Points to Ponder:

To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable. [C.S. Lewis]

Points to Ponder:

At some point, I realized that my view of the world had changed.

...

While I realized that I had to be intentional about how I invested my limited emotional energy, the truth is, a lot of things that used to piss me off, just didn’t matter to me at the same level anymore.

It was as if my meter had been recalibrated, and things that used to be a 7 or 8 or 9 on the piss-me-off-o-meter, now were more like a solid 4. And there isn’t much reason to get upset about a 4. It wasn’t that I stopped caring, and I want to be clear about that point.

...

But my emotional response to day-to-day issues has changed. It diminished, and in some cases, ceases to exist. Moreover, I just don’t view most problems as being big enough to justify my getting upset.

And at some level, about some issues, it is a case of 'fuck it, I don’t care.' In those cases, I wonder why I ever got upset about those things in the first place. [Shawn Herbig]

Points to Ponder:

You will find something more in woods than in books. Trees and stones will teach you that which you can never learn from masters. [St. Bernard of Clarivaux]

Points to Ponder:

(Revisited)

One of the advantages of getting old is that what the Byzantine liturgy refers to as the 'dread tribunal of Christ' that you're going to stand before puts the fear of God into you, and so you move to pray more. That already has had an influence on my spiritual life. [Fr. Robert Taft SJ]

Points to Ponder:

Points to Ponder:

A righteous man cares for the needs of his animals. [Proverbs xii,10]

Points to Ponder:
(For Those Who Grieve)

"Alright, here goes. I’m old. What that means is that I’ve survived (so far) and a lot of people I’ve known and loved did not. I’ve lost friends, best friends, acquaintances, co-workers, grandparents, mom, relatives, teachers, mentors, students, neighbors, and a host of other folks. I have no children, and I can’t imagine the pain it must be to lose a child. But here’s my two cents.

I wish I could say you get used to people dying. I never did. I don’t want to. It tears a hole through me whenever somebody I love dies, no matter the circumstances. But I don’t want it to “not matter”. I don’t want it to be something that just passes.

My scars are a testament to the love and the relationship that I had for and with that person. And if the scar is deep, so was the love. So be it. Scars are a testament to life. Scars are a testament that I can love deeply and live deeply and be cut, or even gouged, and that I can heal and continue to live and continue to love. And the scar tissue is stronger than the original flesh ever was. Scars are a testament to life. Scars are only ugly to people who can’t see.

As for grief, you’ll find it comes in waves. When the ship is first wrecked, you’re drowning, with wreckage all around you. Everything floating around you reminds you of the beauty and the magnificence of the ship that was, and is no more. And all you can do is float. You find some piece of the wreckage and you hang on for a while. Maybe it’s some physical thing. Maybe it’s a happy memory or a photograph. Maybe it’s a person who is also floating. For a while, all you can do is float. Stay alive.

In the beginning, the waves are 100 feet tall and crash over you without mercy. They come 10 seconds apart and don’t even give you time to catch your breath. All you can do is hang on and float. After a while, maybe weeks, maybe months, you’ll find the waves are still 100 feet tall, but they come further apart. When they come, they still crash all over you and wipe you out. But in between, you can breathe, you can function. You never know what’s going to trigger the grief. It might be a song, a picture, a street intersection, the smell of a cup of coffee. It can be just about anything…and the wave comes crashing. But in between waves, there is life.

Somewhere down the line, and it’s different for everybody, you find that the waves are only 80 feet tall. Or 50 feet tall. And while they still come, they come further apart. You can see them coming. An anniversary, a birthday, or Christmas, or landing at O’Hare. You can see it coming, for the most part, and prepare yourself. And when it washes over you, you know that somehow you will, again, come out the other side. Soaking wet, sputtering, still hanging on to some tiny piece of the wreckage, but you’ll come out. Take it from an old guy. The waves never stop coming, and somehow you don’t really want them to. But you learn that you’ll survive them. And other waves will come. And you’ll survive them too. If you’re lucky, you’ll have lots of scars from lots of loves. And lots of shipwrecks." ["GSnow"]

Points to Ponder:

Always choose silence with liars, cheaters, cowards or spineless people. Don't ask them any kind of questions, you don't have to give them any kind of answers or explanations.

Ignore, avoid, stay away. [Jyoti Patel]

Points to Ponder:

Points to Ponder:

Censors are not virtuous but cowards, virtuous people can debate ideas that upset them and not demand opposing thoughts or words be expunged. [C.A.A. Savastano]

Points to Ponder:

It's better to be part of the process than to stand on the sideline and criticize, although I criticize, too. [Fr. Robert Taft SJ]

Points to Ponder:

[T]he discipline sanctioned by the Church must never be rejected or be branded as contrary to certain principles of natural law. It must never be called crippled, or imperfect or subject to civil authority." [Pope Gregory XVI: Encyclical Letter Mirari Vos §9 (circa August 15, 1832)] 

Points to Ponder:

When a wise person debates with a fool, the fool rages and laughs, and there is no peace and quiet.[Proverbs xxix,9] 

Points to Ponder:

(On Charity)

Always be ready and willing to excuse the faults of your neighbour, and never put an unfavourable interpretation upon his actions. The same action, says St. Francis de Sales, may be looked upon under many different aspects: a charitable person will ever suppose the best, an uncharitable person will just as certainly choose the worst. [RP Quadrupani: From Light and Peace (circa 1795)]

Points to Ponder:

He speaks in vain who tries to persuade me of the orthodoxy of those who, like himself, refuse obedience to his Holiness the Pope of the most holy Church of Rome: that is to the Apostolic See. [Pope Leo XIII: Excerpt from the Encyclical Letter Satis Cognitum §13 (circa June 29, 1896)]

Points to Ponder:

Convincing someone to change their mind is really the process of convincing them to change their tribe. If they abandon their beliefs, they run the risk of losing social ties. You can’t expect someone to change their mind if you take away their community too. You have to give them somewhere to go. Nobody wants their worldview torn apart if loneliness is the outcome.

The way to change people’s minds is to become friends with them, to integrate them into your tribe, to bring them into your circle. Now, they can change their beliefs without the risk of being abandoned socially. [James Clear]

Points to Ponder:

Sunrise lies beyond the setting sun. It cannot be reborn in the east unless it dies in the west. And once it dies, there's nothing to keep us here. Only darkness remains. Unbelievers rage against the dying light. But for the saints, our light must die below to then ascend to the zenith of meridian glory. Before we rise to light everlasting, our sun must set. [Steve Hays]

Points to Ponder:

Frantic orthodoxy is never rooted in faith but in doubt. It is when we are not sure that we are doubly sure. [Reinhold Niebuhr]

Points to Ponder:

Do you really believe what you are proclaiming? Do you live what you believe? Do you really preach what you live? The witness of life has become more than ever an essential condition for real effectiveness in preaching. [Pope St. Paul VI: From Evangelii Nuntiandi (circa 1975)]

Points to Ponder:

A nation which can prefer disgrace to danger is prepared for a master, and deserves one.[Alexander Hamilton]