Roll Away the Stone
Pearl S. Buck - Perkasie, Pennsylvania
I enjoy life because I am endlessly interested in people and their growth. My interest leads me to widen my knowledge of people, and this in turn compels me to believe in the common goodness of mankind. I believe that the normal human heart is born good. That is, it’s born sensitive and feeling, eager to be approved and to approve, hungry for simple happiness and the chance to live. It neither wishes to be killed, nor to kill. If through circumstances, it is overcome by evil, it never becomes entirely evil. There remain in it elements of good, however recessive, which continue to hold the possibility of restoration.
I believe in human beings, but my faith is without sentimentality. I know that in environments of uncertainty, fear, and hunger, the human being is dwarfed and shaped without his being aware of it, just as the plant struggling under a stone does not know its own condition. Only when the stone is removed can it spring up freely into the light. But the power to spring up is inherent, and only death puts an end to it. I feel no need for any other faith than my faith in human beings.
Like Confucius of old, I am absorbed in the wonder of earth, and the life upon it, and I cannot think of heaven and the angels. I have enough for this life. If there is no other life, than this one has been enough to make it worth being born, myself a human being. With so profound a faith in the human heart and its power to grow toward the light, I find here reason and cause enough for hope and confidence in the future of mankind. The common sense of people will surely prove to them someday that mutual support and cooperation are only sensible for the security and happiness of all. Such faith keeps me continually ready and purposeful with energy to do what one person can towards shaping the environment in which the human being can grow with freedom. This environment, I believe, is based upon the necessity for security and friendship.
I take heart in a promising fact that the world contains food supplies sufficient for the entire earth population. Our knowledge of medical science is already sufficient to improve the health of the whole human race. Our resources and education, if administered on a world scale, can lift the intelligence of the race. All that remains is to discover how to administer upon a world scale, the benefits which some of us already have. In other words, to return to my simile, the stone must be rolled away. This too can be done, as a sufficient number of human beings come to have faith in themselves and in each other. Not all will have such faith at the same moment, but there is a growing number who have the faith.
Half a century ago, no one had thought of world food, world health, world education. Many are thinking today of these things. In the midst of possible world war, of wholesale destruction, I find my only question this: are there enough people now who believe? Is there time enough left for the wise to act? It is a contest between ignorance and death, or wisdom and life. My faith in humanity stands firm.
This I believe.........
Moderator: Fist and Faith
The Ancient Tool of Understanding
Magie - NYC, New York
January 9, 2008
A friend gave me a toolkit this Christmas, an unopened hand-me-down with a yellowed label. But it was new to me and I’ve been dreaming of owning a house in the mountains, so owning a toolkit was a step towards that end. Mountains and trees.
An ancient Rousseau-like tree once grew inside a private courtyard next to my apartment building. Branches spanned entire buildings. Wind rushed through branches and made whooshing sounds, like surf, and I imagined an ocean somewhere in the distance. People sat beneath branches, in candlelight, and the clink of their dishes blended with sound of rustling leaves. Some trees live inside maintained gardens; others wither on sidewalks. Some live a life of Russian roulette. I wrote about the tree’s autumn blaze, the pigeons resting like old people in rockers.
Its branches were mammoth arms, an unconditional friend on unforgiving days. One year I had a terrible accident and spent months recovering from facial reconstruction; the tree changed right along with me. The courtyard was bordered with benches and manicured flowers.
The flowers reminded me of my mother. For years, my mother was severely depressed with bouts of rage and darkness. But it was the 1940′s and peoples’ needs were unattended to. Nothing was discussed. She was happy on holidays and decorated the house. There was always a tree at Christmas. But she was happiest in her garden, alone amid pansies and dahlia. Inside she was a madwoman. Outside she was an ecological genius and knew everything about leaves and roots and water systems. I tried to remember her with trees, to cherish that memory and release the others. And for that I needed the tools of love and understanding.
The week, following my mother’s death, I returned to New York, carried my bag and my mother’s ashes up four flights of stairs, put water on for tea, walked to the window, and looked out to complete emptiness. The tree had been chopped down. A sawed-off stump stood in its place. I yelled, why? to no one. It was the middle of the night and there was no one to ask.
In the morning the man who looked after the garden was checking something in a flower bed.
“Can you hear me?” I called down.
“Yes,” he said.
“Why was the tree chopped down?” I asked.
“Because six weeks out of every summer it drops things and no one can sit here,” he yelled.
I was too heartbroken to ask why they couldn’t sit somewhere else; the courtyard was the size of a building. A bird flew in a path toward where the tree once stood, then stopped short and landed on a hedge.
There’s a theory that plants communicate with one another, and may eventually communicate with humans. Plants may one day testify at a trial. That they respond to care and love is proven. Plants in my apartment witnessed the tree’s destruction. Only memories remained. The same remained of my mother. In one weekend they both vanished. Probably together. She felt safe with trees.
