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September 6, 2010: Here is the quote for contemplation this week: Gentleness is one of the faces of God. . . . Although gentleness may assume the appearance of meekness, it is definitely not spineless. Gentleness may seem to be soft and delicate, but make no mistake about it, true gentleness cannot be taken advantage of. Gentleness may be moderate, tender, light, easy, and sweet, but none of this implies any lack of strength. Not at all. There is nothing helpless about gentleness. In fact, as a French saint says: "Nothing is so strong as gentleness, nothing so gentle as real strength." Think about it. When you truly feel strong, don't you experience gentleness? You don't feel like showing off your strength. In fact, your gentleness shines forth. And when you are feeling very gentle, you don't feel weak, you feel strong, you feel all the gods and goddesses are by your side. Swami Chidvilasananda (Enthusiasm)
July 11-Labor Day, 2010: say little A great sage July 4, 2010: The United States of America is a shining example for the whole world. The greatness of the United States is unparalleled. It's a country that can achieve the impossible. In God We Trust. Their vision was focused on the highest, to see the light of God in all. Every country has a duty to live up to its highest ideal. Gurumayi Chidvilasananda June 28, 2010: What is the meaning of fighting against circumstances? It means that a person is continually revolting against an effect without, while all the time he is nourishing and preserving its cause in his heart. James Allen (As a Man Thinketh) One should have faith in one's destiny. I have unflinching faith that destiny provides one with all that one needs. Baba Muktananda (Satsang with Baba) June 21, 2010: Why should we ever go abroad, even across the way, to ask a neighbor's advice? There is a nearer neighbor within us incessantly telling us how we should behave. Henry David Thoreau (Letter to Harrison Blake, Dec. 19, 1854) June 14, 2010: As a dad, if you want to send a boy into the world with a sense of masculinity based on the importance of relationships, being a man built for others rather than a man living only for himself, then you really need to be there for him as a model and a teacher. Joe Ehrmann June 7, 2010: You need justice in all relationships. Cheating on your wife or your girlfriend, not treating other people fairly, taking advantage of a situation that might benefit you but also hurts someone else in the process, that's all relationally unjust. . . . Wherever there is injustice, we ought to show up, stand up, and speak up. Joe Ehrmann (former NFL lineman and now coach and teacher to young men--in Season of Life) May 31 , 2010: I am tired of frivolous society. I would fain walk on the deep waters, but my companions will only walk on shallows and puddles. One talks to me of his apples and pears, and I depart with my secret untold. Henry David Thoreau (Journal) May 24 , 2010: The truth is true whether you wanna believe it or not, it doesn't need you to make it true. That lie about everybody having their own truth inside of them has done a lot of damage and made people crazy. Bob Dylan (Biograph) :May 17 , 2010: There is probably no better definition of love: To be able to cradle the other's experience within our own compassionate understanding. Augustus Napier (The Fragile Bond) May 10 , 2010: One evening an old Cherokee told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people. He said, "My son, the battle is between two wolves inside us all. One is Bad. It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, false pride, superiority, selfishness, and egotism. The other is Good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, respect, and faith." Cherokee Legend (in Catherine Royce, Wherever I Am, I'm Fine) :May 3 , 2010: But listen to me: for one moment Jalaluddin Rumi April 19 , 2010: Patriarchy is driven by a powerful and self-perpetuating dynamic between control and fear. This dynamic is coupled to a system of male privilege that is paradoxically grounded in competitive solidarity among men. As in every social system, patriarchal paths of least resistance can make it seem natural, even invisible. These paths encourage men to perpetuate an oppressive system that privileges them at women's expense, and encourage women to accept the terms of their own oppression even to the extent of resisting change. Allan G. Johnson (The Gender Knot: Unraveling Our Patriarchal Legacy) :April 12 , 2010: To demonstrate that gender privilege and oppression exist, we don't have to show that men are villains, that women are good-hearted victims, that women don't participate in their own oppression, or that men never oppose it. If a society is oppressive, then people who grow up and live in it will tend to accept, identify with, and participate in it as "normal" and unremarkable life. Allan G. Johnson ( The Gender Knot: Unraveling Our Patriarchal Legacy) March 29 , 2010: Apart from her personal pain-body, every woman has her share in what could be described as the collective female pain-body. . . . This consists of accumulated pain suffered by woman partly through male subjugation of the female, through slavery, exploitation, rape, childbirth, child loss, and so on, over thousands of years. Eckhart Tolle March 22 , 2010: There's nothing better than good sex. But bad sex:? A peanut butter and jelly sandwich is better than bad sex. Billy Joel March 15 , 2010: And we are put on earth a little space William Blake :March 8 , 2010: I am woman. Anonymous March 1 , 2010: Our whole life is taxed for the least thing well done. How we eat, drink, sleep, and use our desultory hours, now in these indifferent days, with no eye to observe and no occasion to excite us, determines our authority and capacity for the time to come. Henry David Thoreau February 22 , 2010: Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart, Rainer Maria Rilke (German poet) I have no answer for anything, really. I have shelves and shelves of books in my apartment, but none of them has answers--only questions. In the word 'question' there is a beautiful word--quest. I love that word. We are all partners in a quest. The essential questions have no answers. You are my question and I am yours--and then there is dialogue. The moment we have answers, there is no dialogue. Questions unite people. Elie Wiesel (Holocaust survivor) February 15 , 2010: If women take care of themselves, things go much better. A female client, in a therapy session February 8 , 2010: Personal relations are the important thing, for ever and ever. E.M. Forster February 1 , 2010: The nakedness of woman is the work of God. William Blake Engage her first in conversation that puts her heart and mind at ease, and gladdens her. . . . Hurry not to arouse passion until her mood is ready . . . Rabbi Moses ben Nachman January 25 , 2010: The law cannot do it for us. We must do it for ourselves. Women in this country must become revolutionaries. We must refuse to accept the old, the traditional roles and stereotypes. We must replace the old, negative thoughts about our femininity with positive thoughts and positive action. Shirley Chisolm (1st African-American woman elected to Congress: 1968; candidate for President: 1972) :January 18 , 2010: Widening your heart, make the interests of others your own and serve them as much as you can by sympathy, kindness, giving, and so forth. Whenever you have the opportunity, give to the poor, feed the hungry, nurse the sick. Do this service as a religious duty, and you will come to know by direct perception that the person served, the one who serves, and the act of service are one and the same. Anandamayi Ma (Indian holy woman, 1896-1981) January 11 , 2010: The Vedic definition of a spiritual person is: softer than the flower where kindness is concerned; stronger than the thunder where principles are at stake. Paramahamsa Yogananda :January 4 , 2010: If we come in conflict with a disagreeable person, let us never grow discouraged and abandon them. Let us always have the sword of the spirit in our mouths in order to correct their faults. Don't allow the matter to pass over just for the sake of peace, but fight even when there is no hope of gaining victory. What does it matter if we're successful or not? We have to do our duty to the very end. St. Therese of Lisieux December 28, 2009: For marriage, which is always spoken of as a bond, becomes actually many bonds, many strands, of different texture and strength, making up a web that is taut and firm. The web is fashioned of love, yes, but many kinds of love: romantic love first, then a slow-growing devotion and, playing through these, a constantly rippling companionship. It is made of loyalties, and interdependencies, and shared experiences. It is woven of memories of meetings and conflicts, of triumphs and disappointments. It is a web of communication, a common language, and the acceptance of lack of language, too; a knowledge of likes and dislikes, of habits and reactions, both physical and mental. It is a web of instincts and intuitions, and known and unknown exchanges. The web of marriage is made by propinquity, in the day-to-day living side by side, looking outward and working outward in the same direction. It is woven in space and in time of the substance of life itself. Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Gift from the Sea December 21, 2009: Let thy fountain be blessed, and rejoice with the wife of thy youth. Proverbs 5:18-20 December 14 , 2009: If I could only learn to always turn to you Paul Overstreet ("Calm Within My Storm") December 7 , 2009: For years I've been taking for granted the most wonderful thing that's ever happened to me. You! I've never shown you the appreciation you deserve, Alice. Baby, you're the GREATEST! Ralph Kramden (Jackie Gleason) in The Honeymooners November 30 , 2009: When you offer pure forgiveness, it does not replace the need for repentance to arise in the heart of the other person. True forgiveness is not like giving candy to a crying baby so that he will stop crying. Just because you are able to forgive someone does not obviate their need to confront their misdeeds. They must do their own inner work. Forgiveness is not putting a warm blanket over someone and saying, "It's okay. Really, it's okay." No. Each person must go through the fire of repentance. A sage November 23 , 2009: They who aspire to love worthily subject themselves to an ordeal more rigid than any other. Henry David Thoreau Marriage is a relationship. When you make the sacrifice in marriage, you are sacrificing not to each other but to unity in a relationship. You're no longer this one alone; your identity is in a relationship. Marriage is not a simple love affair, it's an ordeal, and the ordeal is the sacrifice of ego to a relationship in which two have become one. Joseph Campbell November 16 , 2009: The six most important words are: "I admit that I was wrong. Advice to a married couple from a sage November 9 , 2009: Woman's sense of self and of worth is grounded in the ability to make and maintain relationship. Most women find a sense of value and effectiveness if they experience all of their life activities as arising from a context of relationships and as leading on into a greater sense of connection rather than a sense of separation. For women the primary experience of self is relational; that is, the self is organized and developed in the context of important relationships. The Stone Center (Wellesley College) November 2 , 2009: Apart from her personal pain-body, every woman has her share in what could be described as the collective female pain-body. . . . This consists of accumulated pain suffered by women partly through male subjugation of the female, through slavery, exploitation, rape, childbirth, child loss, and so on, over thousands of years. Eckhart Tolle (The Power of Now) October 26 , 2009: Each person must be concerned with themselves, with making themselves whole. We have lessons to learn, each one of us. They must be learned one at a time, in order. Brian Weiss (Many Lives, Many Masters) October 19 , 2009: I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is. I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat or a prostitute. Rebecca West October 12 , 2009: In a successful marriage there is no such thing as "one's way." There is only the way of both, only the bumpy, dusty, difficult, but always mutual path. Phyllis McGinley October 5 , 2009: The number of women who are now approaching the fully conscious state exceeds that of men, and will be growing ever faster in the years to come. Eckhart Tolle (The Power of Now) September 28 , 2009: Put the woman in charge, I say. . . . Place the single greatest issue in the brief span of human existence, the question whether to use or get rid of nuclear weapons, squarely in the laps of the world's women. I haven't any doubt at all what they will do with this issue, possessing as they do some extra genes for understanding and appreciating children. Lewis Thomas (American physician and writer) September 21 , 2009: The first great step is to like yourself enough to pick someone who likes you too. Jane O'Reilly September 14 , 2009: Ooooo Owwww Any man of mine better be proud of me Any man of mine'll say it fits just right And if I change my mind Any man of mine better walk the line Shania Twain................Any Man of Mine September 7 , 2009: Don't deny anything, and don't misrepresent the facts of your life. Denial is what the demons want. Jalaluddin Rumi September 1 , 2009: When we are unhurried and wise, we perceive that only great and worthy things have any permanent and absolute existence--that petty fears and petty pleasures are but the shadow of the reality. Henry David Thoreau (Walden) July 27-August 24 , 2009: Marriage is a relationship. When you make the sacrifice in marriage, you're sacrificing not to each other but to unity in a relationship. You're no longer this one alone, your identity is in a relationship. Marriage is not a simple love affair, it's an ordeal, and the ordeal is the sacrifice of ego to a relationship in which two have become one. Joseph Campbell All about this universe that is feminine worships what is masculine. And the sole purpose of all about this universe that is masculine is to serve the feminine through the adoration and animation of the beauty that lies in her heart. Ken Carey Let him obey, please, and honour his lady with all reverence, and hold her dearer than himself, and prefer her convenience and pleasures to his own. Baldesar Castiglione, The Book of the Courtier To become aware of the possibility of the search is to be onto something. Not to be onto something is to be in despair. Walker Percy If you would convince a man that he does wrong, do right. But do not care to convince him--Men will believe what they see. Let them see. Henry David Thoreau July 20 , 2009: God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Alcoholics Anonymous Serenity Prayer When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves. Viktor Frankl July 13 , 2009: An important function that man readily entrusts to a woman is the weighing of values--she is a privileged judge--to be ratified by her, to confer an absolute value upon his life, his enterprises, and himself. Simone DeBeauvoir, The Second Sex July 6 , 2009: The crux of the matter is, nothing great comes easily. You have to work for it; you have to put forth self-effort. It is as simple as that. You must make the effort. A sage June 29 , 2009: The great French Marshal Lyautey once asked his gardener to plant a tree. The gardener objected that the tree was slow growing and would not reach maturity for a hundred years. The Marshal replied, "In that case, there is no time to lose; plant it this afternoon!" John F. Kennedy June 22 , 2009: It's not whether you get knocked down, it's whether you get up. Vince Lombardi (famed football coach) Failure is impossible. Susan B. Anthony (famed suffragist) June 15 , 2009: Each person is good in God's sight. It is not necessary for eagles to be crows, or meadowlarks to be hawks. Sitting Bull (Lakota Sioux Chief) June 8 , 2009: Written by Regina Brett, 90 years old, of The Plain Dealer, Cleveland, Ohio: To celebrate growing older, I once wrote the 45 lessons life taught me. It is the most requested column I've ever written: 1. Life isn't fair, but it's still good. June 1 , 2009: First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they ignore you, then you win. Mohandas K. Gandhi May 25 , 2009: When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time they seem invincible, but in the end they always fall. Think of it--always. Mohandas K. Gandhi May 18 , 2009: I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times I've been trusted to take the game-winning shot, and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed. Michael Jordan May 11 , 2009: Only a man who knows what it is like to be defeated can reach down to the bottom of his soul and come up with the extra ounce of power it takes to win when the match is even. Muhammad Ali May 4 , 2009: The human soul is virtually indestructible, and its ability to rise from the ashes remains as long as the body draws breath. Alice Miller, For Your Own Good April 27 , 2009: It is the law of nature that a person should work. You must do your duty. By not working, you cannot live. Even the bodily functions need work to sustain them. Mahabharata April 20 , 2009: It is obvious that the love of husband and wife is pleasant, but it must be bound up with good too; which is the reason why a reciprocal love does survive the enjoyment of its delights, and, not only persists, but grows continually, through its participation in the good. Moreover, the good and pleasurable elements in married love are supplemented by that of advantage; for each of the spouses is ever deriving benefit from the other, which greatly contributes to the fostering of their love. Thus, married love, being pleasureable essentially, is preserved by its connections with both advantage and good. Leone Ebreo (son of 15th-century biblical commentator Isaac Abrabanel) April 13 , 2009: Let him obey, please, and honour his lady with all reverence, and hold her dearer than himself, and prefer her convenience and pleasures to his own. Baldesar Castiglione, The Book of the Courtier April 6 , 2009: Then they retired to the nuptial chamber. The moon was showering cool rays. The nuptial bed was made of fragrant flowers. They ascended this bed and consummated their wedding. . . . Her hair encircled him. With her hands she held his