This, in a nutshell, is a path I have described:

One fruit of suffering is awareness of our innate poverty.
One fruit of our awareness of our innate poverty is humility.
One fruit of our humility is awareness of our solidarity.
One fruit of awareness of our solidarity is compassion.
The fruit of compassion is love. johnboy

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A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write if he is to be ultimately at peace with himself. What one can be, one must be. Abraham Maslow

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This is a path we can walk, too:
The fruit of silence is prayer.
The fruit of prayer is faith.
The fruit of faith is love.
The fruit of love is service.
The fruit of service is peace. Mother Teresa

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All men desire peace, but few desire the things that make for peace. Thomas A Kempis

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And this:
Let us desire and occupy ourselves in prayer,
not so much to gain consolations
but so as to gain the strength to serve. Teresa of Avila

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And this:
Undisturbed peace of mind is attained by the cultivation of friendliness toward the happy, compassion for the unhappy, delight in the virtuous, and indifference in the evil.” Patanjali

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And this:
The first day or so
we all pointed to our countries.

The third or fourth day
we were pointing to our continents.

By the fifth day
we were aware of only one Earth. Discovery 5 Space Mission

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Life is never a material, a substance to be molded. If you want to know, life is the principle of self-renewal; it is constantly renewing and remaking and changing and transfiguring itself. Boris Pasternak, Doctor Zhivago

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I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. 'Tis the business of little minds to shrink, but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death. Paine (1737-1809)

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It's a retelling of:
the purgative, the illuminative and the unitive.

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Of the joyful, the sorrowful and glorious mysteries.

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Of incarnation, death and resurrection.

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Of the Protestant:

Receive the Word.
Listen to the Word.
Meditate on the Word.
Recite the Word together.
Act on the Word.
Expect the Word to Happen.

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Of the Catholic:

Lectio
Meditatio
Collatio
Operatio
Contemplatio

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Of the Eucharist:
Liturgy of the Word
Homily
Credo
Offertory
Communion
Dismissal - sending forth in service and love.

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Each one has to find his peace from within. And peace to be real must be unaffected by outside circumstances. Gandhi

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Either for God or against God...Upon that choice hangs the fate of the world. In every department of life, in politics and economics, in the sciences and arts, in the State and in domestic life we follow God’s laws to peace or bypass them into chaos. Richard Cushing

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We are never so happy or so unhappy as we imagine. La Rochefoucald

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Before we set our hearts too much on anything, let us examine how happy are those who already possess it. La Rochefoucauld

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If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each man's life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

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Believe me, every man has his secret sorrows, which the world knows not; and often time we call a man cold, when he is only sad. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

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Realize that true happiness lies within you. Waste no time and effort searching for peace and contentment and joy in the world outside. Remember that there is no happiness in having or in getting, but only in giving. Reach out. Share. Smile. Hug. Happiness is a perfume you cannot pour on others without getting a few drops on yourself. Og Mandino

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First, recognize that you are not a sheep who will be satisfied with only a few nibbles of dry grass or with following the herd as they wander aimlessly, bleating and whining, all of their days. Separate yourself now from the multitude of humanity so that you will be able to control your own destiny. Remember that what others think and say and do need never influence what you think and say and do. Og Mandino

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The logic of worldly success rests on a fallacy: the strange error that our perfection depends on the thoughts and opinions and applause of other men! A weird life it is, indeed, to be living always in somebody else's imagination, as if that were the only place in which one could at last become real! Thomas Merton, Seven Storey Mountain

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The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a Heav'n of Hell, a Hell of Heav'n. John Milton

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The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance; The wise grows it under his feet. James Oppenheim

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Emotional sickness is avoiding reality at any cost. Emotional health is facing reality at any cost. M. Scott Peck


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Take all of this advice or leave it, but:

You're lambed if you do and your lambed if you don't. Brad

a pax upon ya! of the other-wordly variety
jb

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Subject title changed at Johnboy's request (you can do it yourself in an edit, JB).

hey ad-minister-ator - that wuz supposed to be Peace

What a wonderful collection of thoughts. By reading it I felt as if I'd attended surmon at the kind of church I would visit if I ever did. Well, that at least gives me free rein to watch some football now.

