“Iola Pond” - A place I once lived
Weekly Tao Te Ching
Chapter 69
True warriors seek to defend rather than conquer. To conquer in the name of defense is to deceive the people. So we overcome without conquering, confront without weapons.
To have an “enemy” is a great tragedy for it breaks our inner unity. To separate ourselves from an opponent is to separate ourselves from our selves.
In conflict, we refuse to separate ourselves, thus can effect peace.
🛎 William Martin’s Website/ His Books📚
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Weekly - Mirabai Starr
cquainted with Desolation
"I simply sat with my loss and allowed myself to become acquainted with my desolation. 'It's just unbearable anguish' became my mantra, which I uttered silently and with an ironic smile whenever the pain came at me like a freight train. Then I lay down in its tracks and investigated what it felt like to be run over.
"As I learned to abide in the wreckage, a realization began to grow in me. You are shattered, yes, said my inner voice. Do not be in a rush to put the pieces back together. Go ahead and be nobody for as long as you can.
"And so I did."
— Caravan of No Despair
Anthony de Mello
We see people and things not as they are, but as we are.
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Weekly - Alan Watts
“The clash between science and religion has not shown that religion is false and science is true. It has shown that all systems of definition are relative to various purposes, and that none of them actually “grasp” reality.”
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Weekly - William Paul Young
“Anger is the right response to something that is so wrong. But don’t let the anger and pain and loss you feel prevent you from forgiving him and removing your hands from around his neck.”
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Doodle of the Week (1)
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Weekly - Deng Ming Dao
“Emperors uphold censorship, But extreme repression leads to extreme reaction. Individualists believe in freedom, But extreme expression leads to extreme reaction.”
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Weekly - Peter Rollins
“Faith, then, is not a set of beliefs about the world. It is rather found in the loving embrace of the world. Because the actual existing church has reduced the Crucifixion and Resurrection to religious affirmations held by a certain tribe, rather than expressions of a type of life, the event they testify to has been almost completely eclipsed.”
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Weekly - Maya Angelou
Self-pity in its early stages is as snug as a feather mattress. Only when it hardens does it become uncomfortable.
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Weekly - Christian Mystics
“All that is to be understood or desired is still not God, but where mind and desire end, in that darkness, God shines.”
~Meister Eckhartt
🛎 Various Websites
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Doodle of the Week (2)
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Weekly - Richard Rohr
“Religions should be understood as only the fingers that point to the moon, not the moon itself.”
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Weekly - Brian D. McLaren
“Our message and methodology have changed, do change, and must change if we are faithful to the ongoing and unchanging mission of Jesus Christ.”
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Keith’s Weekly Pick
“If we start with the idea that God is love, then everything else—justice, holiness, even judgment—has to flow out of that love,” he said. This is profoundly practical. It reframes how we see ourselves, our neighbors, and the God who refuses to be distant from us.
~Brad Jersak.
"Cranes, Pines, and Bamboo" by Ogata Kōrin (1658-1716)
