Quotes by Edward Abbey, Environmental Advocate

“Better a cruel truth than a comfortable delusion.”
― Edward Abbey

“May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view.”
― Edward Abbey

“One final paragraph of advice: do not burn yourselves out. Be as I am - a reluctant enthusiast....a part-time crusader, a half-hearted fanatic. Save the other half of yourselves and your lives for pleasure and adventure.
It is not enough to fight for the land; it is even more important to enjoy it. While you can. While it’s still here.
So get out there and hunt and fish and mess around with your friends, ramble out yonder and explore the forests, climb the mountains, bag the peaks, run the rivers, breathe deep of that yet sweet and lucid air, sit quietly for a while and contemplate the precious stillness, the lovely, mysterious, and awesome space.
Enjoy yourselves, keep your brain in your head and your head firmly attached to the body, the body active and alive, and I promise you this much; I promise you this one sweet victory over our enemies, over those desk-bound men and women with their hearts in a safe deposit box, and their eyes hypnotized by desk calculators. I promise you this; You will outlive the bastards.”
― Edward Abbey

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/37218.Edward_Abbey
"Edward Paul Abbey (1927–1989) was an American author and essayist noted for his advocacy of environmental issues, criticism of public land policies, and anarchist political views."

Teamwork!

“One man alone can be pretty dumb sometimes, but for real bona fide stupidity there ain’t nothing can beat teamwork.”
~ Author Mark Twain

she was meant to fly

Philippians 1:6 NIV
being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

"If the caterpillar just chose to stay a caterpillar, if she decided that the chaos of metamorphosis would be too much for her to handle, she would never know what she could become. Do you think that changing her entire being isn’t painful? Do you think it’s not scary and hard and overwhelming?

"Of course it is, but if she didn’t fight against the fear, if she didn’t allow the change to turn her into her true self, we would never know how beautiful she is. She would never know that she was meant to fly."

from Girl, Wash Your Face by Rachel Hollis

Money Lessons Rich Parents Teach Their Kids

"If you want to be rich, solve a problem," writes Siebold. "If you want to be very wealthy, solve a bigger problem."
While "the masses solve small problems for their employers," he says, "the rich solve significant problems and get compensated accordingly."

"It's difficult to invest the necessary time and energy into a profession that bores you or has little meaning beyond money," says Siebold. "Waking up everyday with excitement for going to work is a formula for financial abundance, emotional fulfillment, and life satisfaction."

"If earning money is based on solving problems, and the number of problems is infinite, then your ability to earn money is infinite."

"Spend your time basking in entertainment, and you will struggle your entire life financially.  Invest your time creating solutions to people's problems, and you'll never lose a minutes sleep worrying about how to pay the mortgage."

"Match your talents and interests with a problem people will pay you to solve and go to work until you succeed.  This formula offers you the fulfillments of doing work you love while profiting from solving other people's problems."

Steve Siebold, Secrets Self-Made Millionaires Teach Their Kids

www.msn.com/en-us/money/savingandinvesting/14-money-lessons-rich-parents-teach-their-kids/ar-AAvdtbH

Love reflected back . . .

“It is an absolute human certainty that no one can know his own beauty or perceive a sense of his own worth until it has been reflected back to him in the mirror of another loving, caring human being.”
from The Secret of Staying in Love
by John Joseph Powell

Children's Bedtime Prayer - Rebecca Weston - 1890

Father, we thank thee for the night,
and for the pleasant morning light;
for rest and food and loving care,
and all that makes the day so fair.

Help us to do the things we should,
to be to others kind and good;
in all we do, in work or play,
to grow more loving every day.

Children's Bedtime Prayer - Rebecca Weston - 1890

http://www.worldprayers.org/archive/prayers/celebrations/father_we_thank_the_for.html

Psalm 23 : The North American Plains Indian Version

Psalm 23 : The North American Plains Indian Version
August 19, 2012

From their first encounters with Christian missionaries, the North American Plains Indians used universal sign language to communicate  Psalm 23  among tribes who spoke different oral languages.

