A Soulful Journey

Life is no straight and easy corridor along which we travel free and unhampered. But always, if we have faith, God will open a door for us, not perhaps one that we ourselves would ever have thought of, but one that will ultimately prove good for us.   -A.J. Cronin

"I am ignorant of any one quality that is amiable in a man which is not equally so in a woman." - Jonathan Swift When the world knows and acknowledges this, it will be a better place.

There is a story of the minister who delivered a lengthy sermon for some three-quarters of an hour and when he was done one of the people in the audience approached him and told him that he was a reporter from the McNeil/Lehrer Report, he was deeply impressed with the sermon and was wondering if some of it could be used on television.    He asked: “Reverend, could you summarize this sermon in five minutes?”    The minister, thrilled at the opportunity of being on national television, replied: “Of course.”    To which the reporter queried:    “Then why didn't you?”     -Rabbi Mitchell Wohlberg

Stephen Decatur, US Naval Officer and hero, wrote, "My country, may she always be in the right, but my country right or wrong." Half a century later, Carl Schurz, friend of Abraham Lincoln and Civil War hero, wrote, "My country, may she always be in the right! When right to be kept right, When wrong to set right." There is much to be learned from these statements about how we live our personal lives.  Do we justify our actions?  Or critically look at them and expunge what is not good?

" We have all of us sufficient fortitude to bear the misfortune of others.”   - LaRochefoucauld 

There is an old story told of Napoleon’s mother after he had been coronated as Emperor of the French empire.  She said, “It’s very nice if it lasts.”  - Michael Korda, Newsweek, 6/80

“Before she is 18 years, any lady should need to have good parents; from 18 to 35 years she should need to be good-looking; from 35 to 55, she should need to have a good disposition, and from 55 onward, much money.”   -Sophie Tucker With each new stage of life comes new priorities   Some are imagined.  Some are too real.

When there is peace below, there is peace on high. 
And when there is peace on high, a sense of abundance and satiety is revealed in the world below. 
 - Rebbe Nachman The  universes are always connected.  What we do matters.  Really matters.

If there is meaning in life at all, there must be a meaning in suffering.  Suffering ia an ineradicable part of life, even as fate and death.  Without suffering and death human life cannot be complete.” –Viktor Frankl

“To whom who has the means and refuses to help the needy, the Holy One says, “Bear in mind fortune is a wheel.”     -R. Nachman, Tanhuma, Mishpatim