“Give me twenty-six soldiers of lead and I will conquer the world.”

Johannes Gutenberg, inventor of the moveable printing press, who printed the first printed bible on or around this day in 1455

“Ten years ago—feeling lost in my work, the world’s madness, the challenges of aging, and the wilds of my own mind—I spent a week in solitude and silence, hoping to be found.

I rented a small cabin with a wood-burning stove out in Wisconsin’s deep-frozen winter woods. For a week I did little more than hike, stare into the fire, read and write, nap, and make simple meals. It sounds lovely and in many ways it was. But the week was laced with deep loneliness.

Late in the week, on one of my hikes, I had the experience I tried to capture in this poem—a sense of “being found,” not by someone or something else, but by the mystery within me.

Wherever they come from, few words we can hear are better than “Welcome Home.” In a world where so many feel lost, few missions are more meaningful than extending that welcome to each other on every level of our lives.

“Welcome Home” by Parker J. Palmer

Alone in the alien, snow-blown woods,
moving hard to stay warm in zero weather,
I stop on a rise to catch my breath as the
setting sun—streaming through bare-boned
trees—falls upon my face, fierce and full of life.

Breathing easier now, in and out with the earth,
I suddenly feel accepted—feel myself stand
easy, strong, deep-rooted as the trees,
while time and all these troubles disappear.

And when (who knows how long?) I trudge
on down the trail and find my ancient burdens
returning, I stop once more to say No to them—
not here, not now, not ever again—reclaiming
the welcome home the woods have given me.”

Parker J Palmer

“I have seen many storms in my life. Most storms have caught me by surprise, so I had to learn very quickly to look further and understand that I am not capable of controlling the weather, to exercise the art of patience and to respect the fury of nature.”

Paulo Coelho

“May we find the world to be so beautiful, and life so richly and meaningfully shared, that we shall want this to be true, more often, for more people, everywhere.”

Unitarian Universalist minister Jacob Trapp (1899 – 1992)

“To know that we know what we know, and to know that we do not know what we do not know, that is true knowledge.”

Nicolaus Copernicus, born on this day in 1473

“At some point in life the world’s beauty becomes enough. You don’t need to photograph, paint, or even remember it. It is enough.”
Toni Morrison, born on this day in 1931

“We are vanishing from the earth, yet I cannot think we are useless or else Usen would not have created us. He created all tribes of men and certainly had a righteous purpose in creating each… There is one God looking down on us all. We are all the children of one God. The sun, the darkness, the winds are all listening to what we have to say.”

Apache leader Geronimo, who died on this day in 1909

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