Choose Wisdom

"When you have to choose pride or self-pity or wisdom,
  choose wisdom."

~ Truthful Grace

PC Holiday Wishes

 PC HNY

Best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low stress, non-addictive, gender neutral, winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most joyous traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, but with respect for the religious persuasion of others who choose to practice their own religion as well as those who choose not to practice a religion at all; plus a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling, and medically uncomplicated recognition of the generally accepted calendar year 1998, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions have helped make our society great, without regard to the race, creed, color, religious, or sexual preferences of the wishes.

Disclaimer: This greeting is subject to clarification or withdrawal. It implies no promise by the wisher to actually implement any of the wishes for her/himself or others and no responsibility for any unintended emotional stress these greetings may bring to those not caught up in the holiday spirit.

Pope Leo’s new encyclical quotes Gandalf

Quote from America Magazine, "Why Pope Leo’s new encyclical quotes Gandalf: Literary images of hope and faith in ‘Magnifica Humanitas’ ", by James T. Keane, May 26, 2026, https://www.americamagazine.org/catholic-book-club/2026/05/26/why-pope-leos-new-encyclical-quotes-gandalf-literary-images-of-hope-and-faith-in-magnifica-humanitas/ as of 5/28/2026:

Of all the startling things one might find in a papal encyclical, a quote from J. R. R. Tolkien might take the cake. It’s not the first time a novel has made an appearance in such a format, as The Brothers Karamazov showed up in Pope Francis’ “Dilexit Nos,” but who would ever have thought The Lord of the Rings would appear in a magisterial document?

But there it is—a quote from Gandalf right smack in the middle of the text:

It is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till.

As for the horrifically mixed metaphor, blame Tolkien, not the pope.

"A kick in the butt is worth two steps forward."

"A kick in the butt is worth two steps forward."

“Isn’t it nice to think that tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet?”

“Isn’t it nice to think that tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet?”

~ Lucy Maud Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables 

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."

~ John F. Kennedy,
President of the United States of America, 1961-1963

Tim Keller: “The gospel is this: We are more sinful and flawed in ourselves than we ever dared believe, yet at the very same time we are more loved and accepted in Jesus Christ than we ever dared hope.”

“The gospel is this: We are more sinful and flawed in ourselves than we ever dared believe, yet at the very same time we are more loved and accepted in Jesus Christ than we ever dared hope.”

~ Rev. Timothy Keller, The Meaning of Marriage: Facing the Complexities of Commitment with the Wisdom of God

Amy Chua: "a blend of insecurity, impulse control and a superiority complex makes some groups and individuals disproportionately successful"

My Week: Amy Chua
Wall Street Journal, 2/1/2015, p. C4

quote:

The Sudanese American Public Affairs Association invited me to give a conference keynote talk on "The Triple Package," the book I co-wrote last year with Jed, which argues that a blend of insecurity, impulse control and a superiority complex makes some groups and individuals disproportionately successful. 

I said yes because I love culture and people, especially ones who like me. As my favorite fictional character, Lucky Jim, said, "nice things are nicer than nasty ones."

C.S. Lewis on losing his childhood religion as a schoolboy

quote​ from The Narnian: The Life and Imagination of C. S. Lewis, by Alan Jacobs​, including quotes from Lewis's book Surprised by Joy on his coming to faith:

quote: 

His experience with Christianity was, as we have seen, almost completely a matter of painful and fearful duty. He struggled incessantly to form prayers that he could believe were completely valid, but he never knew whether he had achieved that goal. He was on a spiritual treadmill with no hopes of getting off.

What Miss Cowie’s* mushy spiritualism held out to him was the possibility of there being Something out there, some Higher Power, or Deeper Meaning, or Spirit World—in short, a version of the transcendent that gave richness of possibility but made no demands on anyone. 

“From the tyrannous noon of revelation I passed into the cool evening of Higher Thought, where there was nothing to be obeyed, and nothing to be believed except what was either comforting or exciting.” 

Freed from the burdens of prayer, by the time he left Malvern Jack had ceased to be a Christian. “And oh, the relief of it!” 

As he grew older the hermetic—that is, the secretive—aspects of the occult recommended themselves to him: “The idea that if there were Occult knowledge it was known to very few and scorned by the many became an added attraction: ‘we few’… was an evocative expression for me.” 

Certainly the older Lewis felt that he had been in real danger at that time of his life: “If there had been in the neighbourhood some elder person who dabbled in dirt of the Magical kind (such have a good nose for potential disciples) I might now be a Satanist or a maniac.”

(C.S. Lewis later came to a mature understanding and a mature faith in Jesus Christ.) 

The Narnian: The Life and Imagination of C. S. Lewis, by Alan Jacobs, HarperOne, 2009, page 39, Kindle edition, as of 4/9/2026

​* Note: Miss Cowie was a dorm mother and nurse at Cherbourg School.

"when anger is present, look for the pain." ~ R.C. Sproul

"The roots of anger are almost always found in some kind of pain…when anger is present, look for the pain."

~ R.C. Sproul In Search of Dignity

“All you have to do is wake up every day and just use your energy for good.”

Jeremy Hansen, Canadian Astronaut, NASA mission Artemis II, April, 2026

quote:

During the interview in January in Houston he said that to prepare for Artemis II he had gone on a vision quest with a Canadian Indigenous elder to grapple with a question: How can I possibly be happy when people are dying and suffering?

He finally came to an answer: “All you have to do is wake up every day and just use your energy for good.”

“You can’t fix all the problems in the world, but you can influence the little bit around you, and that’s just a simple recipe for allowing yourself to feel that joy,” Mr. Hansen said. 

source:

"They’re Going to the Moon and They Know Not Everyone Is With Them"
Can the four astronauts of the NASA mission Artemis II make a difference in a distracted and divided world?

By Timothy Bella, March 31, 2026

Timothy Bella interviewed the four astronauts of Artemis II as well as their family members, a former football coach, co-workers and a college roommate.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/31/science/nasa-artemis-ii-mission-astronauts.html?nl=the-morning&segment_id=217562

“Amaze yourself at your own daring.” ~ Lawrence Olivier

“Amaze yourself at your own daring.”

~ Lawrence Olivier