In 1894, Isabel Crawford, a Baptist missionary to the Kiowa Indians in Oklahoma, translated the Sign Version into literal English. Here is the  Psalm 23 translation:

The Great Father above is a shepherd Chief.
I am His and with Him I want not. 
He throws out to me a rope and
the name of the rope is love and
He draws me to where the grass is green
and the water not dangerous,
and I eat and lie down and am satisfied. 

Sometimes my heart is very weak and falls down but 
He lifts me up again and draws me into a good road. 
His name is WONDERFUL. 

Sometime, it may be very soon,
it may be a long, long time. 
He will draw me into a valley. 
It is dark there, but I’ll be afraid not,
for it is in between those mountains
that the Shepherd Christ will meet me
and the hunger that I have in my heart
all through this life will be satisfied.

He gives me a staff to lean upon.  
He spreads a table before me
with all kinds of foods. 
He puts His hand upon my head
and all the “tired” is gone. 
My cup He fills till it runs over. 

What I tell is true.
I lie not. 
These roads that are “away ahead”
will stay with me through this life and after;
and afterwards I will go to live
in the great house and sit down
with the Shepherd Chief forever.

~ Isabel Crawford (Missionary to the Indians of the plains)

www.davidpaulkirkpatrick.com/2012/08/19/psalm-23-the-north-american-plains-indian-version/

"What am I?"

First grader’s somber response to a class puzzle has the Internet questioning life

USA TODAY   as of 1/4/2018
Ashley May
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/first-grader’s-somber-response-to-a-class-puzzle-has-the-internet-questioning-life/ar-BBHRR07

“I am the beginning of everything, the end of everywhere. I’m the beginning of eternity, the end of time and space. What am I?”

“The first guess from one of my 1st graders was ‘death’ and such an awed, somber, reflective hush fell over the class that I didn’t want to tell them that actually the answer is the letter e, which just seemed so banal in the moment,” Turner said in a tweet Tuesday that has since gone viral.

Twitter users had their own thoughts. One reply questioned how death is the beginning of everything (receiving more than 145 replies), another said entelechy (connected with Aristotle's distinction between matter and form) seems relevant, and a few said the obvious answer is God.

Turner said other student guesses included: Not everything, all stuff, the end, and "nothingthing."
Maybe these kids are ready for more challenging puzzles.

"Fear does not make lasting peace."

quote from email:
The New York Times   NYTimes.com
Evening Briefing
Tuesday, January 2, 2018
Your Tuesday Evening Briefing
By KAREN ZRAICK AND DAVID SCULL

Dave Chappelle released the first comedy special focusing on the #MeToo movement, and our critic says it was a misfire, with bits that feel tired or callous. One example: Mr. Chappelle said that some of the sexual assault victims speaking out were now experiencing “buyer’s remorse.”

But Mr. Chappelle also offers sober political analysis during the show, which is streaming on Netflix. And he makes a passionate argument for focusing on structural issues.
“You got all the bad guys scared, and that’s good,” he says. “But the minute they’re not scared anymore, it will get worse than it was before. Fear does not make lasting peace.”

“quantum entanglement”

A Lifelong Bond

Scientists tell us that there is a most amazing, and thus-far inexplicable, phenomenon called “quantum entanglement.” If two particles of energy are kept in close proximity to each other for a long time, they form a relationship, a kind of bond, that defies the imagination. The connection between these two particles is so strong that if you take one particle to a laboratory in Los Angeles and remove the other one to a lab in New York City, whatever you do to the particle in L.A. will instantly happen to the one in New York, too.

Einstein called it “spooky.” It also defied his theory that nothing can travel faster than light. Somehow, however, once particles form this kind of bond, it cannot be severed no matter how great the distance between the two becomes.

