The Inevitable is what will seem to happen to you purely by chance;
The Real is what will strike you as really absurd;
Unless you are certain you are dreaming, it is certainly a dream of your own;
Unless you exclaim — “There must be some mistake” — you must be mistaken.
- W.H. Auden, For the Time Being: A Christmas Oratorio
“Gratitude is, however, more than just an emotion. It is also a disposition that can be chosen and cultivated, an outlook toward life that manifests itself in actions — it is an ethic.” — Diana Butler Bass
“To be poor does not mean you lack the means to extend charity to another. You may lack money or food, but you have the gift of friendship to overwhelm the loneliness that grips the lives of so many.” — Stanley Hauerwas
“Nostalgia is not an immersion in the past; nostalgia is the first annunciation that the past as we know it is coming to an end.” — David Whyte
“Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don’t be afraid.” — Frederick Buechner
“The difference between justice and forgiveness: To be just is to condemn the fault and, because of the fault, to condemn the doer as well. To forgive is to condemn the fault but to spare the doer.” — Miroslav Volf
“We have moved too quickly to reach here; now we need to wait to give our spirits a chance to catch up with us.” John O’Donohue, Anam Cara
“It is not easy to tell a story, certainly not when you have an indication to run quickly toward a happy ending. How can I find the courage to write stories that don’t fit a pre-fabricated frame?” ‑Henri Nouwen
“We are not to simply bandage the wounds of victims beneath the wheels of injustice, we are to drive a spoke into the wheel itself.” — Dietrich Bonhoeffer
“And the garden bloomed and bloomed and every morning revealed new mercies.” — The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgsen Burnett