I chipped away at the memories of my mother’s madness. It took years of working with dozens of tools. Eventually, I realized that the ancient tools of love and understanding were the best ones I could ever use. Tools, however yellowed, meant to be opened.
It’s true, trees can be messy. They shed leaves. Strong winds tear away limbs. They’re noisy; branches creak at the end of a day. They’re unpredictable, changing color, growing, adapting. Weather and hardships determine their shape. Trees are constantly bending toward the light. We can learn a lot from trees.
Magie - NYC, New York
January 9, 2008
A friend gave me a toolkit this Christmas, an unopened hand-me-down with a yellowed label. But it was new to me and I’ve been dreaming of owning a house in the mountains, so owning a toolkit was a step towards that end. Mountains and trees.
An ancient Rousseau-like tree once grew inside a private courtyard next to my apartment building. Branches spanned entire buildings. Wind rushed through branches and made whooshing sounds, like surf, and I imagined an ocean somewhere in the distance. People sat beneath branches, in candlelight, and the clink of their dishes blended with sound of rustling leaves. Some trees live inside maintained gardens; others wither on sidewalks. Some live a life of Russian roulette. I wrote about the tree’s autumn blaze, the pigeons resting like old people in rockers.
Its branches were mammoth arms, an unconditional friend on unforgiving days. One year I had a terrible accident and spent months recovering from facial reconstruction; the tree changed right along with me. The courtyard was bordered with benches and manicured flowers.
The flowers reminded me of my mother. For years, my mother was severely depressed with bouts of rage and darkness. But it was the 1940′s and peoples’ needs were unattended to. Nothing was discussed. She was happy on holidays and decorated the house. There was always a tree at Christmas. But she was happiest in her garden, alone amid pansies and dahlia. Inside she was a madwoman. Outside she was an ecological genius and knew everything about leaves and roots and water systems. I tried to remember her with trees, to cherish that memory and release the others. And for that I needed the tools of love and understanding.
The week, following my mother’s death, I returned to New York, carried my bag and my mother’s ashes up four flights of stairs, put water on for tea, walked to the window, and looked out to complete emptiness. The tree had been chopped down. A sawed-off stump stood in its place. I yelled, why? to no one. It was the middle of the night and there was no one to ask.
In the morning the man who looked after the garden was checking something in a flower bed.
“Can you hear me?” I called down.
“Yes,” he said.
“Why was the tree chopped down?” I asked.
“Because six weeks out of every summer it drops things and no one can sit here,” he yelled.
I was too heartbroken to ask why they couldn’t sit somewhere else; the courtyard was the size of a building. A bird flew in a path toward where the tree once stood, then stopped short and landed on a hedge.
There’s a theory that plants communicate with one another, and may eventually communicate with humans. Plants may one day testify at a trial. That they respond to care and love is proven. Plants in my apartment witnessed the tree’s destruction. Only memories remained. The same remained of my mother. In one weekend they both vanished. Probably together. She felt safe with trees.
I chipped away at the memories of my mother’s madness. It took years of working with dozens of tools. Eventually, I realized that the ancient tools of love and understanding were the best ones I could ever use. Tools, however yellowed, meant to be opened.
It’s true, trees can be messy. They shed leaves. Strong winds tear away limbs. They’re noisy; branches creak at the end of a day. They’re unpredictable, changing color, growing, adapting. Weather and hardships determine their shape. Trees are constantly bending toward the light. We can learn a lot from trees.
-
Linna Heartbooger
- Are you not a sine qua non for a redemption?
- Posts: 3896
- Joined: Mon Oct 01, 2007 11:17 pm
- Been thanked: 1 time
Oh, lorin.Magie - NYC, New York, quoted by lorin wrote:The flowers reminded me of my mother. For years, my mother was severely depressed with bouts of rage and darkness. But it was the 1940′s and peoples’ needs were unattended to. Nothing was discussed... Inside she was a madwoman. Outside she was an ecological genius and knew everything about leaves and roots and water systems.
Wow. That bit really of writing hits you in the gut.Magie - NYC, New York wrote:The week, following my mother’s death, I returned to New York, carried my bag and my mother’s ashes up four flights of stairs, put water on for tea, walked to the window, and looked out to complete emptiness. The tree had been chopped down. A sawed-off stump stood in its place. I yelled, why? to no one...
This part really stood out to me.“Why was the tree chopped down?” I asked.
“Because six weeks out of every summer it drops things and no one can sit here,” he yelled.
"People without hope not only don't write novels, but what is more to the point, they don't read them.
They don't take long looks at anything, because they lack the courage.
The way to despair is to refuse to have any kind of experience, and the novel, of course, is a way to have experience."
-Flannery O'Connor
"In spite of much that militates against quietness there are people who still read books. They are the people who keep me going."
-Elisabeth Elliot, Preface, "A Chance to Die: The Life and Legacy of Amy Carmichael"
They don't take long looks at anything, because they lack the courage.
The way to despair is to refuse to have any kind of experience, and the novel, of course, is a way to have experience."
