“We all owe God a death.”
-Shakespeare
“The word ‘care’ finds its roots in the Gothic ‘Kara’ which means lament. The basic meaning of care is: to grieve, to experience sorrow, to cry out. I am very much struck by this background of the word care because we tend to look at caring as an attitude of the strong toward the weak, of the powerful toward the powerless, of the have’s toward the have not’s. And, in fact, we feel quite uncomfortable with an invitation to enter into someone’s pain before doing something about it…The friend who cares makes it clear that whatever happens in the external world, being present to each other is what really matters. In fact, it matters more than pain, illness, or even death…Therefore, to care means first of all to be present to each other.”
-Henri Nouwen
“Only under the threat and pressure of death does it make sense to do what we can and should, right now. That is, to make proper use of the moment’s offer of a meaning to fulfill—be it a deed to do, or work to create, anything to enjoy, or a period of inescapable suffering to go through with courage and dignity…Live as if you were living for the second time—and as if you had acted the first time as wrongly as you are about to act now. Once an individual really puts himself into this imagined situation, he will instantaneously become conscious of the full gravity of the responsibility that every person bears throughout every moment of his life—the responsibility for what he will make of the next hour, for how he will shape the next day…facing the transitoriness of human existence—how is it possible to say yes to life in spite of death.”
-Victor Frankl
“Life breaks all of us but some of us are stronger in the broken places.”
-Hemmingway
“If you can begin to see death as an invisible, but friendly, companion on your life’s journey gently reminding you not to wait until tomorrow to do what you mean to do- then you can learn to live your life rather than simply passing through it.”
-Erich Lindemann
“It is the denial of death that is partially responsible for people living empty, purposeless lives; for when you live as if you’ll live forever, it becomes too easy to postpone the things you know that you must do. You live your life in preparation for tomorrow or in remembrance of yesterday, and meanwhile, each today is lost.”
-Elizabeth Kubler Ross
“The secret life is to ‘die before you die’ – and find that there is no death.”
-Eckhart Tolle
“He must seek his life in a spirit of indifference to it; he must seek his life like water and yet drink death like wine.”
-Chesterton
“Throughout the whole of life one must continue to live, and what will amaze you even more, throughout life one must learn to die.”
-Seneca
“But I hope you will find a little consolation from the universality of this experience. Death comes to every individual. There is an amazing democracy about death. It is not aristocracy for some of the people, but a democracy for all of the people. Kings die and beggars die; rich men die and poor men die; old people die and young people die. This is affirmation that death is not the end. Death is not a period that ends the great sentence of life, but a coma that punctuates it to more lofty significance. Death is not a blind alley that leads the human race into a state of nothingness, but an open door which leads man into life eternal. Let this daring faith, this great invincible surmise be your sustaining power during these trying days.”
-Martin Luther King 1963 eulogy for four girls killed in Birmingham, AL
I wish you enough sun to keep your attitude bright.
I wish you enough rain to appreciate the sun more.
I wish you enough happiness to keep your spirit alive.
I wish you enough pain so that the smallest joys in life appear much bigger.
I wish you enough gain to satisfy your wanting.
I wish you enough loss to appreciate all that you possess.
I wish you enough hellos to get you through the final good-bye.
-Unknown
“Suffering is attachment to the impermanent.”
-Tao Te Ching
“That which does not kill us, only makes us stronger.”
~Unknown
“When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy. When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.”
-Kahlil Gibran
“I’m not afraid of death, I just don’t want to be there when it happens.”
-Woody Allen
“Do not stand at my grave and weep
I am not there, I do not sleep,
I am the thousand winds that blow
I am the diamond glints on snow
I am the sunlight on ripened grain,
I am the gentle autumn’s rain.
When you waken in the morning’s hush,
I am swift, uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry.
I am not there, I did not die.”
-Indian Proverb
“In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life; it goes on.”
-Robert Frost
“He who wants a rose must respect the thorn.”
-Persian proverb
A Totally Unscientific Theory
Friends are dying
These are friends I work with
And joke with
And cry with
They are social workers, child advocates
We should change
The name
How about social soldier?
These soldiers who did
Everything right.
They lived their personal
Lives eating right. Not smoking.
Paying attention to those around them.
Then out of nowhere
In their 40’s and 50’s
Struck down by cancer.
I can only conclude
Based on my totally
Unscientific theory
That the cause of death
Was not cancer
Social work, social soldier work.
Serene and gallant on the
Outside, slowly bleeding
To death on the inside.
Seeping into their cells
Daily on an I.V. drip
Of rape, assault, abuse and neglect
Mainlining the dope of
Suffering children, angry children
Lost children, fallen children
Huffing the fumes of anger
At the system, at parents
At themselves for the fault
Of not being able to
Save the children
Save the world
Seeking out the narcotized
Children under bridges
Befouled by their silent screams
These foot soldiers and captains
Marching into the night
To save the children
Devoured on the inside
Knowing their heroism
Goes unrewarded, even denied.
For each child saved
Thousands bought and sold
For each child brought back
From the edge, thousands
Battered and torn, yet
They continue to march
One foot in front of the other
One more family torn apart
By violence
In their names, in their
Memory, we continue
The struggle.
Snorting and shooting
The narcotic of children’s sorrow
We march on.
-Arnie Green, Shared at the 1998 Rose Otte Awards Luncheon
Personal Identity
There are men too gentle to live among wolves
Who prey upon them with IBM eyes
And sell their hearts and guts for martinis at noon.
There are men too gentle for a savage world
Who dream instead of snow and children and Halloween
And wonder if the leaves will change their color soon.
There are men too gentle to live among wolves
Who anoint them for burial with greedy claws
And murder them for a merchant’s profit and gain
There are men too gentle for a corporate world
Who dream instead of candied apples and ferris wheels
And pause to hear the distant whistle of a train.
There are men too gentle to live among wolves
Who devour them with eager appetite and search
For other men to prey upon and suck their childhood dry.
There are men too gentle for an accountant’s world
Who dream instead of Easter eggs and fragrant grass
And search for beauty in the mystery of the sky.
There are men too gentle to live among wolves
Who toss them like a lost and wounded dove.
Such gentle men are lonely in a merchant’s world,
Unless they have a gentle one to love.”
-From “There Are Men Too Gentle to Live Among Wolves”
“I know we often lose, and that the death or destruction of another is infinitely more real and unbearable than one’s own. I think I know how many times one has to start again, and how often one feels that one cannot start again. And yet, on pain of death, one can never remain where one is…It is a mighty heritage, it is the human heritage, and it is all there is to trust…This is why one must say Yes to life and embrace it wherever it is found—and it is found in terrible places; nevertheless, there it is; and if the father can say, ‘Yes Lord,’ the child can learn that most difficult of words, Amen.”
-James Baldwin, Nothing Personal
The Principles of Florence Nightingale
The first principle: the world is run by those who show up—be where the action is.
The second principle: you get more done by working with others than just yourself.
The third principle: count what counts.
The fourth principle: you don’t have to be seen to be heard.
The fifth principle: plan to get dirty.
The sixth principle: when there is darkness, light the way.
The last principle: “Answer humanity’s call.”
“The tragedy of life is not death, but what we let die inside us while we live.”
-Norman Cousins
“He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.”
-Nietzsche
E-mail: jay@BloomAnew.com
Cell: 503-381-2649
Bloom Anew 