Delete Me First: Feb 28, 2010

Sunday, February 28, 2010

February 28, 2010

Quotes of the week

First, Sir, permit me to observe that the use of force alone is but temporary. It may subdue for a moment; but it does not remove the necessity of subduing again; and a nation is not governed which is perpetually to be conquered.

Edmund Burke

Until a radical change takes place and we wipe out all nationalities, all ideologies, all religious divisions, and establish a global relationship - psychologically first, inwardly before organizing the outer - we shall go on with wars. - J. Krishnamurti

If we all understood that how and what we eat determines to a great extent the use we make of the world and what is to become of it, we would eat with a fuller consciousness of all that is at stake."

Michael Pollan in the Center for Ecoliteracy's Big Ideas: Linking Food, Culture, Health, and the Environment: "

Meditation of the week

There is no shortcut to life. To the end of our days, life is a lesson imperfectly learned.
--Harrison E. Salisbury
There are no perfect days. We have struggled hard against this truth. In our demanding ways, we haven't wanted life to be a process; we have wanted to reach a secure point of arrival. We have struggled against the dialogue and learning process of experience. We've looked for a "fix" and for perfection. Even now in recovery we long to "get it right." We continue to learn and to grow, but the lessons we learn are not the things we expected. We grieve the lateness of our learning, and then we go on to learn more.
As we grow in this program, we learn how to learn. We become more accepting of life as a process with no shortcut to the truth. We learn to engage in the process and accept that there usually is no right or wrong answer at the end of our search.
Today, may I accept the truth, which comes from the lessons of my experience -- and be tolerant of its incompleteness.