SCHOLARLY MUSINGS

Ordinarily Sacred

“Inventories from children’s hiding places and from religious holy places bear a remarkable similarity: bones, bright stones, beads, fur, feathers, bits of writing, nuts, a picture; or relics, urim and thummin, the borrowed power of the totemic animal, the regenerative grain, the sacred text, the host, the icon. Why do children collect feathers, hide gold paper, delicately perch a marble in the arms of an unresisting house plant, or stick shells under their beds or stones into their mattresses? The ‘junk’ that is precious to children — and to adults — is precisely the stuff of the sacred.”

-Lynda Sexson, Ordinarily Sacred (1982)

EXTRAORDINARILY SACRED

Words Of Grace and Beauty

 

“People are often unreasonable and self-centered. Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of ulterior motives. Be kind anyway.

If you are honest, people may cheat you. Be honest anyway.

If you find happiness, people may be jealous. Be happy anyway.

The good you do today may be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway.

Give the world the best you have and it may never be enough. Give your best anyway.

For you see, in the end, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway.”

– Mother Teresa