that have inspired me along the way...

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there's a field.
I'll meet you there. – Rumi

This is the true joy in life: Being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one, being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances, complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live, it is my privilege to do for it what I can. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations. – George Bernard Shaw

Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go. – T.S. Eliot

 

Finnerty shook his head. ''He'd pull me back into the center, and I want to stay as close on the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can't see from the center.'' He nodded, ''Big, undreamed-of things -- the people on the edge see them first.'' – Player Piano, Kurt Vonnegut 

The future enters into us, in order to transform itself in us, long before it happens. – Rainer Maria Rilke

Faith is believing in spite of the evidence and then watching the evidence change. – Jim Wallis of Sojourners

When you become comfortable with uncertainty, infinite possibilities open up in your life. It means fear is no longer a dominant factor in what you do and no longer prevents you from taking action to initiate change. The Roman philosopher Tacitus rightly observed that “the desire for safety stands against every great and noble enterprise.” If uncertainty is unacceptable to you, it turns into fear. If it is perfectly acceptable, it turns into increased aliveness, alertness, and creativity. – Eckhart Tolle (from p274 of A New Earth)

We must bear patiently NOT being good. We are so afraid of not being liked by others that we live our own lives inside their opinion.  Can’t we accept that we are just human beings? – Chapter 101 of Thomas of Celano’s original Life of St. Francis of Assisi

Be the change you wish to see in the world. – Ghandi

Treat a man as he appears to be, and you make him worse. But treat a man as if he were what he potentially could be, and you make him what he should be. – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

For it is time. It is time for all of us who follow Christ to recognize him and to proclaim him. It is time to be prophetic about the Christ we know is present in the folks who are pushed aside, dismissed, left out, undermined, underfed, unhoused, or simply unseen and unheard. It is time for the people of God to stop marching along with the status quo in search of security, power, and control, but to stumble instead towards the margins where we will encounter a magic and a mystery that will plunge us trembling but rejoicing into the Realm of God. – Edwina Gately, Christ in the Margins

The important thing is this: to be able at any moment to sacrifice what we are for what we could become. – Charles DuBois

Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back. Concerning all acts of  initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth that ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now. – Goethe

Where there is great love, there are always miracles. --Willa Cather

I believe that we have no real access to who we really are except in God. Only when we rest in God can we find the safety, the spaciousness, and the scary freedom to be who we are, all that we are, more than we are, and less than we are. – attributed to Carl Jung

It's never WHAT we can't be with that's the problem...only THAT we can't be with it. Disconnection is the only problem we ever have. When we can finally make a compassionate space for all that IS -- in us, in others, in the world -- we at last are able to enter into the flow of Life in this world. It's this dance of joy, freedom, and ease that we're all seeking. – Vika Miller

When we let go of trying to get more of what we don’t really need, we free up an enormous amount of energy that has been tied up in the chase. We can refocus and reallocate that energy and attention toward appreciating what we already have, what’s already there, and making a difference with that. Not just noticing it, but making a difference with what we already have. When you make a difference with what you have, it expands. – Lynne Twist (from p88 of The Soul of Money)

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn’t serve the world. There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we’re liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others. – Marianne Williamson

Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not. – The Lorax by Dr. Seuss