Some Thoughts From Others

Here are some thoughts from other people that I have received recently. I'm too tired tonight to have my own thoughts. I wouldn't share these if I didn't also like them.

Real holiness doesn’t feel like holiness; it just feels like you’re dying. It feels like you’re losing it. And yet, you’re losing it from the center, from a place where all things are One, where you can joyously, graciously let go of it. You know God’s doing it when you can smile, when you can trust the letting go. Many of us were taught the no without the yes, the joy. We were trained just to put up with it, to take it on the chin. Saying no to the self does not necessarily please God. When God, by love and freedom, can create a joyous yes inside of you—so much so that you can absorb the no’s—then it’s God’s work
from Radical Grace: Daily Meditations, by Richard Rohr

I come from the East, most of you here are Westerners. If I look at you superficially, we are different, and if I put my emphasis on that level, we grow more distant. If I look on you as my own kind, as human beings like myself, with one nose, two eyes, and so forth, then automatically that distance is gone. We are the same human flesh. I want happiness; you also want happiness. From that mutual recognition, we can build respect and real trust of each other. From that can come cooperation and harmony.
-His Holiness the Dalai Lama

Forever is composed of nows.
-Emily Dickinson