A Monday meander: The elephant in the room

Misty days

Nationalism is the belief that no matter what one’s country does—whether racist, homophobic, sexist, xenophobic, or the like—it must be supported and accepted entirely. Patriotism is a bigger, more uplifting virtue. Patriotism is the belief in the best values of one’s country, and the pursuit of the best means to realize those values. If the nation strays, then it must be corrected. The patriot is the person who, spotting the need for change, says so clearly and loudly, without hate or rancor. The nationalist is the person who spurns such correction and would rather take refuge in bigotry than fight it. It is the nationalists who wrap themselves in a flag and loudly proclaim themselves as patriots.

~ Michael Eric Dyson, Tears We Cannot Stop: A Sermon to White America 

Blue

Sky blues.

Color is the keyboard, the eyes are the harmonies, the soul is the piano with many strings.  The artist is the hand that plays, touching one key or another, to cause vibrations in the soul.

…

The deeper the blue becomes, the more strongly it calls man towards the infinite, awakening in him a desire for the pure and finally, for the supernatural… The brighter it becomes, the more it loses its sound, until it turns into silent stillness and becomes white.

~ Wassily Kandinsky

Weathering the storms

Resting.  (Assateague Island, Maryland)

I trust the mystery. I trust what comes in silence and what comes in nature where there’s no diversion. I think the lack of stimulation allows us to hear and experience a deeper river that’s constant, still, vibrant, and real. And the process of deep listening with attention and intention catalyzes and mobilizes exactly what’s needed at that time.

~  Ángeles Arrien

A Monday meander: Love and voice

Tufted Titmouse at the feeder yesterday. He’s quite an athletic bird.

If you take care of birds, you take care of most of the environmental problems in the world.

~ Thomas Lovejoy, Biologist and Godfather of Biodiversity

Nature’s rewards

Light from the sun rising up behind the pond.

You wake up on a winter morning and pull up the shade, and what lay there the evening before is no longer there – the sodden gray yard, the dog droppings, the tire tracks in the frozen mud, the broken lawn chair you forgot to take in last fall. All this has disappeared overnight, and what you look out on is not the snow of Narnia but the snow of home, which is no less shimmering and white as it falls. The earth is covered with it, and it is falling still in silence so deep that you can hear its silence. It is snow to be shoveled, to make driving even worse than usual, snow to be joked about and cursed at, but unless the child in you is entirely dead, it is snow, too, that can make the heart beat faster when it catches you by surprise that way, before your defenses are up. It is snow that can awaken memories of things more wonderful than anything you ever knew or dreamed.

~ Frederick Buechner