Sunday, November 3, 2024

Thought for the Day

Who would dream for us to be better if it were not
the artist? And who would show us the way if it
were not for the storyteller?
~ Jamaica Osorio
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Quoted in Introductory Remarks to "Shifting Landscapes Film Series" in October 6, 2024, Newsletter of Emergence Magazine

See Adam Loften's and Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee's Film "Aloha 'Aina" with Jamaica Osorio

Jamaica Heolimeleikalani Osorio, Ph.D., Native Hawaiian (Kanaka Maoli) Poet; Activist; Author, Remembering our Intimacies (University of Minnesota Press, 2021); Associate Professor of Indigenous and Native Hawaiian Politics, University of Hawai'i at Manoa

Jamaica Osorio Website

Sunday, October 27, 2024

Thought for the Day

Home is a notion that only nations of the homeless fully
appreciate and only the uprooted comprehend.
~ Wallace Stegner
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Quoted from Wallace Stegner, Angle of Repose (1971, Winner, 1972 Pulitzer Prize; Viking, 2014) (This excerpt also is found in Christian Wiman, Ed., Home: 100 Poems (Yale University Press, 2021), p. 55

Wallace Stegner (February 18, 1909 - April 13, 1933), American Novelist, Environmentalist, and Historian

Sunday, October 20, 2024

Thought for the Day

[O]ur eyes are not innocent. But we must hope to make them so.
We must refuse labels and prejudices, just try to see as a child sees.
~ Sister Wendy Beckett 
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Quoted from "Sr. Wendy on Art," Interview with Bill Moyers (YouTube), 2016

Sister Wendy Beckett (February 25, 1930 - December 26, 2018), Roman Catholic Nun, Art Historian, Art Critic on Television, Writer and Author

Obituary at The New York Times

Sunday, October 13, 2024

Thought for the Day

Eighty percent of everything that is true and beautiful can
be experienced on any ten-minute walk. [. . .] On any ten-
minute walk anywhere [. . .] love abounds and abides,
 flirts and weeps with us.
~ AnneLamott
_____________________________
 
Quoted from Anne Lamott, "Overture" in Somehow: Thoughts on Love (Riverhead Books, April 2024), pp. 1, 3

Anne Lamott, Author of Fiction and Nonfiction; Guggenheim Fellowship Recipient; Inductee, California Hall of Fame; Political Activist; Writing Instructor

Sunday, October 6, 2024

Thought for the Day

[. . .] we need to look inward into our own pain, our own
loss, our own suffering, and see where we can heal. And
by healing ourselves, then we can truly be who we are,
which I believe is a complete gift to the world. [. . .]
~ Kalyanee Mam
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Quoted from "Documenting Shifting Landscapes: A Conversation with Kalyanee Mam," Emergence Magazine, September 5, 2024; Online (Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee interviewed Mam at Emergence Magazine's exhibition "Shifting Landscapes." The conversation was recorded live. A transcript is available at the link.)
 
Kalyanee Mam, Cambodian-American Filmmaker

Sunday, September 29, 2024

Thought for the Day

[. . .] Prayer is a sweeping of forgetfulness, because it
is an honoring of remembrance. It is an affirmation,
and an affirmation is more powerful than negation.[. . .]
~ Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee
____________________________________

Quoted from "Memory, Praise, and Spirit: A Talk by Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee" (Keynote at Conference on Spiritual Ecology and Peace-Building, St. Ethelburga's Centre for Reconciliation and Peace, London), Emergence Magazine, August 29, 2024; Online (The talk is available at the link as both podcast and transcript.)

Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee, Sufi Teacher and Filmmaker; Founder and Executive Editor, Emergence Magazine

Sunday, September 22, 2024

Thought for the Day

The betrayal of a belief is not the same thing
as ceasing to believe.
~ James Baldwin
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Quoted from James Baldwin, Notes of a Native Son (Beacon Press,  2012)

James Baldwin (August 2, 1924 - December 1, 1987), American Writer, Novelist, Essayist, Playwright, Poet; Civil Rights Activist

Sunday, September 15, 2024

Thought for the Day

Getting old is the second-biggest surprise of my life,
but the first, by a mile, is our unceasing need for deep
attachment and intimate love.
~ Roger Angell
__________________________
 
Quoted from "This Old Man" in The New Yorker, February 9, 2014; Online 

Roger Angell (September 19, 1920 - May 20, 2022), American Sports Essayist Specializing in Baseball; Senior Fiction Editor, The New Yorker
 
Roger Angell Obituary at The New York Times

Guide to the Roger Angell Papers, National Baseball Hall of Fame

Sunday, September 8, 2024

Thought for the Day

We don't need anniversaries for things
we can never forget.
~ Diane Foley
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Quoted from Diane Foley, "Jim Foley's Legacy Helped Change Hostage Policy," Guest Essay/Opinion, The New York Times, August 18, 2024; online

Diane Foley, Mother of American Journalist James Foley; Founder, James Foley Foundation; Co-Author (with Colum McCann) of American Mother

James Foley (October 18, 1973 - August 19, 2014)

Sunday, September 1, 2024

Thought for the Day

Receptivity without confrontation leads to a bland neutrality
that serves nobody. Confrontation without receptivity leads
to an oppressive aggression which hurts everybody.
~ Henri J. M. Nouwen
 
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Quoted from Henri J.M. Nouwen, Reaching Out: The Three Movements of the Spiritual Life (Image Books, 1966), p. 99  (This quote also appears in David Brooks, How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen (Random House, 2023), p. 259.)

David Brooks, Writer, Author, Political and Cultural Commentator

Henri J.M. Nouwen, Catholic Priest, Spiritual Writer

Henri Nouwen Society