There is no sense of absence where there has been no sense of presence. What makes absence hurt, what makes it ache, is the memory of what used to be there but is no longer. Absence is the arm flung across the bed in the middle of the night, the empty space where a...
I go in pilgrimageAcross an old fenced boundaryTo wildness without ageWhere, in their long dominion,The trees have been left free.They call the soil here “Eden”; slants and steepsHard to stand straight uponEven without a burden.No more a perfect garden,There’s an...
You start to learn an instrument, then you join a music ensemble, then you make lifelong friends, then you make lifelong memories, then you take your instrument wherever you go and replicate the process. A musical instrument is a key that opens the door to so many...
Forgiveness is not a matter of exonerating people who have hurt you. They may not deserve exoneration. Forgiveness means cleansing your soul of the bitterness of ‘what might have been,’ ‘what should have been,’ and ‘what didn’t have to happen.’ Someone has defined...
Lord, thou knowest better than myself that I am growing older and will soon be old. Keep me from becoming too talkative, and especially from the unfortunate habit of thinking that I must say something on every subject and at every opportunity. Release me from the idea...
It is easy to love people in memory; the hard thing is to love them when they are there in front of you.
Without memory, there is no culture. Without memory there would be no civilization, no future.
Every year, Holy Saturday hits me hard with the memory that the silence of God isn’t the absence of God.
Let the rain come and wash awaythe ancient grudges, the bitter hatredsheld, and nurtured over generations.Let the rain wash away the memoryof the hurt, the neglect.Then let the sun come out andfill the sky with rainbows.Let the warmth of the sun heal uswherever we are...
Hope is never calibrated to the fervor of optimism or the distress of pessimism. Hope is fixed to a larger horizon and rooted in an expansive memory. Hope cannot be auctioned off to the highest bidder; cannot be put up for collateral; cannot be traded on the big board...