A Soulful Journey

Speaking in 1975 in Baltimore at a ZOA gathering, Menachem Begin delivered a speech on why Israel should not give up land for a promise of international guarantees.  The next morning headlines appeared in the Morning Sun, "Ex-Israeli Terrorist Asks for Weapons." Some things never change.

Mother Theresa said, “We can do no great things, only small things with great love.”

An angry reader once stormed into a newspaper office waving the day’s paper, asking to see the editor of the obituary column. He showed him his name in the obituary listing. “You see,” he said, “I am very much alive. I demand a retraction!” The editor replied, “I never retract a story. But I’ll tell you what I’ll do; I’ll put you in the birth column and give you a fresh start!” Now that we are nearing the end of one year and the beginning of another, can we start again?

“The prayer of little faith is where you hold fast to the concrete of the present situation in order to win a certain amount of security.   The prayer of little faith is filled with wishes which beg for immediate fulfillment.   the prayer of wish fulfillment has a Santa Claus naiveté which   wants to satisfy specific desires.   When the prayer is not heard, that is, when you don’t get the present you wanted, there is disappointment, even hard feelings and bitterness.”   -Henri J.M Nouwen

“I have always felt that the moment when first you wake in the morning is the most wonderful of the 24 hours.   No matter how weary you feel. You possess the certainty that anything may happen.   The fact that it practically always doesn’t matters not one jot.   The possibility is there.   –Monica Baldwin, I leap Over the Wall This echoes the prayer we recite each morning, “My God, the soul you have planted in me is pure…”

I wish that there were some wonderful place called the Land of Beginning Again.   -Louise Fletcher in the Land of Beginning Again. There is.  We call it Teshuva.   You just have to do it.