People are unreasonable, illogical,
and self-centered.
Love them anyway.
If you do good, people
will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives.
Do good anyway.
If you are successful, you will win
false friends and true enemies.
Succeed anyway.
The good you do today will be
forgotten tomorrow.
Do good anyway.
Honesty and frankness make you
vulnerable.
Be honest and frank anyway.
What you spend years building may be
destroyed overnight.
Build anyway.
People really need help but may
attack you if you help them.
Help people anyway.
Give the world the best you have and
you’ll get kicked in the teeth.
Give the world the best you have
anyway.
-- Submitted by Robert Howerton, OblOSB.
A Tree of Angels
There is a quote from
Benedictine Abbott Marmion that has become a guide for me as I spend time in
divine reading each day. He says:
Read under the eye of God
Until your heart is touched
Then give yourself up to love.
This is a special and unique way of reading.
It is a slow, reflective reading, reading with a longing to be touched, healed,
and transformed by the Word. It is
quality reading rather than quantity.
Just as when you sit down at the dinner table, you do not necessarily
eat everything on the table, so, too, when you approach the table of the
scriptures, you are not there to cover territory.
Nutritionists tell us that to get full
benefit from the food we eat, we should chew slowly. In other words, eat contemplatively. The same is true of the food of the scriptures. To be fully nourished by the richness’
hidden in these words you must hover over them slowly and reverently as one who
is certain of finding a treasure. Your search for the treasure, though, is not
a desperate, hurried, frantic search. Rather, you search calmly and with
assurance. You will find the treasure. You will be fed. You will be
transformed.
Remembering that we are reading under the
eye of God is an immense help for our distracted hearts. We are naturally
distracted creatures. We do not yet own the undivided hearts we yearn for.
Remembering that we are reading under the eye of God can help us remain open to
the possibility of that divine eye guiding us in our reading. If we accept the
loving gaze of that eye, it will indeed hover over us as we read. It will penetrate us, heal us, and open our
eyes to the truth. It will look out from within us. It will read through us and
we will be changed by its unfailing gaze in our direction.
We do not always realize what a radical
suggestion it is for us to read to be formed and transformed rather than to
gather information. We are information seekers. We love to cover territory. It
is not easy for us to stop reading when the heart is touched; we are a people
who like to get finished. Lectio offers us a new way to read. Read with a
vulnerable heart. Expect to be blessed in the reading. Read as one awake, one
waiting for the beloved. Read with reverence.