Quote / Unquote

“[W]hat lengths men will go in order to carry out, to their extreme limit, the rites of a collective self-worship which fills them with a sense of righteousness and complacent satisfaction in the midst of the most shocking injustices and crimes.”
-Love and Living, by Thomas Merton

"It all comes down to this:

Whose flesh are you touching and why? Whose flesh are you recoiling from and why? Whose flesh are you burning and why?"
- Daniel Berrigan

So crisp and clear with challenge.

(I am in love with this man, and I don't mind that he's over 90 years of age.)

'Happy Birthday Israel"

"We have come and we have stolen their country...We must do everything to insure they never do return."
- Israel's first Prime Minister David Ben Gurion

"apartheid nature of Israel state"
- UN Resolution 338/339

Not everyone in the Jewish community celebrates this day. Please visit NION for more information.

Quote Unquote

"Faith is the daring of the soul to go farther than it can see."
- William Newton Clarke

Quote Unquote

"The willingness to accept responsibility for one's own life is the source from which self-respect springs."
- Joan Didion

Unity, as taught by Islam

"It became clear to him that every [species], although apparently a multiplicity - if one considered all its separate organs, senses and movements - was really a unity if seen in terms of that spirit which emanated from [the heart] and spread from there to all other organs.

He concluded that the spirit indwelling [all] species is a unity but divided among many hearts.

Considered in this way, [all] species [is] a single entity and its many members were as the many organs in one individual: thus, not a multiplicity but a unity."
- Ibn Tufail, "The Journey of the Soul" (a short 62 page story that may be one of the most important I've yet to read. A strong recommendation for you to order, read and reflect upon.)

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Philosopher Ibn Tufail is better known in the West as Abubacer, teacher of Averros, teacher of Avicenna. For those of you interested in philosophy, you already know that these are among the Greats. This short story is worth your time as it is considered a part of the foundation on which stood many of the later philosophers.

Quote Unquote

"Treat people as if they were what they ought to be and you help them to become what they are capable of being."
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Quote Unquote

"I sometimes react to making a mistake as if I have betrayed myself. My fear of making a mistake seems to be based on the hidden assumption that I am potentially perfect and that if I can just be very careful I will not fall from heaven. But a 'mistake' is a declaration of the way I am, a jolt to the way I intend, a reminder I am not dealing with the facts. When I have listened to my mistakes I have grown." -Hugh Prather

Quote of this day

Nothing can ever happen twice.
In consequence, the sorry fact is
that we arrive here improvised
and leave without the chance to practice.
- Wislawa Szymborska, 'Nothing Twice' in view with a grain of sand.

Quote of this day

"Dude. Just because it's fashionable, it doesn't mean it's a good idea..."
- Maha, in Toronto talking to an H&M employee. (Wow - I've hit all kinds of arrogant now that I'm quoting myself on my own blog.)

Quote of this day

"There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle." - Albert Einstein

...and the days of my life as of late have been drops of golden miracles.

A part of these golden droplets is that I'll be in a few different locations (in North America; overseas is next month, Inshallah) over the coming weekends, so I'll be sending you random postcards from wherever life takes me.

Quote of this day

It's possible I am pushing through solid rock
in flintlike layers, as the ore lies, alone;
I am such a long way in I see no way through,
and no space; everything is close to my face,
and everything close to my face is stone.

I don't have much knowledge yet in grieft --
so this massive darkness makes me feel small.
You be the master: make yourself fierce, break in:
then your great transforming will happen to me,
and my great grief cry will happen to you.

- Rainer Maria Rilke

Quote of this day

"Nothing has a stronger influence psychologically on their environment, and especially on their children, than the unlived life of the parents."
- Carl Jung (I love this man!)

Quote of this day

"If one cannot prove that a thing is, he may try to prove that it is not. And if he succeeds in doing neither (as often occurs), he may still ask whether it is in his interest to accept one or the other of the alternatives hypothetically, from the theoretical or the practical point of view. …Hence the question no longer is as to whether perpetual peace is a real thing or not a real thing, or as to whether we may not be deceiving ourselves when we adopt the former alternative, but we must act on the supposition of its being real."
- Immanuel Kant (I think this quote, and my former entry on Belief vs. Proof tie well into Kant's Critique of Pure Reason - even though the above is from his The Science of Right, the full text of which can be found here. Kant has always rocked my world, even with his weird then-fashionable-hairdo.)

Quote of this day

My body's doing things down there that have nothing to do with me.
- Pregnant Aalya discussing her belly

Two quotes for this day

"And among His signs is that He created for you, of your kind, spouces, that you may find repose in them, and He has put between you love and mercy. Truly, in that are signs for people who reflect."
- Qur'an (30:21)

"The minute I heard my first love story,
I started looking for you,
not knowing how blind that was.

Lovers don't finally meet somewhere.
They're in each other all along."
- Rumi

Quote of this day

"There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest."
- Elie Wiesel

Neruda

is my favourite poet, and this is my favourite of his poems. It was read to me when I was 22 and I was as moved to sadness then as I have been every time I've read it since.

Fable of the Mermaid and the Drunks

All those men were there inside,
when she came in totally naked.
They had been drinking: they began to spit.
Newly come from the river, she knew nothing.
She was a mermaid who had lost her way.
The insults flowed down her gleaming flesh.
Obscenities drowned her golden breasts.
Not knowing tears, she did not weep tears.
Not knowing clothes, she did not have clothes.
They blackened her with burnt corks and cigarette stubs,
and rolled around laughing on the tavern floor.
She did not speak because she had no speech.
Her eyes were the colour of distant love,
her twin arms were made of white topaz.
Her lips moved, silent, in a coral light,
and suddenly she went out by that door.
Entering the river she was cleaned,
shining like a white stone in the rain,
and without looking back she swam again
swam towards emptiness, swam towards death.

Quote of this day

"It is good for a woman to keep her sense of humor intact and at the ready.
She must see, even if only in secret, that she is the funniest woman
in her world, which she should also see as being the most absurd world of all times."
- Maya Angelou

(Thank you K's dad.)

Quote of this day

"Observe the wonders as they occur around you. Don't claim them. Feel the artistry moving through and be silent."
- Rumi

Quote of this day

"If you don't stand for something, you will fall for anything."
- Malcolm X, may he be resting in peace.

Quote of this day

"The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed."
-C.G. Jung

Quote of this day

".....for a fraction of a second, we feel that our whole life is justified, our sins forgiven, and that love is still the strongest force, one that can transform us forever.

But at the same time we feel afraid. Surrendering completely to love, be it human or divine, means giving up everything, including our own well-being or our ability to make decisions. It means loving in the deepest sense of the word. The truth is that we don't want to be saved in the way God has chosen; we want to keep absolute control over our every step, to be fully conscious of our decisions, to be capable of choosing the object of our devotion.

It isn't like that with love - it arrives, moves in, and starts directing everything. Only very strong souls allow themselves to be swept along......."

- The Witch of Portobello, Paulo Coelho

Quote of this day

“If you start thinking about other people’s faults, you’re just a fool. The point is to get rid of your own.”
- Hamza Yusuf
Purification of the Heart, CD 3