Hope Makes a Difference

Hope looks for the good in people instead of harping on the worst in them.
Hope opens doors where despair closes them.
Hope discovers what can be done instead of grumbling about what cannot be done.
Hope draws its power from a deep trust in God and the basic goodness of mankind.
Hope ‘lights a candle’ ‘instead of cursing the darkness’.
Hope regards problems, large or small, as opportunities.
Hope cherishes no illusions, nor does it yield to cynicism.

Live in Hope

The very least you can do in your life is to figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope. Not admire it from a distance but live right in it, under its roof.

- Barbara Kingsolver

The source of greatness

Buried deep within each of us is a spark of greatness, a spark than can be fanned into flames of passion and achievement. That spark is not outside of you it is born deep within you.

- James A. Ray

Doubting Oneself

A person who doubts himself is like a man who would enlist in the ranks of his enemies and bear arms against himself. He makes his failure certain by himself being the first person to be convinced of it.

- Alexandre Dumas

Democracy's Ideal

My idea of democracy is that the weak is improved as much as the strong. Democracy is an impossible thing unless the power is shared by all.

- Mahatma Gandhi

Joy and struggle

Jesus calls us to recognise that gladness and sadness are never separate, that joy and sorrow really belong together, and that mourning and dancing are part of the same movement. That is why Jesus calls us to be grateful for every moment that we have lived and to claim our unique journey as God’s way to mould our hearts to greater conformity with God’s own. The cross is the main symbol of our faith, and it invites us to find hope where we see pain and to reaffirm the resurrection where we see death. The call to be grateful is a call to trust that every moment of our life can be claimed as the way of the cross that leads us to new life

- Henri Nouwen

A different future

“They have taken the Lord out of his tomb and we do not know where they have laid him,” Mary Magdalene said, and we can say this with her in times of doubt and questioning. Then there’s that last glorious chapter of Saint Luke, where Jesus says, “Why are you so perturbed? Why do questions arise in your minds? Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself. Touch me and see.”
Yes, sometimes it is most surely an exercise of faith for us to see Christ, especially in each other. But it is through such exercise that we grow, and the joy of our calling assures us we are on the right path. Most certainly, it is easier to believe now that the sun warms us, and we know that buds will appear on the sycamore trees in the wasteland across the street, that life will spring out of the dull clods of that littered park. There are wars and rumors of war, poverty and plague, hunger and pain. Still, the sap is rising, again there is the resurrection of spring, God’s continuing promise to us that he is with us always, with his comfort and joy, if we will only ask

- Dorothy Day

Resurrection

We pay more attention to dying than to death. We’re more concerned to get over the act of dying than to overcome death. Socrates mastered the art of dying; Christ overcame death as the last enemy. There is a real difference between the two things; the one is within the scope of human possibilities, the other means resurrection

- Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Salvation begins...

How easy it is to denounce structural injustice, institutionalised violence, social sin! And it is true, this sin is everywhere, but where are the roots of this social sin? In the heart of every human being. Present-day society is a sort of anonymous world in which no one is willing to admit guilt, and everyone is responsible. We are all sinners, and we have all contributed to this massive crime and violence in our country. Salvation begins with the human person, with human dignity, with saving every person from sin

- Oscar Romero

Thankfulness

There is no better opportunity to receive more than to be thankful for what you already have. Thanksgiving opens the windows of opportunity for ideas to flow you way.

- Jim Rohn

The Crucified God

The symbol of the cross in the church points to the God who was crucified not between two candles on an altar, but between two thieves in the place of the skull, where the outcasts belong, outside the gates of the city. It does not invite thought, but a change of mind. It is a symbol which therefore leads out of the church and out of religious longing into the fellowship of the oppressed and abandoned. On the other hand, it is a symbol which calls the oppressed and godless into the church and through the church into the fellowship of the crucified God.

Jürgen Moltmann, The Crucified God

Ignorance

The young do not know enough to be prudent, and therefore they attempt the impossible, and achieve it, generation after generation.

- Pearl S. Buck

Wisdom

A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds.

Francis Bacon (1561-1626)

Youth

That's what being young is all about. You have the courage and the daring to think that you can make a difference. You're not prone to measure your energies in time. You're not likely to live by equations.

- Ruby Dee

The Ultimate Victor

When I despair, I remember that all through history, the way of truth and love has always won. There have been murderers and tyrants, and for a time they can seem invincible. But in the end they always fall. Think of it, always.

- Mohandas Gandhi

Destiny

If humans are to fully attain their destinies, so far as earthly development permits this; if they are to become truly whole, unbroken units, they must feel and know themselves to be one, not only with God and humanity, but also with nature

- Friedrich Froebel

Freedom

Freedom is not a thing you can receive as a gift. One can be free even under a dictatorship on one simple condition, that is, if one struggles against it. A man who thinks with his own mind and remains uncorrupted is a free man. A man who struggles for what he believes to be right is a free man. You can live in the most democratic country in the world, and if you are lazy, callous, servile, you are not free, in spite of the absence of violence and coercion, you are a slave

- Ignazio Silone

Misery

The greater part of happiness or misery depends on our dispositions, and not on our circumstances. We carry the seeds of the one or the other about with us in our minds wherever we go.

- Martha Washington

Looking Ahead

The new frontier of which I speak is not a set of promises - it is a set of challenges. It sums up not what I intend to offer the American people, but what I intend to ask of them. It appeals to their pride, not their pocketbook - it holds out the promise of more sacrifice instead of more security.

- John F. Kennedy

Happiness

We tend to forget that happiness doesn't come as a result of getting something we don't have, but rather of recognising and appreciating what we do have.

- Frederick Keonig