-Flannery O'Connor
"In spite of much that militates against quietness there are people who still read books. They are the people who keep me going."
-Elisabeth Elliot, Preface, "A Chance to Die: The Life and Legacy of Amy Carmichael"
Listening to the Hippos
Robin Dake - Eastanollee, Georgia
November 8, 2013
I had already paid my money, tucked my package under my arm, and was walking out the door when I heard her calling my name. There she was, perched on a small bookcase, among the sofas and lamps and bed frames in the outer room of a local thrift store—a small hippopotamus planter that, I swear, was calling my name.
Molded out of light brown clay, her wide feet were drawn up under her thick body, and her head was tilted coquettishly. She wore an impish grin and looked as if she were about to bat her eyelashes to get her way. The urge to take her home was so irresistible that I turned around and bought her immediately.
This was a time of reinvention in my life. After emerging from the fog of post-divorce pain and grief, I found myself intent on revealing the authentic woman inside and honoring her by making decisions on that authenticity. Those decisions were not only the big ones, like what do I want for my life and who do I want in it, but also the more mundane ones, like how do I decorate my house.
The impulse to clean and purge and redecorate after a divorce is so cliché and normal that there are probably several expensive university studies out there which have proven such a fact. However, when I began to make actual decisions about colors and couches and knick-knacks, I found that in order to remain true to my authentic self, I had to really be quiet and dig down and listen to what was speaking to me.
I believe in being still and listening for our authentic voice.
I believe deep down, way back, behind the noise and chaos of everyday life we do know who we are and what we need to be happy and whole. We know the voice that tells us we no longer want to live in dysfunction. We know the voice telling us we deserve to be genuinely happy, and we know that voice that says, “yes, that hippopotamus would look good on my porch.”
That voice often gets lost in a cacophony of other peoples’ suggestions, and recommendations and ideas and “you shoulds” and “so-and-so woulds.” And then after years of being muted and muffled, that voice within gets quiet and only whispers, and we find ourselves turning away from our most real selves and the values that make us who we are.
It takes practice to let the inner voice shout once more. It takes being willing to feel for that small flame of joy deep in your belly when you recognize your authentic voice and know it’s speaking your truth. It takes courage to stand up to the other voices that want to bend and mold you to their imagined image for you.
It takes being willing to listen for the hippo.
Robin Dake - Eastanollee, Georgia
November 8, 2013
I had already paid my money, tucked my package under my arm, and was walking out the door when I heard her calling my name. There she was, perched on a small bookcase, among the sofas and lamps and bed frames in the outer room of a local thrift store—a small hippopotamus planter that, I swear, was calling my name.
Molded out of light brown clay, her wide feet were drawn up under her thick body, and her head was tilted coquettishly. She wore an impish grin and looked as if she were about to bat her eyelashes to get her way. The urge to take her home was so irresistible that I turned around and bought her immediately.
This was a time of reinvention in my life. After emerging from the fog of post-divorce pain and grief, I found myself intent on revealing the authentic woman inside and honoring her by making decisions on that authenticity. Those decisions were not only the big ones, like what do I want for my life and who do I want in it, but also the more mundane ones, like how do I decorate my house.
The impulse to clean and purge and redecorate after a divorce is so cliché and normal that there are probably several expensive university studies out there which have proven such a fact. However, when I began to make actual decisions about colors and couches and knick-knacks, I found that in order to remain true to my authentic self, I had to really be quiet and dig down and listen to what was speaking to me.
I believe in being still and listening for our authentic voice.
I believe deep down, way back, behind the noise and chaos of everyday life we do know who we are and what we need to be happy and whole. We know the voice that tells us we no longer want to live in dysfunction. We know the voice telling us we deserve to be genuinely happy, and we know that voice that says, “yes, that hippopotamus would look good on my porch.”
That voice often gets lost in a cacophony of other peoples’ suggestions, and recommendations and ideas and “you shoulds” and “so-and-so woulds.” And then after years of being muted and muffled, that voice within gets quiet and only whispers, and we find ourselves turning away from our most real selves and the values that make us who we are.
It takes practice to let the inner voice shout once more. It takes being willing to feel for that small flame of joy deep in your belly when you recognize your authentic voice and know it’s speaking your truth. It takes courage to stand up to the other voices that want to bend and mold you to their imagined image for you.
It takes being willing to listen for the hippo.
Monster Juice
Lisa Tucker McElroy - Wallingford, Pennsylvania
April 19, 2013
I never really knew much until I became a mother. I have learned more from my kids than they have from me.
For instance:
1. There really are monsters under the bed. Maybe they’re not hairy monsters, or big monsters, or green monsters. But monsters exist for all of us, and the essence of kidness is admitting that there are monsters right there in the room and finding ways to get rid of them. Closing the closet door? Arranging the pillows just right? Laying a monster trap? I’ve found that red monster juice and peanut butter placed strategically near the door are guaranteed to snag even the most reticent monster. Oh, yes, and a Sesame Street CD featuring singing monsters will scare away nonsinging ones. Just. Like. That.
