* backlog *

it's 3:30pm and i'm still in my pyjamas. i can't remember the last time i was able to do this. there's something special about being able to laze around all day in your jammies and never having to leave the house. i happen to be very good at this.

so with all this lazing around, i actually have time to update my blog, post photos taken since may (may!) on facebook, and clean the house.

and here are a collection of good quotes that i've been collecting over the months, mostly from the 'sojourners' website. hope they give people something worthwhile to think about today :)

At our best, we become Sabbath for one another. We are the emptiness, the day of rest. We become space, that our loved ones, the lost and sorrowful, may find rest in us. - Wayne Muller, from "Sabbath" quoted in "How Shall We Live" by Joan Chittister, OSB.

The measure of a society’s progress is not whether it can give more to those who have more, but whether it can provide enough to those who have less. - David Lim


In an oppressive society if a group stands up to take care of the lambs, it automatically stands up against the wolves. ~ Vishal Mangalwadi

We cannot merely pray to You, O God to end war:
For we know You made the world in a way
That we must find our own path of peace
Within ourselves and with our neighbor.

We cannot merely pray to You, O God, to root out prejudice:
For you have already given us eyes
With which to see the good in all people
If we would only use them rightly.
- Rabbi Jack Riemer, excerpt from a prayer entitled "Social Action" found in Living God's Justice: Reflections and Prayers.

We fear so deeply what we think other people see in us, so we talk in order to straighten out thier understanding. ... One of the fruits of silence is the freedom to let our justification rest entirely with God. - Richard Foster, from 'Celebration of Discipline'

Silence, for many people, allows the soul to grow and develop in its spiritual dimension. In fact, the more one finds the reality of silence, the more significant it becomes. While this in itself is a danger, the same is true of anything else we touch which has such real value. - Morton T. Kelsey

Why do people think the spiritual life demands withdrawal drom the ordinary? Because they've been taught, at least by implication, that the physical is a block to the spiritual. When we assume that the spiritual, unlike the physical, is impervious to corrosion, then we assume that all things material are not to be honored. But the fact of the matter is, the material is the vehicle of the spiritual. ~ Joan Chittister

and this last one is especially in honor of all the gateway/sunshiners:

The rhythm of life for a kingdom dweller puts chronos in service of kairos, the cyclical in service of the directional, the calendar in service of the kingdom. ... As we submit our anarchy to a rhythm, in a sort of earthy, mystical way, all of life is lived lucidly, intentionally, and to the glory of God. Every washing becomes a baptism; every eating a Communion. Every sleeping becomes a dying; every rising a resurrection. - Kenneth Gottman, from 'Ministry and Mission'