“Faith minus vulnerability and mystery equals extremism. If you’ve got all the answers, then don’t call what you do ‘faith.’ “~ Brene Brown. You never know what will trigger a memory. I was sat in traffic the other day, and saw a small poster advertising a Bible bookstore. When I was a teenager, my Saturday […]
“I attribute my success to this—I never gave or took any excuse” ~ Florence Nightingale. I have to confess that it took me a while to learn to respect Florence Nightingale. I had read the story of the ‘Lady with the lamp’, so I knew something about her, growing up. In nursing school, they didn’t […]
“Honor thy error as a hidden intention” ~ Brian Eno. It is almost twenty years since the day we saw the twin towers collapse. It was one of those events that most people can honestly say, I remember where I was and what I was doing that day. Of course, for some the memories are […]
“Art, in itself, is an attempt to bring order out of chaos.” ~ Stephen Sondheim. My grandfather (whom I never met since he died some years before I was born) was a truck driver. He left school at the age of twelve, and his first job was to stand outside a grocery store (where there […]
“Stories teach us empathy. They reveal to us ourselves in the skins of others.” ~ Justin Simien. Last week, in the middle of a Zumba session, the music changed from a Latin focus to good old-fashioned rock and roll. Soon we were rocking around the clock and twisting the night away. I remembered that before […]
“Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.” ~ Khalil Gibran. I was not gifted with much athletic talent. I had heart, I had determination, I had team spirit, but I did not shine or excel in a way that made me a star in sports. My […]
“You’re only as young as the last time you changed your mind.” ~ Timothy Leary. My life changed drastically when I was less than eight years old. Not in a bad way, it wasn’t that I had to face tragic loss, or come to terms with a drastic reduction in circumstances. I recognize even as […]
“Nobody gets justice. People only get good luck or bad luck.” ~ Orson Welles. Mother-daughter relationships are tricky. I am not one of those who can say my mother was my best friend. Perhaps it’s a generational thing, but it never occurred to me to ‘tell my mother everything’. As a matter of fact, I […]
“You don’t choose your family. They are God’s gift to you, as you are to them.” ~ Desmond Tutu. I don’t know when I first realized that I was good at Math, or at least found the manipulation of numbers to be fun. I remember being given a book of math puzzles, I think they […]