Would that my monsters could be lured away just so easily. But my kids have taught me that acknowledging the monsters, then coming up with a plan, is the first step toward banishing them for good.
2. Even the littlest thing is reason for wonder. You just have to get down low and look at it. A caterpillar in the driveway is a mystery to be solved. How did he get into the driveway? Where are his mommy and daddy? Why can’t we keep him inside the house? What kind of butterfly will he be? And how can we save him from that oh-so-terrible fate: being squished by Daddy’s car? A caterpillar transplanted from the driveway into a flower bed by determined little hands teaches me to protect, to prioritize, to place value on the simplest acts and the simplest creatures.
3. Warm milk is good. So are macaroni and cheese, Band-Aids on boo-boos, and twenty-leven trips down the same slide. If you like something, do it, eat it, stick to it. A lot. Why not? Why not nap when you feel like it and fit in other things around that, instead of the other way around? Hugs are good. Why hold them back? Unconditional love is good, if you’re lucky enough to have it. Depending totally on someone else is good, because it offers comfort to the dependent person, because it expresses value to the person depended on.
4. A goal is the reason for growth, not the result of it. Kids don’t create artificial objectives and try to reach them; everything they try to do derives from a real necessity to get the job done. My older daughter first rolled over long after the mommy go-to guides said she would, only because she had to get to a spotted octopus toy on the other side of the room. She’s reading now, driven by her suspicion for the past six years that I was editing stories as I read them to her—she had to find out for herself which good parts I left out. Me, on the other hand? I had goals for my kids for when they grew up: they’d be cabinet secretaries, ballet dancers, museum curators. I wanted to work toward those goals. My kids? They just want to work toward growing up.
What if I hadn’t become a mother? Well, I wouldn’t be downstairs before bedtime making monster juice, that’s for sure. But I’d still have artificial goals, I’d still be ignoring the monsters in the hopes that they’d go away on their own, and I’d still be backing out of the driveway without checking first for caterpillars.
As for right now? I have to stop writing. Hug time—someone’s got a boo-boo that really needs a Band-Aid and a kiss.
Lisa Tucker McElroy - Wallingford, Pennsylvania
April 19, 2013
I never really knew much until I became a mother. I have learned more from my kids than they have from me.
For instance:
1. There really are monsters under the bed. Maybe they’re not hairy monsters, or big monsters, or green monsters. But monsters exist for all of us, and the essence of kidness is admitting that there are monsters right there in the room and finding ways to get rid of them. Closing the closet door? Arranging the pillows just right? Laying a monster trap? I’ve found that red monster juice and peanut butter placed strategically near the door are guaranteed to snag even the most reticent monster. Oh, yes, and a Sesame Street CD featuring singing monsters will scare away nonsinging ones. Just. Like. That.
Would that my monsters could be lured away just so easily. But my kids have taught me that acknowledging the monsters, then coming up with a plan, is the first step toward banishing them for good.
2. Even the littlest thing is reason for wonder. You just have to get down low and look at it. A caterpillar in the driveway is a mystery to be solved. How did he get into the driveway? Where are his mommy and daddy? Why can’t we keep him inside the house? What kind of butterfly will he be? And how can we save him from that oh-so-terrible fate: being squished by Daddy’s car? A caterpillar transplanted from the driveway into a flower bed by determined little hands teaches me to protect, to prioritize, to place value on the simplest acts and the simplest creatures.
3. Warm milk is good. So are macaroni and cheese, Band-Aids on boo-boos, and twenty-leven trips down the same slide. If you like something, do it, eat it, stick to it. A lot. Why not? Why not nap when you feel like it and fit in other things around that, instead of the other way around? Hugs are good. Why hold them back? Unconditional love is good, if you’re lucky enough to have it. Depending totally on someone else is good, because it offers comfort to the dependent person, because it expresses value to the person depended on.
4. A goal is the reason for growth, not the result of it. Kids don’t create artificial objectives and try to reach them; everything they try to do derives from a real necessity to get the job done. My older daughter first rolled over long after the mommy go-to guides said she would, only because she had to get to a spotted octopus toy on the other side of the room. She’s reading now, driven by her suspicion for the past six years that I was editing stories as I read them to her—she had to find out for herself which good parts I left out. Me, on the other hand? I had goals for my kids for when they grew up: they’d be cabinet secretaries, ballet dancers, museum curators. I wanted to work toward those goals. My kids? They just want to work toward growing up.
What if I hadn’t become a mother? Well, I wouldn’t be downstairs before bedtime making monster juice, that’s for sure. But I’d still have artificial goals, I’d still be ignoring the monsters in the hopes that they’d go away on their own, and I’d still be backing out of the driveway without checking first for caterpillars.
As for right now? I have to stop writing. Hug time—someone’s got a boo-boo that really needs a Band-Aid and a kiss.