face. Their mouths were joined to each other in a fervent kiss. They were obviously very excited with passionate love for each other. With every movement of their limbs they expressed their extreme love for each other. On their faces danced the delight of their hearts. The chest of one was beating against the chest of the other. They were utterly oblivious of their surroundings. Description of marital sex in a 7th century Hindu spiritual text, the Yoga Vasishtha March 30 , 2009: One day a man approached Ikkyu and asked, "Master, will you please write for me some maxims of the highest wisdom?" Ikkyu took his brush and wrote, "Attention." "Is that all?" asked the man. Ikkyu then wrote, "Attention. Attention." "Well," said the man, "I really don't see much depth in what you have written." Then Ikkyu wrote the same word three times: "Attention. Attention. Attention." Half-angered, the man demanded, "What does that word 'Attention' mean anyway?" Ikkyu gently responded, "Attention means attention." Zen story from Japan The principal form that the work of love takes is attention. When we love another, we give him or her our attention, we attend to that person's growth. M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled March 23 , 2009: May the roof overhead be well thatched, and those inside be well matched. Irish Blessing March 16 , 2009: The spirit of marriage is the spirit of help. On one level, marriage is nothing but help--the wanting, requesting, offering, providing, and receiving of help. If we are not willing to help our partners in marriage, then we are not really married, despite what the minister, priest, or rabbi said. Alfred Barrington March 9 , 2009: We must travel in the direction of our fear. John Berryman March 2 , 2009: The whole education of women ought to be relative to men. To please men, to be useful to them, to make themselves loved and honored by them, to educate them when young, to care for them when grown, to counsel them, to make life sweet and agreeable to them, these are the duties of women at all times, and what should be taught them from their infancy. Jean-Jacques Rosseau, L'Emile February 22 , 2009: The kernel of true manhood is the ability to abandon sensual indulgences. Jalaluddin Rumi Greatness of soul is not so much mounting high and pressing forward, as knowing how to put oneself in order and circumscribe oneself. Michel de Montaigne February 15 , 2009: My wife told me she wants me to listen to her more. At least, I think that's what she told me. Anonymous February 8 , 2009: I'm going to measure my masculinity--and it's really about my humanity--based on how successful I am as a husband. If I blow it there, or if I blow it as a dad, nothing else really matters. Joe Ehrmann (former NFL lineman and now coach and teacher to young men), in Season of Life February 1 , 2009: To realize that Patriarchy was set in place, stone by stone, is to realize that it can be taken apart too, stone by stone. It's also to realize, of course, that thinking it will ever take itself apart is sheer folly. Carol Lee Flinders, At the Root of This Longing: Reconciling a Spiritual Hunger with a Feminist Thirst January 26, 2009: Ignorance does not yield to attack, but it dissipates in the light, and nothing dissolves ignorance and dishonesty faster than the simple act of revealing the truth. The only way to enhance one's power in the world is by increasing one's integrity, understanding, and capacity for compassion. The displacement of the false by the true is the essence of the healing of all things visible and invisible. David R. Hawkins, Power vs. Force January 19, 2009: Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God, and everyone that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God, for God is love. First John, Chapter 4, Verse 7 January 12, 2009: People are often unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered; forgive them anyway. If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives; be kind anyway. If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you; be honest and frank anyway. What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight; build anyway. The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow; do good anyway. Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough; give the world the best you've got anyway. You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and God; it was never between you and them anyway. Mother Teresa January 5, 2009 : Who is more wicked than the man who in his ignorance invents a lie about God to mislead humankind? The Koran January 1, 2009: Renounce old habits so the new path can be illumined. Be prepared to let go of old sorrows and welcome a new beginning with an open heart--no concepts and no limitations. Gurumayi Chidvilasananda, Resonate with Stillness December 22 , 2008: A Christmas Message from a Married Couple There is great motivating power in telling the good in others. In an atmosphere of praise, compliments, and love expressed openly, our world blossoms. When we are the recipients of such goodwill, we suddenly like ourselves better than before, and we see our Godly possibilities mirrored in the eyes of others. Alan and Peggy Rosenvall December 15 , 2008: I'm just average, common too, Bob Dylan, I Shall Be Free #10 I'm nobody. Emily Dickinson December 1 , 2008: Go placidly amid the noise & haste, & remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible without surrender be on good terms with all persons. Speak your truth quietly & clearly; and listen to others, even the dull and ignorant; they too have their story. Avoid loud & aggressive persons, they are vexations to the spirit. If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter; for always there will be greater & lesser persons than yourself. Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time. Exercise caution in your business affairs; for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals; and everywhere life is full of heroism. Be yourself. Especially, do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity & disenchantment, it is perennial as the grass. Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth. Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue & loneliness. Beyond a wholsome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees & the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive God to be, and whatever your labors & aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul. With all its sham, drudgery & broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be careful. Strive to be happy.Found in Old Saint Paul's Church, Baltimore; Dated, 1692 November 24 , 2008: Follow the three R's: Respect for Self; Respect for Others; Responsibility for all your Actions. Dalai Lama (attributed) November 17 , 2008: Whoever acts with respect will get respect. Jalaluddin Rumi November 10 , 2008: And I wouldn't be standing here without the unyielding support of my best friend for the last sixteen years, the rock of our family, the love of my life, the nation's next first lady, Michelle Obama. Barack Obama (Victory Speech, Grant Park, Chicago, November 4, 2008) November 3 , 2008: Come, let's be a comfortable couple, and take care of each other! How glad we shall be, that we have someone we are fond of always, to talk to and sit with. Let's be a comfortable couple! Charles Dickens October 27 , 2008: Know this, my boy, that it is neither fasting nor vigil nor bodily effort nor any other laudable action that pleases God so that He appears to us, but only a soul and heart that is humble, simple, and good. Symeon the Pious in a letter to Symeon the New Theologian October 20 , 2008: It is easy to forget how profound the parent-child relationship is. Children are completely dependent on their parents' goodwill and nurturing. Parents are the people who make it possible, literally, to stay alive. They provide the home, they provide the food. Parents are also a primary source of a child's sense of self-worth. When the people who are supposed to love them the most hurt them the most, children often conclude that there must be something dreadfully wrong with them--"I must be bad, sick, or crazy." Alice Miller October 13 , 2008: Be not angry that you cannot make others as you wish them to be, since you cannot make yourself as you wish to be. Thomas a Kempis October 6 , 2008: Two persons love in one another the future good which they aid one another to unfold. Margaret Fuller (Transcendentalist philosopher, feminist), Woman in the Nineteenth Century September 29 , 2008: I don't know why you're here, but the reason I'm here is to help people feel good about themselves, and the closer they are to me, the greater my responsibility to help them. Herschel O'Rourke September 22 , 2008: A young man went up to the mountains, found a cave, and wandered in. He found a pearl of great price in the cave, but it was in the claws of a dragon so overwhelming that he knew there was no chance of getting the pearl. He went away sadly, reconciling himself to an ordinary life, which was uninspiring once he had seen the pearl. He married, had his family, worked, and then, in old age, when his children were gone and he had retired, he said, "Before I die, I will go back and look again at the pearl." He found his way back, looked inside the