“We must have courage — determination — to go on with the task of becoming free — not only for ourselves, but for the nation and the world — cooperate with each other. Have faith in God and ourselves… I would like to be remembered as a person who wanted to be free … so other people would be also free… I would like to be known as a person who is concerned about freedom and equality and justice and prosperity for all people… To this day I believe we are here on earth to live, grow, and do what we can to make this world a better place for all people to enjoy freedom.”

Rosa Parks, civil rights activist, arrested in Montgomery, Alabama, on this day in 1955, for refusing to give up her seat on a bus to a white passenger

“The best doctors in the world are Doctor Diet, Doctor Quiet, and Doctor Merryman.”

Jonathan Swift, author of Gulliver’s Travels, born on this day in 1667

“Love is a flower that grows in any soil, works its sweet miracles undaunted by autumn frost or winter snow, blooming fair and fragrant all the year, and blessing those who give and those who receive.”

Louisa May Alcott, born on this day in 1832

“Joy and woe are woven fine,
A clothing for the soul divine,
Under every grief and pine,
Runs a joy with silken twine.
It is right it should be so,
We were made for joy and woe,
And when this we rightly know,
Through the world we safely go.”

William Blake, born on this day in 1757

“Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope. Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore we must be saved by faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore we are saved by love.”

Reinhold Neibuhr

“Remember the sky that you were born under,
know each of the star’s stories.
Remember the moon, know who she is.
Remember the sun’s birth at dawn, that is the
strongest point of time. Remember sundown
and the giving away to night.
Remember your birth, how your mother struggled
to give you form and breath. You are evidence of
her life, and her mother’s, and hers.
Remember your father. He is your life, also.
Remember the earth whose skin you are:
red earth, black earth, yellow earth, white earth
brown earth, we are earth.
Remember the plants, trees, animal life who all have their
tribes, their families, their histories, too. Talk to them,
listen to them. They are alive poems.
Remember the wind. Remember her voice. She knows the
origin of this universe.
Remember you are all people and all people
are you.
Remember you are this universe and this
universe is you.
Remember all is in motion, is growing, is you.
Remember language comes from this.
Remember the dance language is, that life is.
Remember.”

Joy Harjo

“Be grateful for your life, every detail of it, and your face will come to shine like a sun, and everyone who sees it will be made glad and peaceful. Persist in gratitude, and you will slowly become one with the Sun of Love, and Love will shine through you its all-healing joy.”

Rumi

“The first story about humankind in the Bible is about people eating something they’re not supposed to. In this season of bounty, as you sit down to feast, your own relationship with food may pose a similar struggle. Are you conscious of what you’re eating?

The Eden story, in which we claimed free will as we gave up the garden, places our relationship with food at the heart of the matter. Why, with so many other possible laws to create, did God put a form of nourishment off limits? Perhaps it’s because what we take into ourselves does create us anew. Our food’s vitamins, minerals, and nutrients literally compose us. We create ourselves anew with each dinner. Bon appetit.”

Brian Nelson

“I think probably kindness is my number one attribute in a human being. I’ll put it before any of the things like courage or bravery or generosity or anything else.. Kindness – that simple word. To be kind – it covers everything, to my mind. If you’re kind that’s it.”

Roald Dahl, who was born on this day in 1990

Monday Prayers by Carla Grosch-Miller,

“At every beginning,
bless our dreaming
and our doing.

The day lies before us,
full of the mundane and the miraculous,
the known and the unknown.

Be the breath we take before each step.
Be the source from which we draw strength.
Be the end toward which we direct our hope.

Open our eyes to all that is around us.
Open our ears to the song the soul yearns to sing.
Open our hearts to the love that lives through us.
Open our hands to the task the moment requires.

Let us do this one thing,
the thing before us,
as if all creation
and our very life
depend upon it,

as if You are bent over,
watching and listening
and willing us
to do it well.”