The Way of Silence
Dianne Aprile - Issaquah, Washington
January 17, 2014
I believe in silence. In its power and its persuasion.
I believe that the act of saying nothing often—no, usually—speaks louder than words ever could.
Monks know this. From Thich Nhat Hanh to Thomas Merton to the Dalai Lama, monks know and understand the deeply felt significance of the unspoken.
Poets know it, too. E. E. Cummings said: Silence is a looking bird. Not a singing bird. A looking bird. A bird observing, noticing, listening. Being. Here. Now.
But so do we ordinary women and men know the profound power of silence. Intuitively, we know it.
Consider the wordless communication between mother and newborn at her breast. Or the tacit tête-à-tête that exists in a hospital room where the dying lies in bed and the friend sits, silent, at her side.
I believe in the authority of silence.
What if governments, rather than reacting with statements and decrees, observed silence—briefly but routinely—at times of crisis? What if we, the citizens, stopped to quietly reflect on the day’s news, rather than jumping into the fray with rushed judgments and verbal crossfire?
Silence has its own eloquence.
Think of the times you dissolved a disagreement by not giving expression to the negative emotions it stirred in you.
I believe silence is a way of affirming life, even in a democracy—which, at its heart, is a public conversation. Let’s not forget: conversation implies alternating patterns of listening and talking—equal parts silence and speech.
Imagine an election campaign where no one spoke unless they had something to say. Where silence was imposed for, oh, a calming few minutes after a debate or a misspoken word—so we could meditate on what was said (and not said) before grumbling hordes of commentators burst forth to tell us what we heard.
Think of silence in music, the pause—that empty moment, a bridge between what came before and what is to come. A moment of awareness of the present, with a nod to the past and an ear turned to the future.
Silence, Mary Oliver says, gives poetry its rhythm and music. So too our lives need silence—patches of nothingness, ellipses of emptiness, to inform the drumbeat of our days. And of our duties.
Think of the heroes and movements that used silence to change the world. Silence, as in the refusal to act in bad faith, to follow immoral orders, to go along with wars and poverty and discrimination and the earth’s destruction.
I believe in silence, in its yearning for wholeness, its desire to close the breach, its urge to unite what’s come asunder.
Silence too often gets a bad rap. It’s not apathy or surrender. It’s not looking the other way.
Likewise, speaking is not necessarily speaking out. Sometimes words get in the way of reconciliation. They convey noise, not knowledge.
Imagine allowing conflict to settle, rather than engaging it—ratcheting up a level, and a level, and a level. Think of the Dalai Lama’s soundless smile, Gandhi’s quiet walk, Martin Luther King’s carefully placed pauses in his stirring orations. Think of anti-war protests where there were songs and speeches, and think of those conducted wholly in silence.
Imagine a nation that listened rather than blogged and posted. A nation that, in times of turmoil, gave itself permission to be still, to not speak, not act—until all that was unspoken was given time and space to make its case, to be taken into account.
Imagine that.
“Silence is never really silent,” the composer John Cage said.
This I believe.
Dianne Aprile - Issaquah, Washington
January 17, 2014
I believe in silence. In its power and its persuasion.
I believe that the act of saying nothing often—no, usually—speaks louder than words ever could.
Monks know this. From Thich Nhat Hanh to Thomas Merton to the Dalai Lama, monks know and understand the deeply felt significance of the unspoken.
Poets know it, too. E. E. Cummings said: Silence is a looking bird. Not a singing bird. A looking bird. A bird observing, noticing, listening. Being. Here. Now.
But so do we ordinary women and men know the profound power of silence. Intuitively, we know it.
Consider the wordless communication between mother and newborn at her breast. Or the tacit tête-à-tête that exists in a hospital room where the dying lies in bed and the friend sits, silent, at her side.
I believe in the authority of silence.
What if governments, rather than reacting with statements and decrees, observed silence—briefly but routinely—at times of crisis? What if we, the citizens, stopped to quietly reflect on the day’s news, rather than jumping into the fray with rushed judgments and verbal crossfire?
Silence has its own eloquence.
Think of the times you dissolved a disagreement by not giving expression to the negative emotions it stirred in you.
I believe silence is a way of affirming life, even in a democracy—which, at its heart, is a public conversation. Let’s not forget: conversation implies alternating patterns of listening and talking—equal parts silence and speech.
Imagine an election campaign where no one spoke unless they had something to say. Where silence was imposed for, oh, a calming few minutes after a debate or a misspoken word—so we could meditate on what was said (and not said) before grumbling hordes of commentators burst forth to tell us what we heard.
Think of silence in music, the pause—that empty moment, a bridge between what came before and what is to come. A moment of awareness of the present, with a nod to the past and an ear turned to the future.
Silence, Mary Oliver says, gives poetry its rhythm and music. So too our lives need silence—patches of nothingness, ellipses of emptiness, to inform the drumbeat of our days. And of our duties.