cave, and there was the pearl, as lovely as ever, but the dragon had shrunk to almost nothing. He picked up the pearl and carried it away. He had been fighting the dragon all of his life in the very practicalities of his daily existence as a husband, father, and provider." Robert Johnson, She September 15 , 2008: Words do not matter. What matters is Dharma--what matters is action rightly performed. Buddha September 8 , 2008: Underneath the paranoia and propaganda that drive the patriarchal power structure is the fear that someone else will have a bigger, more effective penis than one's own. This is the tyranny to which men have been conditioned: They have to compete with each other in a tournament that has only one measure of success. Marion Woodman and Eleanor Dickson, Dancing in the Flames: The Dark Goddess in the Transformation of Consciousness September 1 , 2008: Anything you can do to get your spouse to feel better about herself. Any way you can help change a negative image your wife may have gotten about herself. Just be compassionate. Just take the time to be with her. She doesn't need any special techniques. She will start to tell you what's bothering her as soon as she knows you care and are really listening. So you're there and you're compassionate and your wife starts to tell you what the problem is. She doesn't understand something. She feels bad about something. Sometimes all you need to do is let her tell you that. She just needed to tell somebody. Ron Kurtz July 14-August 24, 2008: Being a husband is a full-time job. That is why so many husbands fail. They cannot give their entire attention to it. Arnold Bennett Making the decision to have a child--it's momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body. Elizabeth Stone First say to yourself what you would be--and then do what you have to do. Epictetus The person you thought you knew the best in the world is changing radically. Her feelings, her interests, her behavior, and her reponses to you are all changing. You find yourself thinking, "She's not the person I thought she was." And in a way you're right. She's discovering a part of herself that she left far behind. It's been buried for years. Yet it's as much a part of her as all the rest. If you're in shock over these revelations and changes, you need validation. The fact is, your world has changed. You're not crazy. The bottom has dropped out of your world. You didn't choose it, but your life and your relationship have changed. Things aren't ever going to be the way they were before. Laura Davis, Allies in Healing. To plunge the world into the great joy of coupling, God became both man and woman, and graciously performed the act of marrying. Who can comprehend the acts of a Lord who does all this for us? Parancati Muivar, The Secret Marriage of Shiva and Parvati As a dad, if you want to send a boy into the world with a sense of masculinity based on the importance of relationships, being a man built for others rather than a man living only for himself, then you really need to be there for him as a model and a teacher. Joe Ehrmann, former pro football star turned teacher, Season of Life The kernel of true manhood is the ability to abandon sensual indulgences. Jalaluddin Rumi July 7, 2008: I shall venture the assertion that, until women assume the place in society which good sense and good feeling alike assign to them, human improvement must advance but feebly. Men will ever rise and fall to the level of the other sex. Frances (Fanny) Wright--Scottish born utopian thinker, abolitionist--1824 June 30, 2008: A life of the spirit brings not peace but a sword, as Jesus put it, a sword that is going to cut away every vestige of the nonsense that disturbs our wholeness, development, and power. Joseph Chilton Pearce, The Bond of Power June 23 , 2008: The sum which two married people owe to one another defies calculation. It is an infinite debt, which can only be discharged through all eternity. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe June 16 , 2008: I would never see anything but Pleasure in your eyes, Love on your lips, and Happiness in your steps. John Keats, in a letter to his beloved Fanny Brawne, July 8, 1819 June 9 , 2008: The secret to living peacefully is the performance of dharmic [righteous] action: doing what is right in every situation and offering it to God. When you give yourself fully to righteous action, a peace arises inside that allows you to go beyond the mind. Actions and thoughts that are not dharmic create an unsettled feeling in us, and as a result, our own mind won't let us go to that pure state. But when we begin to do whatever is necessary in our lives and to give ourselves fully with love to every action, then we experience peace inside. We feel that we've done our part. As a result, our whole inner being allows us to enter the state of stillness. This willingness to give ourselves to our world, to live with dharma, opens us to grace. Swami Ishwarananda June 2 , 2008: In your worldly life, people may be impressed by your family or by other external factors, but as far as God is concerned, God pays absolutely no attention to your body, to its beauty, or to your facial features. God doesn't pay attention to your sense organs. God only values the feelings in your heart. God only sees your heart and the love in it. Baba Muktananda May 26 , 2008: The best of all forces, which can overcome all difficulties on the way, is the love that knows how to give without need to bargain for a return. There is nothing that love cannot achieve, and there is nothing that love cannot sacrifice. All other essential qualities will come to the aspirant if s/he follows faithfully the whisperings of the unerring voice of love that speaks from the heart, shedding light on the path. Meher Baba May 19 , 2008: Where woman is held in honor, there the gods are well pleased. Where she receives no honor, all holy acts are void and fruitless. Manu May 12 , 2008: The capacity to admire and praise others is the hallmark of mature psychology. A strong sense of self is full enough that it can overflow and touch others with its radiance. Robert Moore and Douglas Gillette, The King Within May 5 , 2008: You can wake a man only if he is really asleep. No effort that you may make will produce any effect upon him if he is merely pretending to sleep. Mahatma Gandhi Those of you whose work it is to raise the dead, get up. This is a work day. Jalaluddin Rumi April 28 , 2008: [On his 80th birthday, John Quincy Adams responded to a query concerning his well-being:] John Quincy Adams is well. But the house in which he lives at present is becoming delapidated. It is tottering upon its foundation. Time and the seasons have nearly destroyed it. Its roof is pretty well worn out. Its walls are much shattered, and it trembles with every wind. I think John Qunicy Adams will have to move out soon, but he himself is quite well. Quite well. John Quincy Adams April 21 , 2008: There's so much energy in the penis and it's so strong that unless it's tempered and tamed and restrained by love it can go berserk. That's what rape and violence and killing and death and destruction and war are: the energy in the penis, untempered, untamed, and unrestrained by love, going berserk. When that energy is not a servant of love, it becomes a servant of death and a weapon of death. The Hebrew word for "penis" and "weapon" are the same. Which is why all the weapons of death on our planet--guns, bombs, missiles, knives, swords, spears, cannons--look like erect penises. Robert Alter, "The MANual" April 14 , 2008: They who aspire to love worthily subject themselves to an ordeal more rigid than any other. Henry David Thoreau Marriage is a relationship. When you make the sacrifice in marriage, you're sacrificing not to each other but to unity in a relationship. You're no longer this one alone; your identity is in a relationship. Marriage is not a simple love affair, it's an ordeal, and the ordeal is the sacrifice of ego to a relationship in which two have become one. Joseph Campbell April 7 , 2008: Be it in the name of national defense, or in the holy name of God, war or the preparation for war serve not only to reinforce male dominance and male violence, but also to reinforce andocracy's systems component, authoritarianism. Times of war provide justification for "strongman" leadership; they also justify the suspension of civil liberties and rights. Riane Eisler, The Chalice and the Blade March 31 , 2008: I don't know whether poetry changes anything. But neither do I know how or whether bombing or even community organizing changes anything when we are pitted against a massive patriarchal system armed with supertechnology. . . . At moments I can conceive of a women's movement that will show the way to humanizing technology and fusing dreams and skills and visions and reason to begin the healing of the human race. But I don't want women to take over the world and run it the way men have, or to take on--yet again!