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

“What I eat is divine
What I drink is divine
My bed is also divine
The divine is here, and it is there
There is nothing empty of divine
Jani says — Vithabai [Vishnu] has filled
everything from the inside out.”

Sant Janābāi, 14th century Hindu poet

“Everything has its season.
All is change and decay:
In each blossom
is contained the russet browns
foretelling the year’s end…

Take each day, each hour, each second,
the only certainty change
and within each dying minute
our reverent acceptance of
the harbingers of renewal.”

Richard Bober, Unitarian Meditation Fellowship, quoted in Fragments of Holiness for Daily Reflection

“When psalms surprise me with their music
And antiphons turn to rum
The Spirit sings: the bottom drops out of my soul
And from the center of my cellar Love, louder than thunder
Opens a heave of naked air…

The whole
World is secretly on fire. The stones
Burn, even the stones
They burn me. How can a man be still or
Listen to all things burning? How can he dare
To sit with them when
All their silence
Is on fire?

Be still
Listen to the stones of the wall
Be silent, they try
To speak your
Name.
Listen
To the living walls.
Who are you?
Who
Are you? Whose
Silence are you?”

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

“The Four Conditions of Happiness:
Life in the open air,
Love for another being,
Freedom from ambition,
Creation.”

Albert Camus, writer, philosopher, dramatist, journalist and political activist (1913 – 1960), born on this day