Wendell Berry

"Everyday you have less reason not to give yourself away."

~Wendell Berry

Some of his most awesome books:
A Timbered Choir: The Sabbath Poems 1979-1997
The Selected Poems of Wendell Berry
A Timbered Choir: The Sabbath Poems 1979-1997
Wendell Berry and the Cultivation of Life: A Reader's Guide
The Mad Farmer Poems
The Unsettling of America: Culture & Agriculture

'I think now that being free is not being powerful or rich or well regarded or without obligations, but being able to love. To love someone else enough to forget about yourself even for a moment is to be free.'

-from Jeanette Winterson, The Passion


...Everything in life turned into a love relationship as I started to think only in terms of love. I began to do things not because I needed to but because I wanted to. Because I would have loved to. ... I tell myself there is not one thing I have to do, including being alive. I have to choose life from death every second to continue living, and I do so because I love living. When one is choosing life, each breath is sweet, as if the air has fruit juice in it and the clouds are made of cotton candy.

prayer by Mother Teresa & Missionaries of Charity

Deliver me, O Jesus
From the desire of being loved,
From the desire of being extolled,
From the desire of being honored,
From the desire of being praised,
From the desire of being preferred,
From the desire of being consulted,
From the desire of being approved,
From the desire of being popular,
From the fear of being humiliated,
From the fear of being despised,
From the fear of being rebuked,
From the fear of being calumniated,
From the fear of being forgotten,
From the fear of being wronged,
From the fear of being ridiculed,
From the fear of being suspected.

~Mother Teresa, p. 37-38,
A Simple Path

Once there was a fox who had lost one of his legs, so he could not go and get his own food. He had made friends with a tiger who brought him food every day. The tiger would hunt in the forest and eat half the food. Then he would give the rest to the fox.
A man who was walking through the forest saw what was happening. He was delighted. Every day he returned to watch the tiger bring food to the lame fox. He thought to himself, "This fox does not work. The tiger brings him food. I don't have to work either; I will also sit and someone will bring food. God will provide for me."
He sat down in the forest. Days passed by, and he began to lose a lot of weight. Finally he was near death. At the last minute a great voice from within suddenly boomed, "O man! Do not follow the fox! Follow the tiger!"
"Follow the tiger." The tiger was serving the fox without expectation of anything in return.

-Gurumayi Chidvilasananda, Kindle My Heart: Wisdom and Inspiration from a Living Master

Manifest plainness,
Embrace simplicity,
Reduce selfishness,
Have few desires.
– Lao Tzu

Unattached service does not mean indifferent work. Selfless actions are not soul-less, heart-less actions. You should put your heart and soul in all that you do. Remember always that you are serving the Lord Himself in all.

~Swami Sivananda

10.01.08 - Live for others

When you learn to live for others,

they will live for you too.

– Paramahansa Yogananda

09.30.08 - Love

The Clod and the Pebble
"Love seeketh not Itself to please,
Nor for Itself hath any care,
But for another gives Its ease,
And builds a Heaven in Hell's despair."

So sang a little Clod of Clay
Trodden with the cattle's feet,
But a Pebble of the brook
Warbled out these metres meet:

"Love seeketh only Self to please,
To bind another to Its delight,
Joys in another's loss of ease,
And builds a Hell in Heaven's despite."
William Blake