--the burden of carrying the subjectivity of the race. Women are a vanguard now, and I believe will increasingly become so, because we have--Western women, Third World women, all women--known and felt the pain of the human condition most consistently. But in the end it can't be women alone. Adrienne Rich March 24 , 2008: Okay, dear ones, are you ready? Hafiz March 17 , 2008: As I see through a mist, One with inexpressible completeness, sanity, beauty, Walt Whitman March 10 , 2008: My wife and I have been married for 41 years. We think of ourselves as being happily married--and we are. But the dominance is there. It means that in my relationship with my wife, I am almost totally the boss. When we have a discussion, more often than not it is I who declares when the end of it arrives. If we make a plan together and she does most of the work on the plan, it is given to me for approval. If I do most of the work on the plan, I submit it to her for her information. That doesn't mean that I make all the decisions, control all the funds, make all the choices, talk louder than she does. I don't have to. It simply means that I do not have to ask my wife for permission to do anything. Sy Chassler (former editor-in-chief of Redbook) March 3 , 2008: Women are motivated and empowered when they feel cherished. When a woman does not feel cherished in a relationship, she gradually becomes compulsively responsible and exhausted from giving too much. On the other hand, when she feels cared for and respected, she is fulfilled and has more to give as well. John Gray, Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus February 25 , 2008: The fountain of content must spring up in the mind, and he who hath so little knowledge of human nature as to seek happiness by changing anything but his own disposition, will waste his life in fruitless efforts and multiply the grief he proposes to remove. Samuel Johnson February 18 , 2008: Training is needed in order to love properly; and to be able to give happiness and joy, you must practice deep looking directed toward the person you love. Because if you do not understand this person, you cannot love properly. Understanding is the essence of love. If you cannot understand, you cannot love. . . . If a husband, for example, does not understand his wife's deepest troubles, her deepest aspirations, if he does not understand her suffering, he will not be able to love her in the right way. Without understanding, love is an impossible thing. Thich Nhat Hanh, True Love: A Practice for Awakening the Heart February 11 , 2008: Impatience is a phase of violence. Mahatma Gandhi February 4 , 2008: The most precious possession that ever comes to a man in this world is a woman's heart. J.G. Holland January 28 , 2008: Love sometimes gets tired of speaking sweetly and wants to rip to shreds all our erroneous notions of truth. The Beloved sometimes wants to do us a great favor: Hold us upside down and shake all the nonsense out. Hafiz January 21 , 2008: Western culture has been dominated by patriarchy, rule by the men, of the men, for the men. Patriarchy is rooted in hierarchy, obession with power, control, and government by violence. Warfare, rape, and ecological destruction of mother nature are rooted in patriarchal habits of thought and modes of social organization. Misogyny and gynophobia, a devaluation of all things considered feminine, form the subtext of western history. Sam Keen, Fire in the Belly: On Being a Man January 14 , 2008: In the midst of an abstract discussion it is vexing to hear a man say, "You think thus and so because you are a woman," but I know that my only defense is to reply, "I think thus and so because it is true." Simone DeBeauvoir January 7 , 2008: I have offended many people, for as soon as I saw that they did not understand me, that was the end of the matter so far as I was concerned. I had to move on. I had no patience with people, aside from my patients. I had to obey an inner law which was imposed on me and left me no freedom of choice. Of course I did not always obey it. How can anyone live without inconsistency? . . . I am fond of you, indeed I love you, but I cannot stay. There is something heartrending about that. And I myself am the victim; I cannot stay. Carl Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections December 31 , 2007: If you were to see yourself as you really are, you would realize that you are neither man nor woman; you don't belong to any religion or caste or creed. You are really and truly the most fascinating, beautiful light of God. The highest Truth exists within your heart. A sage And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with obvservation; Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for behold, the kingdom of God is within you. Luke 17: 20-21 December 24 , 2007: An interesting definition of courage from a spiritual Master: Gurumayi Chidvilasananda, Sadhana of the Heart, Volume I December 17 , 2007: One of the paradoxes of genuine love is that the lover freely wishes to bind him or herself irrevocably to the beloved. It was this mysterious feature of love that moved Mother Teresa to seal the total offering of herself by means of a vow and thus tangibly express her longing to be fully united with her Beloved. To the one less advanced on the road of love, this total surrender and complete conformity to God's will might seem a complete loss of freedom. But the one who truly loves seeks to realize the desire of the beloved, to fulfill his or her expectations even to the least detail. Thus for Mother Teresa the vow was the means of strengthening the bond with the One she loved and so experiencing the true freedom that only love can give. [Read this week's quotation twice--once as a description of Mother Teresa's surrender to her beloved, God, and then as a description of a husband's surrender to his beloved, his wife. Sounds nice, yes?] Brian Kolodiejchuk, Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light: The Private Writings of the 'Saint' of Calcutta December 10 , 2007: These are the lyrics of the great song "Take Me There" by the Rascal Flatts (this is the kind of interest we men should take in the women we love): There's a place in your heart nobody's been, I want to know everything about you then. Your first real kiss, your first true love, you were scared. I want to know everything 'bout you then. Yeah, I want to know everything about you, Rascal Flatts, "Take Me There" December 3 , 2007: The return of God is one of the most ancient expectations of the human race. Every world religion has presented itself as preparing for his return. Every religion still awaits it. What does this expectation imply? We already know God in his outward manifestation, by his laws, his commands, his word. That is the Logos, the masculine side of God. What we await in the Second Coming is what we lack: God's inner dynamic or process. This--God in his creativeness rather than in his creation--is the essence of the feminine traditionally enacted in the ancient Mysteries. The return is therefore the emergence of the feminine side of God, which has been gradually taking shape for centuries in what we call the unconscious. The time has now come when we can deal creatively with the concept of God as the union of opposites, and therefore see the feminine no longer darkly through a masculine glass, but face to androgynous face. Marion Woodman, Addiction to Perfection: The Still Unravished Bride November 26 , 2007: Here is Joe Ehrmann, former NFL all-star lineman and now a minister and mentor for boys in the Baltimore area, speaking to a group of high school football coaches (with commentary from Jeffrey Marx, author of Season of Life, a book about Joe [highly recommended!]: I think that's the challenge, really, facing us in this society, is how we learn to come together, across all racial, economic, and geographical divisions, to make this society a much better place. . . . I would say that in order to make America a more just and fair society, I would boil it down to the single greatest crisis. If we don't address this issue, we really can't deal with the other issues. And that primary, critical issue is a concept of what it means to be a man. If we don't fix our understanding and get some proper definition of masculinity and manhood, I don't think we can address other issues. . . . I think that the boys you are coaching--all November 19 , 2007: The best way to help women is to work on your fellow men. That's where the real struggle is--getting enlightenment through the concrete block known as a man's head. Michael Moore November 12 , 2007: INTEGRITY: If it's not right, don't do it. If it's not true, don't say it. November 5 , 2007: [This is some dialogue from the 2006 Adam Sandler movie Reign on Me; it is a short phone conversation near the end of the movie between Alan Johnson, played by Don Cheadle, and his wife Geneen, played by Jada Pinkett Smith] Alan: "Geneen, I got to tell you something, babe. I don't know how I got to the place where I'm not letting you in--you're right, I'm not. That's wrong. I got to open up to you. I don't want to be that guy, baby. Don't want to be that guy. I don't know if anything I just said even makes any sense." Geneen: (long pause, she's visibly moved) "Alan, just come home. I love you. And I know I probably don't tell you that enough, but I do, I love you. Can you pick the girls up and come home?" Alan: "I love you too. I'll be home in a minute, okay?" October 29 , 2007: The other day my wife Jane walked into the reception area of the clinic where she works to get something from the receptionist, but she forgot what she had come in