Good Friday

“Every time we make the decision to love someone, we open ourselves to great suffering, because those we most love cause us not only great joy but also great pain. The greatest pain comes from leaving… the pain of the leaving can tear us apart. Still, if we want to avoid the suffering of leaving, we will never experience the joy of loving. And love is stronger than fear, life stronger than death, hope stronger than despair. We have to trust that the risk of loving is always worth taking.”

Henri Nouwen, priest, professor and theologian

Maundy Thursday

“The grass never sleeps.
Or the roses.
Nor does the lily have a secret eye that shuts until morning.
Jesus said, wait with me. But the disciples slept.

The cricket has such splendid fringe on his feet,
and it sings, have you noticed, with its whole body,
and heaven knows if it ever sleeps.

Jesus said, wait with me. And maybe the stars did, maybe
the wind wound itself into a silver tree, and didn’t move.
Maybe the lake far away, where once he walked
as on a blue pavement,
lay still and waited, wild awake.

Oh the dear bodies, slumped and eye-shut, that could not
keep that vigil, how they must have wept,
so utterly human, knowing this too
must be part of the story.”

Gethsemane by Mary Oliver

“I feel I am privileged to express a hope. The hope is this: that we shall have peace throughout the world, that we shall abolish wars and settle all international differences at the conference table, that we shall abolish all atom and hydrogen bombs before they abolish us. The future of the modern world demands modern thinking. Therefore, let us use the full force of our intelligence instead of obsolete homicidal methods in settling our international differences.”

Charlie Chaplin’s message to the world on his 70th birthday, 16th April 1959

“Even Kings and Emperors with heaps of wealth and vast dominion cannot compare to an ant filled with the love of God.”

Guru Nanak (1469 – 1539), founder and first Guru of Sikhism, born on this day

“There are ways in, journeys to the center of life, through time; through air, matter, dream and thought. The ways are not always mapped or charted, but sometimes being lost, if there is such a thing, is the sweetest place to be. And always, in this search, a person might find that she is already there, at the center of the world. It may be a broken world, but it is glorious nonetheless.”

Linda Hogan, poet, environmentalist and former Chickasaw Nation writer in residence

Palm Sunday

Psalm 31 You as You are by Christine Robinson

“I have come to you, O God, please, take me in.
Hear my prayers, be my rock, my stronghold, my castle.
Help me untangle myself from the web of confusions and self-deceptions that I’m stuck in.
I put my trust in you—I give you my life.

I have turned
from the temptation to trust the ten thousand things.
I have turned
from the temptation to despair of your love and help.
I have learned
to see you in my sorrows and afflictions.
A lot of my life went by before I managed this,
which makes me sad.

Now, I practice trust and open-hearted acceptance
of my life as it is.
Now I practice trust and open-hearted acceptance
of You as You are.”

International Day of Human Space Flight

“Orbiting Earth in the spaceship, I saw how beautiful our planet is. People, let us preserve and increase this beauty, not destroy it!”

Yuri Gagarin, first human in space on this day in 1961

“The secret of a full life is to live and relate to others as if they might not be there tomorrow, as if you might not be there tomorrow. It eliminates the vice of procrastination, the sin of postponement, failed communications, failed communions. This thought has made me more and more attentive to all encounters, meetings, introductions, which might contain the seed of depth that might be carelessly overlooked. This feeling has become a rarity, and rarer every day now that we have reached a hastier and more superficial rhythm, now that we believe we are in touch with a greater amount of people, more people, more countries. This is the illusion which might cheat us of being in touch deeply with the one breathing next to us. The dangerous time when mechanical voices, radios, telephones, take the place of human intimacies, and the concept of being in touch with millions brings a greater and greater poverty in intimacy and human vision.”

Anaïs Nin, writer (1903 – 1977)

“You know more of a road by having travelled it than by all the conjectures and descriptions in the world.”

From On the Conduct of Life by William Hazlitt (1778 – 1830), literary critic and essayist, raised Unitarian, born on this day

“The artist must elect to fight for freedom or for slavery. I have made my choice. I had no alternative. The history of the capitalist era is characterized by the degradation of my people: despoiled of their lands, their true culture destroyed… denied equal protection of the law, and deprived their rightful place in the respect of their fellows.”

Paul Robeson (1989 – 1976), actor, singer and social justice activist, born on this day