Think of the heroes and movements that used silence to change the world. Silence, as in the refusal to act in bad faith, to follow immoral orders, to go along with wars and poverty and discrimination and the earth’s destruction.
I believe in silence, in its yearning for wholeness, its desire to close the breach, its urge to unite what’s come asunder.
Silence too often gets a bad rap. It’s not apathy or surrender. It’s not looking the other way.
Likewise, speaking is not necessarily speaking out. Sometimes words get in the way of reconciliation. They convey noise, not knowledge.
Imagine allowing conflict to settle, rather than engaging it—ratcheting up a level, and a level, and a level. Think of the Dalai Lama’s soundless smile, Gandhi’s quiet walk, Martin Luther King’s carefully placed pauses in his stirring orations. Think of anti-war protests where there were songs and speeches, and think of those conducted wholly in silence.
Imagine a nation that listened rather than blogged and posted. A nation that, in times of turmoil, gave itself permission to be still, to not speak, not act—until all that was unspoken was given time and space to make its case, to be taken into account.
Imagine that.
“Silence is never really silent,” the composer John Cage said.
This I believe.
This I Believe
Michael - Miami Beach, Florida
This I believe…
I believe it is better to doubt than to know.
I believe if you were sorry you wouldn’t have done it.
I believe we are better than we think and worse than we know.
I believe art is useless and all-powerful.
I believe math is a religion, not a science.
I believe in chance.
I believe there are no stupid questions, just stupid answers.
I believe hard work is it’s own reward.
I believe computers are a fad.
I believe that how you look at something is as important as what you’re looking at.
I believe you can’t win an argument with a stupid person.
I believe Rome was built in a day, but they worked through lunch.
I believe whomever stops first at a four way stop, goes first.
I believe hope is for the hopeless.
I believe television killed America.
I believe the worst thing about life is also the best; you will never know.
I believe the best thing religion has given us is all the artwork.
I believe cuspidor, stevedore & uvula are great words for silly things.
I believe observation changes whatever is observed.
I believe there is no heaven or hell, this is enough.
I believe this country is over-medicated and under-educated.
I believe what will kill me is growing inside me right now.
I believe it because it is absurd.
I believe the difference between the brightest and the dimmest is vocabulary.
I believe in burning that bridge when I come to it.
I believe boredom is a necessary luxury.
I believe if men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament.
I believe technology will kill us, but thanks for the ride.
I believe a Planet of the Apes would run smoother than ours.
I believe “soul ” is an extension of ego.
I believe the moment we recognized the difference between us evolution ended.
I believe in nothing , so anything is possible.
I believe the difference between what we know and what we’ll never know makes what we know seem like even less.
I believe based on our track record,if the tables were turned, the whales would not try to save us.
I believe if you have an awful middle name you are destined to be a serial killer or president.
Finally, the only thing I really believe is you can’t fold anything in half 8 times.
(Go ahead try, I’ll wait)
Michael - Miami Beach, Florida
This I believe…
I believe it is better to doubt than to know.
I believe if you were sorry you wouldn’t have done it.
I believe we are better than we think and worse than we know.
I believe art is useless and all-powerful.
I believe math is a religion, not a science.
I believe in chance.
I believe there are no stupid questions, just stupid answers.
I believe hard work is it’s own reward.
I believe computers are a fad.
I believe that how you look at something is as important as what you’re looking at.
I believe you can’t win an argument with a stupid person.
I believe Rome was built in a day, but they worked through lunch.
I believe whomever stops first at a four way stop, goes first.
I believe hope is for the hopeless.
I believe television killed America.
I believe the worst thing about life is also the best; you will never know.
I believe the best thing religion has given us is all the artwork.
I believe cuspidor, stevedore & uvula are great words for silly things.
I believe observation changes whatever is observed.
I believe there is no heaven or hell, this is enough.
I believe this country is over-medicated and under-educated.
I believe what will kill me is growing inside me right now.
I believe it because it is absurd.
I believe the difference between the brightest and the dimmest is vocabulary.
I believe in burning that bridge when I come to it.
I believe boredom is a necessary luxury.
I believe if men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament.
I believe technology will kill us, but thanks for the ride.
I believe a Planet of the Apes would run smoother than ours.
I believe “soul ” is an extension of ego.
I believe the moment we recognized the difference between us evolution ended.
I believe in nothing , so anything is possible.
I believe the difference between what we know and what we’ll never know makes what we know seem like even less.
I believe based on our track record,if the tables were turned, the whales would not try to save us.
I believe if you have an awful middle name you are destined to be a serial killer or president.
Finally, the only thing I really believe is you can’t fold anything in half 8 times.
(Go ahead try, I’ll wait)
The Power of Mysteries
Alan Lightman - Boston, Massachusetts
January 2, 2006
I believe in the power of the unknown. I believe that a sense of the unknown propels us in all of our creative activities, from science to art.