for, stood there for a moment, and asked herself out loud, "What am I doing?" A uniformed policeman who happened to be there at that moment answered her, "Just hanging out and enjoying the day." My wife smiled and said, "I think I'll take that as an instruction for the day! . . . You too!" October 22 , 2007: "You are not the man to help me in that. I must do that for myself. And that is why I am going to leave you now. ...... I must stand quite alone if I am to understand myself and everything about me. It is for that reason that I cannot remain with you any longer." Nora, in Ibsen's "A Doll House" October 15 , 2007: Surely fathers are indispensable for this sea change, but we must start with mothers and women at large. Males, it seems, have lost their moorings, leaving Plato's words more true today than ever: "Give me a new mother, and I'll give you a new world." Laying the foundations of a new mind and a new world has been her task from the beginning, and substitutes just haven't worked. Partriarchy has failed us. Joseph Chilton Pearce, The Biology of Transcendence October 8 , 2007: I understand the rising up of women in our time to be the human race's response to the threat of its own self-annihilation and the destruction of the planet. Sally Miller Gearheart I'm at a point in my life where I'm convinced women should run everything. Bill Clinton October 1 , 2007: Always you have to contend with the stupidity of men. . . . The stupid you have always with you. The whole duty of man is to perfect your own unique self. Every stroke of the chisel must enter our own flesh and bone. Henry David Thoreau September 24 , 2007: The principal form that the work of love takes is attention. When we love another, we give him or her our attention. We attend to that person's growth. M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Travelled One day a man approached Ikkyu and asked, "Master, will you please write for me some maxims of the highest wisdom?" Ikkyu took his brush and wrote, "Attention."
"Is that all?" asked the man. Japanese story September 17 , 2007: For one human being to love another human being: that is perhaps the most difficult task that has been entrusted to us, the ultimate task, the final test and proof, the work for which all other work is merely preparation. . . . When they love, they must not forget that they are beginners, bunglers of life, apprentices in love--they must learn love, and that, like all learning, takes calm, patience, and composure. Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet September 10 , 2007: I was going along doing everything I should have been doing, and then, unexpectedly, I woke up. I collided with the patriarchy within my culture, my church, my faith tradition, my marriage, and also within myself. And this collision changed everything. I began to wake up to a whole new way of being a woman. Sue Monk Kidd, The Dance of the Dissident Daughter: A Woman's Journey from Christian Tradition to the September 3 , 2007: I believe life is a school. All the universe is a university in which all our souls must take all the courses in the curriculum. The name of the curriculum is Love, and we keep taking courses in Love until we know everything there is to know about it, including that we, in our essential nature, are Love. Some of the courses are: Introduction to Happiness; Niceness 101; Intermediate Patience; Advanced Surrender; The Theory and Practice of Humility; and The Principles of Purification. There are other courses in Respect and Reverence for All; Compassion and Contentment; Sucking It Up: Discipline, Perseverance, and Sacrifice; Forgiveness; Personal Power; Overcoming Self-Hatred (a 79 year seminar); and Service to Humanity. And there are other courses that don't look or sound at like Love--like Behaving Yourself; Get Over It: An Honors Practicum; and Pain and Suffering: A Comprehensive Survey--but they're part of the currciculum of Love too. We keep taking and retaking a course, and intermediate and advanced and graduate levels of that course, until we've learned the material, and then we can move on to the next course. We are always taking several classes simultaneously, and some of us are carrying a very heavy course load. When we at last learn to love everything there is--our spouse, our neighbor as ourself, ourself, our earth, life, and God--we've completed the currciculum. Robert and Jane Alter, How Long Till My Soul Gets It Right? (HarperCollins, 2001, p. 209) July 30, 2007: Give me a man who is man enough to give himself just to the woman who has wed him. Sienna Miller, playing Francesca Bruni in the movie Casanova ******************************* My mother once said the world would never find peace until men fell at their women's feet and asked for forgiveness. This is true all over the world in the jungles of Mexico, in the back streets of Shang Hai, in New York cocktail bars, husbands are getting drunk while the women stay home with the babes of their ever darkening future. If these men stop the machine and come home and get on their knees and ask for forgiveness and the women bless them, peace will suddenly descend on the earth with a greal silence like the inherent silence of the apocalypse. Jack Kerouac, in the original manuscript scroll of On the Road ******************************** Women are like apples on trees. The best ones are at the top of the tree. Most men don't want to reach for the good ones because they are afraid of falling and getting hurt. Instead they sometimes take the apples from the ground that aren't as good, but easy. The apples at the top think something is wrong with them, when in reality, they're amazing. They just have to wait for the right man to come along, the one who's brave enough to climb all the way to the top of the tree. Sent in by a male reader with the comment, "Is this CLOSE?" July 23, 2007: The history of mankind is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations on the part of man toward woman, having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over her. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world: . . . He has endeavored in every way that he could to destroy her confidence in her own powers, to lessen her self-respect, and to make her willing to lead a dependent and abject life. . . . Resolved, that woman has too long rested satisfied in the circumscribed limits which corrupt customs and a perverted application of the Scriptures have marked out for her, and that it is time she should move in the enlarged sphere which her great Creator has assigned her. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions July 16, 2007: To keep your marriage brimming Ogden Nash July 9, 2007: What a battle a man must fight everywhere to maintain his standing army of thoughts, and march with them in orderly array through the always hostile country! How many enemies there are to sane thinking! Henry David Thoreau, Letters to Harrison Blake July 2, 2007: Of our care givers, and ourselves in care-giving roles, I think we expect, ideally at least, something resembling unconditional and unstinting love; the compassion and tenderness, in short, of a mother, a perfect mother. Consciously we might know this is unrealistic, a child's fantasy of how life ought to be, but the expectation persists and shapes our behavior throughout life. We are hurt when we do not meet it in others; we feel inadequate when we cannot muster it ourselves. Carol Lee Flinders, Enduring Grace: Portraits of Seven Women Mystics June 25 , 2007: That which the person is and that which the person could be exist simultaneously. The human being is simultaneously that which s/he is and that which s/he yearns to be. Abraham Maslow June 18 , 2007: Only he who obeys can command. No one can firmly command save he who has learned gladly to obey. June 11 , 2007: I thought about [my husband's] question, about the global phenomenon that had taken place probably beginning in the third millennium B.C.E., some kind of patriarchal revolution that spanned around 2500 years, during which there was a massive shift from female Goddess to male God. Sue Monk Kidd, The Dance of the Dissident Daughter: A Woman's Journey from Christian Tradition to the Sacred Feminine If God is male, then male is God. Mary Daly, Beyond God the Father: Toward a Philosophy of Women June 4 , 2007: Every person should stand for a force which is perfectly irresistible. Henry David Thoreau May 28, 2007: Once a young woman asked me, "How does it feel to be a man?" Hafiz May 21, 2007: We can begin to transcend the conventional polarities between right and left, capitalism and communism, religion and secularism, even masculinism and feminism. All modern, post-enlightenment movements for social justice, as well as the more recent feminist, peace, and ecology movements, are part of an underlying thrust for the transformation of a dominator to a partnership system--part of our species' evolutionary thrust for survival. Riane Eisler, The Chalice and the Blade I understand the rising up of women in this century to be the human race's response to the threat of its own self-annihilation and the destruction of the planet. Sally Miller Gearhart May 14, 2007: She was intensely sympathetic. She was immensely charming. She was utterly unselfish. She excelled in the difficult arts of family life. She sacrificed herself daily. If there was chicken, she took the leg; if there was a draft, she sat in it--in short, she was so constituted that she never had a mind or wish of her own, but preferred to sympathize always with the minds and wishes of others. . . . I did my best to kill her. My excuse, if I were to be had up in a court of law, would be that I acted in self-defense. Had I not killed her, she would have killed me. Virginia Woolf, "Professions for Women" (quoted in Sue Monk Kidd, The Dance of the Dissident Daughter |
