Inspirational Quotes Nov/Dec. 2008

In late November of 2008, I began sending a weekly inspirational quote (via email) to over 200 people. The quotes focus on simplicity and spirituality.

I recently realized that I should post those quotes to this blog, too. So here they are, by month (for the most part). Once I've caught up with the past quotes, I will start posting them here each week when I send them out. Meanwhile, if you'd like to receive the weekly email, send a request to ClaireJosefine@wildblue.net. And if you know of anyone else who might appreciate receiving these quotes, please, let them know!

Blessings, and enjoy --

Claire


Issue 1, November 24, 2008
"In truth, it is not the number and diversity of our possessions that are the problems but our attachment to them. When the attachment grows thin and the filament breaks, then we discover that we do not really want so much anymore. What we need to relinquish, therefore, is our attachment to possessions and experiences, not the things themselves. The freedom we are all seeking is freedom from the fear of losing what we believe we own."
– from Nothing Left Over by Toinette Lippe



Issue 2, December 1, 2008
"What do we live for, if it is not to make life less difficult for each other?"
– George Eliot


Issue 3, December 8, 2008
"[Think of] God playing hide and seek with himself, remembering himself, then dismembering himself into the myriad roles played by sentient beings… All bodies are the clothes of the one and only Self in its innumerable disguises, and the whole universe is a masquerade ball pretending to be a tragedy and then realizing it’s a ball."
– Alan Watts


Issue 4, December 15, 2008
"The bird of paradise alights only upon the hand that does not grasp."
– John Berry



Issue 5, December 22, 2008
"God is more glorified by a man who uses the good things of this life in simplicity and with gratitude than by the nervous asceticism of someone who is agitated about every detail of his self-denial. … His [the latter’s] struggle for perfection becomes a kind of battle of wits with the Creator who made all things good."
– Thomas Merton



Issue 6, December 29, 2008
“It can be said that the Earth is a mask of God which appears in many contradictions – good and evil, refined and coarse, alive and dead, enduring and transitory. But behind this cover of plurality is God’s oneness. The boulder and the soap bubble are identical. Stupidity is only crippled wisdom. The dead aren’t dead, the departed haven’t vanished. God lives, and everything that comes from Him is alive. Darkness is only dimmed light. The wrongs are disguised mercies.

Why did God require this concealment? … God bestowed upon the people of the Earth – which is the lowest and darkest of all the worlds – a gift that no other world could have received: free will, the freedom to choose between good and evil. In the higher spheres, God’s light is too radiant to allow doubt and error.”
– from Reaches of Heaven by Isaac Bashevis Singer