When I was a child, after bedtime I would often get out of my bed in my pajamas, go to the window and stare at the stars. I had so many questions. How far away were those tiny points of light? Did space go on forever and ever, or was there some end to space, some giant edge? And if so, what lay beyond the edge?
Another of my childhood questions: Did time go on forever? I looked at pictures of my parents and grandparents and tried to imagine their parents, and so on, back through the generations, back and back through time. Looking out of my bedroom window into the vastness of space, time seemed to stretch forward and backward without end, engulfing me, engulfing my parents and great-grandparents, the entire history of earth. Does time go on forever? Or is there some beginning of time? And if so, what came before?
When I grew up, I became a professional astrophysicist. Although I never answered any of these questions, they continued to challenge me, to haunt me, to drive me in my scientific research, to cause me to live on tuna fish and no sleep for days at a time while I was obsessed with a science problem. These same questions, and questions like them, challenge and haunt the leading scientists of today.
Einstein once wrote that “the most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science.” What did Einstein mean by “the mysterious?” I don’t think he meant that science is full of unpredictable or unknowable or supernatural forces. I think that he meant a sense of awe, a sense that there are things larger than us, that we do not have all the answers at this moment. A sense that we can stand right at the boundary between known and unknown and gaze into that cavern and be exhilarated rather than frightened.
Scientists are happy, of course, when they find answers to questions. But scientists are also happy when they become stuck, when they discover interesting questions that they cannot answer. Because that is when their imaginations and creativity are set on fire. That is when the greatest progress occurs.
One of the Holy Grails in physics is to find the so-called “theory of everything,” the final theory that will encompass all the fundamental laws of nature. I, for one, hope that we never find that final theory. I hope that there are always things that we don’t know — about the physical world as well as about ourselves. I believe in the creative power of the unknown. I believe in the exhilaration of standing at the boundary between the known and the unknown. I believe in the unanswered questions of children.
Alan Lightman is an astrophysicist and novelist teaching at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is the author of Einstein’s Dreams and A Sense of the Mysterious: Science and the Human Spirit. Lightman and his wife, Jean, started the Harpswell Foundation to help disadvantaged students obtain education in Cambodia.
Alan Lightman - Boston, Massachusetts
January 2, 2006
I believe in the power of the unknown. I believe that a sense of the unknown propels us in all of our creative activities, from science to art.
When I was a child, after bedtime I would often get out of my bed in my pajamas, go to the window and stare at the stars. I had so many questions. How far away were those tiny points of light? Did space go on forever and ever, or was there some end to space, some giant edge? And if so, what lay beyond the edge?
Another of my childhood questions: Did time go on forever? I looked at pictures of my parents and grandparents and tried to imagine their parents, and so on, back through the generations, back and back through time. Looking out of my bedroom window into the vastness of space, time seemed to stretch forward and backward without end, engulfing me, engulfing my parents and great-grandparents, the entire history of earth. Does time go on forever? Or is there some beginning of time? And if so, what came before?
When I grew up, I became a professional astrophysicist. Although I never answered any of these questions, they continued to challenge me, to haunt me, to drive me in my scientific research, to cause me to live on tuna fish and no sleep for days at a time while I was obsessed with a science problem. These same questions, and questions like them, challenge and haunt the leading scientists of today.
Einstein once wrote that “the most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science.” What did Einstein mean by “the mysterious?” I don’t think he meant that science is full of unpredictable or unknowable or supernatural forces. I think that he meant a sense of awe, a sense that there are things larger than us, that we do not have all the answers at this moment. A sense that we can stand right at the boundary between known and unknown and gaze into that cavern and be exhilarated rather than frightened.
Scientists are happy, of course, when they find answers to questions. But scientists are also happy when they become stuck, when they discover interesting questions that they cannot answer. Because that is when their imaginations and creativity are set on fire. That is when the greatest progress occurs.
One of the Holy Grails in physics is to find the so-called “theory of everything,” the final theory that will encompass all the fundamental laws of nature. I, for one, hope that we never find that final theory. I hope that there are always things that we don’t know — about the physical world as well as about ourselves. I believe in the creative power of the unknown. I believe in the exhilaration of standing at the boundary between the known and the unknown. I believe in the unanswered questions of children.
Alan Lightman is an astrophysicist and novelist teaching at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is the author of Einstein’s Dreams and A Sense of the Mysterious: Science and the Human Spirit. Lightman and his wife, Jean, started the Harpswell Foundation to help disadvantaged students obtain education in Cambodia.
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aliantha
- blueberries on steroids
- Posts: 17865
- Joined: Tue Mar 05, 2002 7:50 pm
- Location: NOT opening up a restaurant in Santa Fe
"The creative power of the unknown." That's awesome. 
EZ Board Survivor
"Dreaming isn't good for you unless you do the things it tells you to." -- Three Dog Night (via the GI)
https://www.hearth-myth.com/
The Noise of the Village
Jim Hale - Juneau, Alaska
November 17, 2014
I believe in poetry—as the embodiment of the community that joins us as a culture; as a robust medium for making sense of the experiences we share; and as a fearless way of seeing the world that presumes nothing to be insignificant.