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May 7, 2007: We cannot develop a sense of worth unless the people important to us convey that they recognize and acknowledge our experience. Adults often do this for infants and children, of course. If a child expresses distress, adults try to figure out what the matter is, and to respond. Is the child afraid or tired or hungry? Or, if a child is joyous or just 'hanging out,' they join the child in that mode or mood, and the child feels attended to and recognized. This attention and recognition are just as vital for adults and must be present all through life. Jean Baker Miller and Irene Pierce Stiver, The Healing Connection April 30 ,2007: Elders in tales and legends are always depicted as being temperate, wise, and gentle, even when others do wrong. Why? These elders perceive that gentleness is more beneficial than severity in helping others to grow and improve. A Sage from India April 23 ,2007: Our love is kind of stalled, baby Bonnie Raitt, "Meet Me Halfway" April 16 ,2007: No face which we can give to a matter will stead us so well at last as the truth. This alone wears well. For the most part, we are not where we are, but in a false position. Through an infirmity of our natures, we suppose a case, and put ourselves into it, and hence are in two cases at the same time, and it is doubly difficult to get out. In sane moments we regard only the facts, the case that is. Say what you have to say, not what you ought. Any truth is better than make-believe. Tom Hyde, the tinker, standing on the gallows, was asked if he had anything to say. "Tell the tailors," said he, "to remember to make a knot in their thread before they take the first stitch." His companion's prayer is forgotten. Henry David Thoreau, "Conclusion," Walden April 9 ,2007: What is better than gold? Geoffrey Chaucer April 2 ,2007: It happens all the time in heaven Hafiz March 26,2007: Cultures need to coax and trick soldiers into participating in combat--an extremely difficult challenge--and gender presents a handy means to do so by linking attainment of manhood to performance in battle. In addition, cultures directly mold boys from an early age to suppress emotions in order to function more effectively in battle. This system, supported in various ways by most women, produces men capable of fighting wars, but emotionally impaired. The militarized masculinity of men who fight wars is reinforced by women's symbolic embodiment of "normal" life and by women's witnessing of male bravery. Joshua S. Goldstein, War and Gender March 19, 2007: I am the woman who holds up the sky A poem of the Ute Native Americans March 12, 2007: And when women do not need to live through their husbands and children, men will not fear the love and strength of women, nor need another's weakness to prove their own masculinity. They can finally see each other as they are. And this may be the next step in human evolution. Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique March 5, 2007: The discovery now being celebrated by men in mid-life of the importance of intimacy, relationships, and care is something that women have known from the beginning. [The women hold] the truth of an ethic of care, the tie between relationship and responsibility, and the origins of ag`gression in the failure of connection. Carol Gilligan February 26, 2007: It is the most momentous question a woman is ever called upon to decide: Whether the faults of the man she loves are beyond remedy and will drop her down, or whether she is competent to be his earthly redeemer and lift him to her own level. Oliver Wendell Holmes February 19, 2007: Let thy fountain be blessed, and rejoice with the wife of thy youth. Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant roe. Let her breasts satisfy thee at all times, and be thou ravished always with her love. And why wilt thou, my son, be ravished with a strange woman, and embrace the bosom of a stranger? Proverbs 5:18-20 February 12, 2007: Masculinity is not in its essence abusive. We have within us the innate potential to use our masculine power for blessing, stewardship, and servant leadership. Robert Moore and Douglas Gillette, The King Within February 5, 2007: If there is no struggle, there is no progress. The struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, or it may be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Frederick Douglas (1857), quoted in Howard Zinn, People's History of the United States January 29, 2007: One of the major tasks of manhood is to explore the unconscious feelings that surround our various images of WOMAN, to dispel false mystification, to dissolve the vague sense of threat and fear, and finally to learn to respect and love the strangeness of womankind......And these archetypical creatures--goddesses, bitches, angels, Madonnas, castrators, witches, Gypsy maidens, earth mothers--must be exorcised from our minds and hearts before we can learn to love women. So long as our house is haunted by the ghost of WOMAN we can never live gracefully with any woman........Men are sunk deep in an unconscious relationship with a falsely mystified figure who is composed of unreal opposites: virgin-whore, nurturer-devouring mother, goddess-demon. Sam Keen, Fire in the Belly: On Being a Man January 22, 2007: In order to make America a more just and fair society, I would boil it down to the single greatest crisis. If we don't address this issue, we really can't deal with the other issues. And that primary, ciritical issue is a concept of what it means to be a man. If we don't fix our understanding, and get some proper definition of masculinity and manhood, I don't think we can address other issues. Joe Ehrmann, Season of Life As movement overcomes the cold, and stillness, heat, the Wise Man, pure and still, will rectify the world. Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching January 15, 2007: This is the time of teaching. What you teach at this time, through your every word and acting right now, will remain as indelible lessons in the hearts and minds of those whose lives you touch, both now, and for years to come. The Dalai Lama Our children are watching us, they put their trust in us, they're gonna be like us . . . It's okay for us to disagree, we can work it out lovingly . . . The Dixie Chicks, "I Hope" January 8, 2007: Conflict is a necessity if women are to build for the future.....Conflict is inevitable, the source of all growth, and an absolute necessity if one is to be alive......Women are not creating conflict, they are exposing the fact that conflict exists......Conflict becomes more obvious when people try to do new things; they are breaking up old patterns........The best conflicts are those that lead to more and better connection rather than disconnection. Jean Baker Miller, Toward a New Psychology of Women January 1, 2007: If a man vow a vow unto the Lord, or swear an oath to bind his soul with a bond, he shall not break his word, he shall do according to all that proceedeth out of his mouth. Numbers 30:2 That which is gone out of thy lips thou shalt keep and perform. Deuteronomy 23:23 It is most odious in God's sight that you should say one thing and do another. Koran 61:1 December 25, 2006: Jesus' teachings [are] that we must elevate "feminine virtues" from a secondary or supportive to a primary and central position. We must not be violent but instead turn the other cheek; we must do unto others as we would have them do unto us; we must love our neighbors and even our enemies. Instead of the "masculine virtues" of toughness, aggressiveness, and dominance, what we must value above all else are mutual responsibility, compassion, gentleness, and love. Riane Eisler, THE CHALICE AND THE BLADE December 18, 2006: Withdraw into yourself and look. And if you do not find yourself beautiful yet, act as does the creator of a statue that is to be made beautiful: s/he cuts away here, smoothes there, s/he makes this line lighter, this other purer, until a lovely face has gown upon the work. So do you also: Cut away all that is excessive, straighten all that is crooked, bring to light all that is overcast, labor to make all one glow of beauty, and never cease chiseling your statue until there shall shine out on you from it the divine splendor of virtue, until you shall see the perfect goodness established in the stainless shrine. Plotinus December 11, 2006: We know how rough the road will be, how heavy here the load will be, we know about the barricades that wait along the track; but we have set our soul ahead upon a certain goal ahead, and nothing left from hell to sky shall ever turn us back. Vince Lombardi December 4, 2006: Don't make the same mistake as all those people who give up trying to change because they feel stuck in their habits. If