World Children’s Day

“Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.”

From The Prophet by Khalil Gibran (1883 – 1931)

“Above all things, love silence. Out of your silence will arise something that will draw you into deeper silence. If you practice this, inexpressible light will dawn upon you.”

St. Isaac of Nineveh (c.613 – 700)

“It is not solely in the otherworld or in paradise that spirituality is to be implemented, but in the world in which we live. If our spirituality cannot supply us with resourceful encouragement, then it is very shallowly rooted in us. It is in the challenges to our spiritual peace that we find the strongest solutions. Like a parched tree that has to send out deeper roots to sources of water, we also have to send our spiritual roots deeper in search of help. To live our sacred text, to implement our holy philosophy, there is no better place than here and now.”

Caitlin Matthews

World Philosophy Day

“When philosophy is wielded with arrogance and stubbornly, it is the cause for ruin of many. Let philosophy scrape off your own faults, rather than be a way to rail against the faults of others.”

Seneca (Stoic philosopher, c.4 BC – 65 AD), Moral Letters 103.4b-5a

International Day for Tolerance

“In the practice of tolerance, one’s enemy is the best teacher.”

Dalai Lama

“I’ve been absolutely terrified every moment of my life – and I’ve never let it keep me from doing a single thing I wanted to do…

Whether you succeed or not is irrelevant, there is no such thing. Making your unknown known is the important thing.”

Georgia O’Keeffe (1887 – 1986), artist, born on this day

“Contemplation is essentially a listening in silence, an expectancy. And yet in a certain sense, we must truly begin to hear God when we have ceased to listen. What is the explanation of this paradox? Perhaps only that there is a higher kind of listening, which is not an attentiveness to some special wave length, a receptivity to a certain kind of message, but a general emptiness that waits to realize the fullness of the message of God within its own apparent void.”

Thomas Merton (1915 – 1968), Trappist monk, theologian, social activist and poet

“Sometimes the way to milk and honey is through the body.
Sometimes the way in is a song.
But there are three ways in the world: dangerous, wounding,
and beauty.
To enter stone, be water.
To rise through hard earth, be plant
desiring sunlight, believing in water.
To enter fire, be dry.
To enter life, be food.”

Linda Hogan, Chickasaw Nation Writer in Residence

First Day of Diwali Festival

“Diwali is a time to turn inward and light the lamps of knowledge and truth in our hearts and minds so that we can dispel the forces of darkness and ignorance within us and allow our innate brilliance and goodness to shine forth. Goddess Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth, is the principle deity associated with this festival. During Diwali we ask her for assistance in cultivating and accumulating spiritual wealth, such as compassion, forgiveness, and loving-kindness… And since all wealth, be it material or spiritual, should be shared with others who are less fortunate, Diwali is also a time to reflect on the various ways we can assist others and shine our light out into the world.”

Ami Bhalodkar

Armistice Day

“A true friend of mankind whose heart has but once quivered in compassion over the sufferings of the people, will understand and forgive all the impassable alluvial filth in which they are submerged, and will be able to discover the diamonds in the filth.”

Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821 – 1881), Russian writer and journalist, born on this day