Years ago, I discovered a beautiful song of the Ojibwe natives of Minnesota. Recorded and transcribed by the ethnomusicologist Frances Densmore in 1910, the song’s lyrics read simply:
Whenever I pause,
The noise of the village.
I could imagine the circumstances of the song’s creation. Busy at some task, the songwriter pauses for a moment, and as his concentration relaxes from the work at hand, all the ordinary sounds around him come rushing back into his consciousness, sparkling with renewed clarity and significance. The songwriter then turns this epiphany into a song that, in the singing, becomes itself another one of the noises of the village.
The song came to represent for me the defining condition of poetry: inspired and informed by the words and noises and rhythms of the community around it, the song then returns to the community to become a part of the life and culture it celebrates.
In my teens, the noises of the village came from the radio, in songs like “Strawberry Fields,” “Like a Rolling Stone,” “Down by the River,” “Gimme Shelter,” and other rock songs that looked our real lives in the face and never flinched. Then, in my twenties, at sea on a Navy destroyer, I found myself reading A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Having deliberately avoided Shakespeare in high school, there in the mid-Atlantic I found myself hooked.
And Shakespeare led me to other poets, ancient and modern—poets whose voices I found no less compelling than those of Dylan and Neil Young.
The late Allan Bloom once complained that rock-and-roll ruins our sensibilities for poetry, but as Dylan once said of poetry, who hasn’t heard some rock song that sounds like it was written in your soul?
I think we need poetry. Whether we find it in rock-and-roll or rap or more traditional poetry, we need these rhythmic words that sound like us and remind us of who we are and where we belong and why we dance. Whether it’s the noise of our own parochial village or a village far off in space and time, poetry echoes sounds we recognize as familiar. Six hundred years ago, the Engligh poet Chaucer asked: “What is this world? What asketh men to have?” Questions we’ll be asking ourselves forever, trying to figure out what it takes to find happiness in a world like this.
And poetry keeps my eyes and ears open to a village I never want to take for granted—that place where we find, as Yeats wrote:
In all poor foolish things that live a day
Eternal beauty wandering on her way.
Jim Hale - Juneau, Alaska
November 17, 2014
I believe in poetry—as the embodiment of the community that joins us as a culture; as a robust medium for making sense of the experiences we share; and as a fearless way of seeing the world that presumes nothing to be insignificant.
Years ago, I discovered a beautiful song of the Ojibwe natives of Minnesota. Recorded and transcribed by the ethnomusicologist Frances Densmore in 1910, the song’s lyrics read simply:
Whenever I pause,
The noise of the village.
I could imagine the circumstances of the song’s creation. Busy at some task, the songwriter pauses for a moment, and as his concentration relaxes from the work at hand, all the ordinary sounds around him come rushing back into his consciousness, sparkling with renewed clarity and significance. The songwriter then turns this epiphany into a song that, in the singing, becomes itself another one of the noises of the village.
The song came to represent for me the defining condition of poetry: inspired and informed by the words and noises and rhythms of the community around it, the song then returns to the community to become a part of the life and culture it celebrates.
In my teens, the noises of the village came from the radio, in songs like “Strawberry Fields,” “Like a Rolling Stone,” “Down by the River,” “Gimme Shelter,” and other rock songs that looked our real lives in the face and never flinched. Then, in my twenties, at sea on a Navy destroyer, I found myself reading A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Having deliberately avoided Shakespeare in high school, there in the mid-Atlantic I found myself hooked.
And Shakespeare led me to other poets, ancient and modern—poets whose voices I found no less compelling than those of Dylan and Neil Young.
The late Allan Bloom once complained that rock-and-roll ruins our sensibilities for poetry, but as Dylan once said of poetry, who hasn’t heard some rock song that sounds like it was written in your soul?
I think we need poetry. Whether we find it in rock-and-roll or rap or more traditional poetry, we need these rhythmic words that sound like us and remind us of who we are and where we belong and why we dance. Whether it’s the noise of our own parochial village or a village far off in space and time, poetry echoes sounds we recognize as familiar. Six hundred years ago, the Engligh poet Chaucer asked: “What is this world? What asketh men to have?” Questions we’ll be asking ourselves forever, trying to figure out what it takes to find happiness in a world like this.
And poetry keeps my eyes and ears open to a village I never want to take for granted—that place where we find, as Yeats wrote:
In all poor foolish things that live a day
Eternal beauty wandering on her way.
The loudest truth I ever heard was the softest sound.
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aliantha
- blueberries on steroids
- Posts: 17865
- Joined: Tue Mar 05, 2002 7:50 pm
- Location: NOT opening up a restaurant in Santa Fe
That's very cool.
EZ Board Survivor
"Dreaming isn't good for you unless you do the things it tells you to." -- Three Dog Night (via the GI)
https://www.hearth-myth.com/