Tag: inspirational

Quote for the Day: September 11th, 2021

She [Lucy] loved Christ for his suffering, for what they had in common. With all his strength, even Christ had asked if this burden could be lifted from him. The idea that pain was not a random thing, but a punishment of the evil upon the good, the powerful upon the weak, gave her something to rage against. After all, what is the point of being angry at nature when nature could care less? If you cried against barbarism, then at least you were standing up to a consciousness that could hypothetically be shaped. When Lucy believed that there were actually things in the world that were worse than what had happened to her, she could pull herself up on this knowledge like a rope. When she lost sight of it, she sank.

Ann Patchett, Truth & Beauty: [A Friendship]

Quote for the Day: September 5th, 2021

What I Know For Sure by Oprah Winfrey

In this moment, you’re still breathing. In this moment, you’ve survived. In this moment, you’re finding a way to step onto higher ground.

I’ve read What I Know For Sure twice and I keep coming back to this quote. It’s easy to become bogged down by the accretion of worries and problems that we never really seem to have time to process before we have to tackle the next challenge. Remembering this quote helps me to get through by living moment to moment—by living mindfully. I can take stock in each moment when I feel overwhelmed and know that as of right now, I have everything I need. Right now, I am still breathing. Right now, my family is safe, healthy, and provided for. Right now, I am capable of doing what I have to do. Right now. Right now. Right now.

Thanks as always for being a faithful reader of The Voracious Bibliophile. If you like what you see, please like, comment, follow, and subscribe to my email list to get notified of new posts as soon as they drop. You can also email me at fred.slusher@thevoraciousbibliophile.com or catch me on Twitter and Instagram @voraciousbiblog. Keep reading the world, one page (or pixel) at a time.

Quote for the Day: September 4th, 2021

I own my self, I own my leaving

Jorie Graham, Sea Change: Poems

I feel like Jorie Graham is one of those poets who just gets it. Her work seems to come from this wellspring of hidden and ancient knowledge, accessible only to a few people who are willing to dig, to seek, and then finally to see. I love this entire collection, but those eight words right there say everything. I own my self, I own my leaving. Carve that on my headstone, please. When birds are relieving themselves on my resting place, let these be the words that passersby can see.

Thanks as always for being a faithful reader of The Voracious Bibliophile. If you like what you see, please like, comment, follow, and subscribe to my email list to get notified of new posts as soon as they drop. You can also email me at fred.slusher@thevoraciousbibliophile.com or catch me on Twitter and Instagram @voraciousbiblog. Keep reading the world, one page (or pixel) at a time.

Poem for the Day: September 3rd, 2021

The Symbolic Life by Hayan Charara 

They kept showing up, for days,
dead on the windowsill, 
and for days I did nothing about the ladybugs 
except to ask if their entering the house 
unnoticed and dying before I saw them 
was symbolic. 
Thinking was so easy. 
They symbolized birth and death,
change and rebirth. 
It was also possible the tiny beetles 
embodies an inborn need 
to show themselves,
to turn up in every and any place,
even as the dried out remains of the once-lively. 
Or they stood for the burden of being one thing 
relieved by becoming another,
which all the world’s children suffer. 

This went on and on, and could’ve gone on 
forever, so I finally opened the window 
and blew them into the wide open 
because everything and everyone should get a 
     chance 
to be mourned, and they got theirs, 
but first they had to die, which is life, 
not symbolism.

Copyright © 2017 by Hayan Charara. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on August 25, 2017, by the Academy of American Poets.