A similar but opposite thing happened between Mary and Elizabeth. In this case, two separate people formed a relationship across a great distance, a relationship that finally drew them together. . . . Mary and Elizabeth also did not live terribly close by each other. But something remarkable, something filled with holy mystery, happened to both of these women and so despite their geographic and chronological distance from each other, these two formed a bond across that distance—a bond that would last the rest of their lives.

~ Scott Hoezee, comments and observations on Luke 1:39-55

"Sometimes you miss so much that you forget you are better without them."

"Sometimes you miss so much that you forget you are better without them."

~ attributed to Marilyn Monroe
http://www.quotesbycelebrities.com/marilyn-monroe-quotes/sometimes-you-miss-so-much-you-forget-you

Look like a girl, act like a lady . . .

Look like a girl,
act like a lady,
think like a man and
work like a dog.

~ traditional


Look like a girl,
act like a lady,
think like a man and
work like a boss.

~ attributed to Marilyn Monroe
http://www.quotesbycelebrities.com/marilyn-monroe-quotes/look-girl.-act-lady.-think

"What God loved about Mary was her willingness."

"What God loved about Mary was her willingness."
~ Truthful Grace
(Mary the mother of Jesus)

what God could do with one person wholly committed to his will

"I heard an evangelist say one night: This century has yet to see what God could do with one person wholly committed to his will."
Moody said in his heart of hearts, "By the grace of God, I'll be that person."
~ Baptist preacher D. L. Moody

Joy Rooted in Obedience

Hannah Whitall Smith's classic, The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life, contains a line that goes to the heart of the issue of joy in the life of faith. "Perfect obedience would result in perfect happiness if only we had perfect confidence in the power we were obeying."
The joy of our celebration is rooted in the obedience of Mary and Joseph and then of Jesus whose heart's desire was to honor God and obediently carry out the work God gave him to do on our behalf.
John P. Jewell, Lectionary Sermons, www.eSermons.com

Employees come first

"Clients do not come first.
Employees come first. 
If you take care of your employees,
they will take care of the clients."
~ Richard Branson

Plan A to Plan Z

"In the start of the season we have Plan A and in the middle we have Plan Z, and then we go around the alphabet like three times."

~ ESTER LEDECKA, on juggling her schedule as she tries to become the first athlete to compete in both skiing and snowboarding at the Olympics.

New York Times quote of the day, November 27, 2017 email

"Not One Expected Me!"

Surprise in Heaven

I dreamt death came the other night
And Heaven’s gate swung wide.
An angel with a halo bright
Ushered me inside.

And there! To my astonishment
Stood folks I’d judged and labeled
As “quite unfit”, “of little worth”,
And “spiritually disabled”.

Indignant words rose to my lips
But never were set free,
For every face showed stunned surprise --
Not one expected me!

~ Anonymous

"Civilized behavior, I believe, is more often measured by what a person restrains himself from doing than by what he does."

Somebody Else's Kids, by Torey L. Hayden
G.P. Putnam’s Sons, New York
Copyright © 1981 by Torey L. Hayden

quotes, p. 214, regarding Dr. Boom’s “expert” view of Torey’s career lovingly and effectively helping “the slowest children” as a special education resource teacher:

Dr. Boom:
“You are a gifted teacher, you know that.  Why are you wasting yourself here?” . . .
“Here with these children who’ll never amount to anything. . . .
You ought to get yourself into university teaching or some other place where you can do some real good.  You shouldn’t waste yourself here.”

Torey:
I did not answer.  Civilized behavior, I believe, is more often measured by what a person restrains himself from doing than by what he does.

Having Close Friends in Old Age Brings Well-Being

quote from Time Magazine, June 26, 2017, p. 19

IT'S HEALTHIER TO BE CLOSE WITH FRIENDS THAN FAMILY
"A report in Personal Relationships that included 270,000 people worldwide found that having close friends in old age was a stronger predictor of physical and emotional well-being than close family connections."
--J.Z.