Borrowed Words

I carry a stack of small journals around with me these days. It's a habit that has only grown this year. The urge to write is combined with the fact that I am forgetful of the things I want to meditate on and think through. Journals help me collect "dots" over a span of time, until eventually those dots can be connected for better understanding. I enjoy the pleasure and the discipline of writing.

However, I have found it difficult to write here on this blog for several months now. Criticism, rumors, lies, betrayal, rejection, loss of friendship, and the like have been the story of 2019 for us. In a way I want to just press forward undefeated, yet my reflective instinct is to pull away in protection.

So tonight I am simply posting quotes-- they are safer, less personal words I have scribbled out over time in the pages of a pocket-sized notebook. I like quotes: words I fully agree with, others that challenge me, even positions I disagree with because they cause me to think through my beliefs.

Apologies for not always noting the speaker/author. (Maybe just google if you're curious.) Also, a few quoted words picked out doesn't represent endorsement of anything or anyone.

"We impress people with our strengths;

we connect with people through our weaknesses."

We are a culture of people striving to impress and dying to connect, wouldn't you say? Few have the courage to be vulnerable, however, because true vulnerability will likely cost. 

Still fewer know that love will always cost. You cannot love without personal expense.

"It is with the heart that one sees rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."

-Antione de Saint-Exupéry

The Little Prince

"Unrealistic expectations are actually premeditated resentment."

(Ain't that the truth?!)

"I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it."

-Pablo Picasso

"Brave is not something you feel.

Brave is something you do."

"I don't think anyone can grow unless he's loved exactly as he is now, appreciated for what he is rather than what he will be."

-Mr. Rogers

Images: Grand Teton NP, July 2019

~Katherine