Something happens when life changes suddenly. Life looks different than it used to. Values change; conversations change; perspectives shift. We use our time differently. People become much more precious to us than possessions. Ordinary moments become charged with significance and with the energy of eternity. Prayer weaves its way into this tapestry, creating moments of reflection and gratitude. Prayer becomes a spiritual velcro to which other things stick. What seems to be a loss on one level gets transformed into gain on another level. Prayer enables us to see every moment as a gift and as an occasion to be cherished.

(Steve Harper, Talking in the Dark, p. 84) 

We do not have to have health restored in order to have hope. We do not have to cling desperately to life in this world when we see life in relationship to the world to come. This life is not all that there is. More awaits us, and prayer makes it possible for us to catch a glimpse of eternal life. Prayer becomes a means of grace that enables us to loosen our had on time so we can put our hands on eternity.

(Steve Harper, Talking in the Dark, p. 85)

The world is rated R, and no one is checking IDs. Do not try to make it G by imagining the shadows away. Do not try to hide your children from the world forever, but do not try to pretend there is no danger. Train them. Give them sharp eyes and bellies full of laughter. Make them dangerous. Make them yeast, and when they’ve grown, they will pollute the shadows.

(~N.D. Wilson, Notes From The Tilt-A-Whirl: Wide-Eyed Wonder in God's Spoken World)

...suddenly we were the needy ones. We couldn’t care for our other boys. We couldn’t water the tomatoes or go make a pot of coffee. We didn’t have any meals for ourselves or our children at home... And how could I ask for help when I’m positive I’ve failed at being a giver?... Then He answers this request in the funniest way. He allows me a position where I’m able to do nothing. Then He surrounds me with the dearest friends and family, some of whom have the very least in time, physical stamina, sleep, emotional wherewithal and material possessions. He shows me how they stop and sit with me and my children in my not-enoughness... One friend laid next to me on the hospital bed for a while. I had no idea at the time how just having her sit right next to me helped my heart. I look back and remember our legs right there together, backs against the pillows. We were laughing. She has no idea. None of them know.

(~from inCourage website, Amber C. Haines, “Why It’s Okay to Not Be Enough”)

Do not ask your children 
to strive for extraordinary lives.
Such striving may seem admirable, 
but it is the way of foolishness.

Help them instead to find the wonder 
and the marvel of an ordinary life.
Show them the joy of tasting 
tomatoes, apples and pears.
Show them how to cry 
when pets and people die.
Show them the infinite pleasure 
in the touch of a hand.
And made the ordinary come alive for them.
The extraordinary will take care of itself.

(W. Martin)

Who, being loved, is poor?

(~Oscar Wilde)

And thus, without a wing,
Or service of a keel,
Our summer made her light escape
Into the beautiful.

(~Emily Dickinson)

Today you will walk out your door into a world teeming with people carrying wounds and worries you will never see. A great many of those people will be so kind of heart that they set aside their troubles long enough to nod or smile or say hello. A few will even help you in some way large or small.

But there will be some as well who won’t follow the rules of Please and Thank You and Have a Good Day. They will be grumpy and mean. They will do horrible things. They will make you mourn the state of things.

That’s why my advice to you is carry a Grace Cup of your own. Dip into it frequently and as needed. For others and for yourself. Because it is a hard business, this thing called living.

(~Billy Coffey)

Midnight cancer 
is a bottomless pit 
where voices echo 
around and around 
endlessly 
repeating the same 
prayer: 
oh 
God...

Sooner or later, midnight 
cancer changes to 
morning 
cancer, 
brighter, 
more hopeful. 
Somewhere in the sun 
rises warm and round. 
Birds are singing.

After a while, 
morning cancer melts 
into afternoon cancer 
where it hides among chores: 
cut the grass, 
clean the downspouts, 
drain the noodles.

Later, the house falls silent 
and even the dog is asleep. 
There might or might not be rain. 
Without a sound 
you are falling, 
arms wide and circling. 
It is midnight. 
You have cancer.

(~Mary Braddish O’Connor from her collection “Say Yes Quickly”)

To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all. 

(~Oscar Wilde)

Reading one book is like eating one potato chip. 

(~Diane Duane)

Some books should be tasted, some devoured, but only a few should be chewed and digested thoroughly. 

(~Cornelia Funke)

It was one of those humid days when the atmosphere gets confused. Sitting on the porch, you could feel it: the air wishing it was water. 

(~Jeffrey Eugenides)

Why did you do all this for me?' he asked. 'I don't deserve it. I've never done anything for you.' 'You have been my friend,' replied Charlotte. 'That in itself is a tremendous thing. 
(~E.B. White, Charlotte's Web)

There is no mistaking a real book when one meets it. It is like falling in love. 

(~Christopher Morley)

Guerrillas of Grace

How shall I pray?

Are tears prayers, Lord?

Are screams prayers,

or groans

or sighs

or curses?

Can trembling hands be lifted to you,

or clenched fists

or the cold sweat that trickles down my back

or the cramps that knot my stomach?

Will you accept my prayers, Lord,

my real prayers,

rooted in the muck and mud and rock of my life,

and not just the pretty, cut-flower, gracefully arranged

bouquet of words?

Will you accept me, Lord,

as I really am,

messed up mixture of glory and grime?

(~Ted Loder)

Bed in Summer

In winter I get up at night  
And dress by yellow candle-light.  
In summer, quite the other way,  
I have to go to bed by day.  

I have to go to bed and see  
The birds still hopping on the tree,  
Or hear the grown-up people’s feet  
Still going past me in the street.  

And does it not seem hard to you,  
When all the sky is clear and blue,  
And I should like so much to play,  
To have to go to bed by day?
(~Robert Louis Stevenson)

We need a letter that's like i & u together for when we're doing stuff like this, he said & I hugged him & said a lot of people want a letter like that.
(~Brian Andreas, Story People)

“Living in a bookshop is like living in a warehouse of explosives. Those shelves are ranked with the most furious combustibles in the world—the brains of men. I can spend a rainy afternoon reading, and my mind works itself up to such a passion and anxiety over mortal problems as almost unmans me. It is terribly nerve-racking. Surround a man with Carlyle, Emerson, Thoreau, Chesterton, Shaw, Nietzsche, and George Ade—would you wonder at his getting excited? What would happen to a cat if she had to live in a room tapestried with catnip? She would go crazy!”

   “Truly, I had never thought of that phase of bookselling,” said the young man. “How is it, though, that libraries are shrines of such austere calm? If books are as provocative as you suggest, one would expect every librarian to utter the shrill screams of a hierophant, to clash ecstatic castanets in his silent alcoves!”     

   “Ah, my boy, you forget the card index! Librarians invented that soothing device for the febrifuge of their souls, just as I fall back upon the rites of the kitchen. Librarians would all go mad, those capable of concentrated thought, if they did not have the cool and healing card index as medicament!"

(~Christopher Morley, The Haunted Bookshop)

I Love the Hour Just Before

 a party. Everybody

at home getting
ready. Pulling
on boots, fixing
their hair, planning
what to say if
she's there, picking
a pluckier lipstick,
rehearsing a joke
with a stickpin
in it, doing
the last minute
fumbling one does
before leaving for
the night like
tying up the dog or
turning on the yard
light. I like to think
of them driving,
finding their way
in the dark, taking
this left, that right,
while I light candles,
start the music softly
seething. Everything
waiting. Even
the wine barely
breathing.
(~Todd Boss)