<<All men desire peace, but few desire the things that make for peace. Thomas A Kempis>>

<<Each one has to find his peace from within. And peace to be real must be unaffected by outside circumstances. Gandhi>>

<<If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each man's life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow>>

<<Realize that true happiness lies within you. Waste no time and effort searching for peace and contentment and joy in the world outside. Remember that there is no happiness in having or in getting, but only in giving. Reach out. Share. Smile. Hug. Happiness is a perfume you cannot pour on others without getting a few drops on yourself. Og Mandino>>

These catch my eye in particular, although all are extraordinary. I hope by repeating these they might rub off a little. Nice post, jb.

If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each man's life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Isn't this at the heart of compassion? When we are able to accept the idea that we inspite of our infinite wisdom and understanding cannot know the inner workings of each other's minds nor the totality of their experiences, we are forced to accept the possibility that they may not be who they seem to be. I think of the children who opened fire on other kids in school and have to wonder what was it that made them so full of hate and anger that they could do this. Why does one child turn to drugs and another not. Why does one child make it out of the ghetto and another turn to gangs - sometimes in the same family. There is so little we really know about each other how can we judge?
We are so unaware of the impact we make on the lives of others - both good and bad that it is hard to condemn that which by sin of either commission or omission I may have had a part in. All that's left is forgiveness both of ourselves and others and sometimes we ourselves are the hardest to forgive. Lord have mercy! and he does!!!

Peace,
Wanda

If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each man's life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Wanda wrote: "Isn't this at the heart of compassion?"
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Your response was right on the mark, Wanda. I just know, in my heart of hearts, that if the Speilbergs and Frank Capras and all the great producers and directors of today and yesteryear could get together and make an authentic feauture length movie of any human being's life --- there'd be much laughter and there'd also be much weeping.

Whether others' behaviors originate from poor formation (and deformation and lack of formation), from mental or emotional illness (chronic or temporary) or from lack of cooperation with grace (let's call it sin or willful rejection of love) --- we can never know. That's on reason to avoid judgment. Another is because Jesus issued an injunctive against it.

This, of course, does not mean that we do not interdict such behavior (and even punish it) in order to protect the perpetrators themselves, and society, from their dysfunction. When we do administer civil or criminal justice, or wage a just war ... well ...my bandwidth allotment already thus runneth over ... I'll make that a poem for others to fillin the blanks: ___________________________________________

shalom,indeed
jboy

What another great thread! You're on a roll, JB!!!

I think that listing of quotes is one of the best little collections I've come across. One could almost make-do with those as grist for meditation and not need any supplementary material for a long, long time.

Phil

This, in a nutshell, is a path I have described:
One fruit of suffering is awareness of our innate poverty.
One fruit of our awareness of our innate poverty is humility.
One fruit of our humility is awareness of our solidarity.
One fruit of awareness of our solidarity is compassion.
The fruit of compassion is love. johnboy
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One element that I intended here, of paramount importance, is gratitude. Strangely, it is conflated, in my mind, as the obverse of the coin of humility. The more we recognize our utter nothingness (which engenders humility), then the more we cultivate an attitude of gratitude!
gratefully,
jboy

"The more we recognize our utter nothingness (which engenders humility), then the more we cultivate an attitude of gratitude!"

Reminds me of a story I got over the net.....

A Flight of Geese

Yesterday I watched a huge flight of geese winging their way south through one of those panoramic sunsets that color the entire sky for a few moments. I saw them as I leaned against
the lion statue in front of the Chicago Art Institute, where I was watching the Christmas shoppers hurry along Michigan Avenue. When I lowered my gaze, I noticed that a bag lady, standing a few feet away, had also been watching the geese. Our eyes met and we smiled - silently acknowledging the fact that we had shared a marvelous sight, a symbol of the mystery of the struggle to survive. I overheard the lady talking to herself as she shuffled away. Her words, "God spoils me," were startling.
Was the lady, this street derelict, being facetious? No. I believe the sight of the geese had shattered, however briefly, the harsh reality of her own struggle. I realized later that
moments such as this one sustained her; it was the way she survived the indignity of the street. Her smile was real.
The sight of the geese was her Christmas present. It was proof God existed. It was all she needed. I envy her. by Fred Lloyd Cochran

God spoils us in so very many ways... with friends and families, the beauty that surrounds us, even in those situations that bring pain we can see the blessings if we look closely. He really does spoil us rotten.

No wonder we tend to be such brats.

Peace,
Wanda