answer to living fully. We may have ‘so much time’  – or we may be gone tomorrow! Don’t wait to live your life; your dreams matter!

If today was your last day – what would you do?????

Ok, now make the choice! DO IT!!!!

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