you truly want to, and are willing to work hard enough, you can overcome them. Rebbe Nachman of Breslov A sage, when asked if it is very difficult to get rid of things like lust, anger, arrogance, and fear, replied, "If you really want to get rid of them, it is not very difficult. If you really do not want to get rid of them, it is incredibly difficult." Swami Muktananda November 27, 2006: Somebody says something to you that is rude or designed to hurt. Instead of going into unconscious reaction and negativity, such as attack, defense, or withdrawal, you let it pass right through you. Offer no resistance. It is as if there is nobody there to get hurt anymore. . . . In this way you become invulnerable. You can still tell that person his or her behavior is unacceptable, if that is what you choose to do. But that person no longer has the power to control your inner state. You are then in your power, not in someone else's. Eckardt Tolle November 20, 2006: Married life develops so many points of contact between two souls that severance of all connection would mean the unsettlement and derangement of practically the whole tenor of life. Since this difficulty of breaking away from one another invites and precipitates inner readjustment, marriage is really a disguised opportunity for the souls to establish a real and lasting understanding which can cope with the most complex and delicate situations. Meher Baba November 13, 2006: The truth. When I'm interested in a truth, it's really a truth truth. One hundred percent truth. And that's a terrible kind of truth to be interested in. Lenny Bruce November 6, 2006: Like a bird which alights nowhere, but hops perpetually from bough to bough, is the Power which abides in no man and no woman, but for a moment speaks from this one, and for another moment from that one. Ralph Waldo Emerson October 29, 2006: For he who is so tormented by carnal passion that he cannot embrace anyone in heartfelt love, but basely lusts after every woman he sees, is not called a lover but a counterfeiter of love and a pretender, and he is lower than a shameless dog. Indeed, the man who is so wanton that he cannot confine himself to the love of one woman deserves to be considered an ass. Andreas Cappelanus, The Art of Courtly Love October 22, 2006: Withdraw into yourself and look. And if you do not find yourself beautiful yet, act as does the creator of a statue that is to be made beautiful: The artist cuts away here, smoothes there, makes this line lighter, this other purer until a lovely face has grown upon the work. So do you also: Cut away all that is excessive, straighten all that is crooked, bring to light all that is overcast, labor to make all one glow of beauty, and never cease chiseling your statue, until there shall shine out on you from it the godlike splendor of virtue, until you shall see the perfect goodness established in the stainless shrine. Plotinus October 15, 2006: When you offer your pure forgiveness, it does not replace the need for repentance to arise in the heart of the other person. True forgiveness is not like giving candy to a crying baby so that he will stop crying. Just because you are able to forgive someone does not obviate their need to confront their misdeeds. They must do their own inner work. Forgiveness is not putting a warm blanket over someone and saying, "It's okay. Really it's okay." No. Each person must go through the fire of repentance. And repentance, understand, is not about sobbing like a wounded victim or tellng the whole world your sad story. Repentance is a deep--a very, very deep--contemplation. It is entering the sanctum sanctorum of your own soul, going deep inside where no one else has access but you and your own God. There is a place inside you that is pure, sacred, tranquil. Only you and your God can go there. . . . If your forgiveness prevents or short-circuits the other person's repentance, their deep contemplation, then it is not pure forgiveness. It is complicity. Of course, the one who forgives also has to give up something--the feeling of being victimized by the person who has done something harmful. Swami Chidvilasananda October 8, 2006: Forgiveness does not mean ignoring what has been done or putting a false label on an evil act. It means rather that the evil act is no longer a barrier to the relationship. Martin Luther King Jr. October 1, 2006: True women's liberation does not mean seeking equality within a masculine world; it means liberating the divine feminine aspects of a woman's personality and using them for the benefit of all humankind. Women need to clamor for their rights because the world insists on it for its cosmic well-being. A Jewish Rebbe September 24, 2006: What's a man created to do? He's created to be a son, a father, a husband, a brother, and so on. And all a man does, he lives into those relationships. So I'm going to measure my masculinity--and it's really about my humanity--based on how successful I am as a husband. If I blow it there, or if I blow it as a dad, nothing else really matters. All the power and prestige and possessions in the world will never make up for failed relationships. Joe Ehrmann (ex-NFL football player--in the book Season of Life) September 17, 2006: So the crisis is not just about how we raise our children; it's about a hundred million people who look like adults, talk and dress like adults, but are actually adult children. These adult children run our schools, our religions,, and our government. They also create our familes. John Bradshaw September 10, 2006 : The beaut y of the female body has been prostituted for the pleasure of men. Women have learned to value themselves in relation to men rather than in relation to their inner selves. Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee September 3, 2006 : Whatever you give, that's what you receive. Nothing else. This is a law of nature. Swami Muktananda July 31, 2006 : Say little . . . Love much . . . Give all . . . Judge no one . . . Aspire to all that is pure and good . . . And keep on going. A Sage July 24, 2006 : We are to live so that no harm or pain is caused by our thoughts, words, or deeds to any other being. Patanjali July 17, 2006 : Women stay with, build on, and develop in a context of connnections with others. Indeed, women's sense of self becomes very much organized around being able to make and then to maintain affiliations and relationships. Eventually, for many women the threat of disruption of connections is perceived not as just a loss of a relationship but as something closer to a total loss of self. Jean Baker Miller July 10, 2006 : Talking with one another is loving one another. Kenyan love poem July 3, 2006 Women feel deeply frustrated when they know they are not getting what they need--that is, to be listened to, understood, affirmed--yet feel guilty because they are not at all clear that it is reasonable to want something different from what they are getting. The Stone Center June 26, 2006: Before the tongue can speak, it must have lost the power to wound. Peace Pilgrim June 19, 2006: Bear in mind, Child, and never for an instant forget that there are higher planes, infinitely higher planes, of life than this thou art now traveling on. Know that the goal is distant, and upward, and is worthy of all your life's efforts to attain to. Henry David Thoreau And it's alright, Ma, I can make it. Bob Dylan June 12, 2006: I will be the mere instrument of pleasure to no man. He must make a friend and companion of me, or he will lose me. June 5, 2006: Don't think it's easy to open the letter of the heart. Otherwise, everyone would readily discover the secret of the heart. How difficult it is to open that letter! It's only for the strong, not for those playing games. Jalaluddin Rumi May 29, 2006: Within the form of every creature is a force impelling it to ascend to a higher form. .....Ralph Waldo Emerson. A million million men, or twelve men, must crash the barrier to the next higher form.........Jean Toomer May 22, 2006: Of course I wish I'd found just one husband, also capable of redefinition, to make the whole journey with, but self-redefinition is harder for most men, especially since in a patriarchy they are not supposed to need it. Jane Fonda May 15, 2006: Representation of the world, like the world itself, is the work of men; they describe it from their own point of view, which they confuse with absolute truth. Simone De Beauvoir May 8, 2006: After marriage all things change. May 1, 2006: "No one can undergo violations of her own experience and longterm threats to connection without serious anger." April 22, 2006: Until the juice ferments a while in the cask, April 17, 2006: Ray: I'm sorry I've been such a jerk, and I promise not to be one anymore . . . if you'll help me. April 11, 2006: How beautiful maleness is, if it finds its right expression. March 27, 2006: If you treat me fairly, I'll give you all my goods March 20, 2006: A million million men, or twelve men, March 13, 2006: The experience of the feminine is the psychological key to both the sickness of our time and its healing. March 6, 2006: Perhaps what my husband or wife lacks, what my children lack, what my parents lack, is not clothes or food. Perhaps they lack love—because I do not give it to them.
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