Words of Wisdom is a segment in my Friday morning Ada Sunrise Rotary meetings.
I want to weigh in on an awkward truth that has been brewing the last few years: the perception that most people, especially younger people, can’t afford to buy a house. Consider this: my parents’ first house had four rooms, one bathroom, no air conditioning, and no garage. They had one phone, which was a…
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A Rotary International custom for the history of the organization is the “classification speech.” Most of the time, new members are asked to deliver the speech in their first year of Rotary membership, but I was recruited during the pandemic, so we never got around to scheduling my speech. The purpose of this activity is…
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What is sacred to you? The radio is playing chants. I curl beneath my electric blanket on the floor and listen, thinking about the day, my friends, my body and soul, my past and future, illusions and reality, and this very perfect moment. “He who yields to fear or pain or anger is a fugitive…
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There is a clever saying that goes, “The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. The second best time to plant a tree is today.” That’s how I feel and act all the time. When I bought new tires for my Nissan Juke this week, it inspired me to hand-wash the car,…
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“The devil’s finest trick is to convince you that he does not exist.” ~Unknown “When small men begin to cast tall shadows, it means the sun is about to set.” ~Lin Yutang
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Today Ada Sunrise Rotary presented the 2023-24 President appreciation plaque to me, which was an honor to receive. And while I did serve as Sunrise Rotary’s President for a year, it was fun and productive, and, for anyone familiar with civic clubs, another chapter of, as the Rotary International motto says, “Service Above Self.” I…
Continue reading →Seven Social Sins is a list by Frederick Lewis Donaldson that Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi published in his weekly newspaper Young India on October 22, 1925. Later he gave this same list to his grandson, Arun Gandhi, written on a piece of paper on their final day together shortly before his assassination. The Seven Sins are:…
Continue reading →“Illness is a cross, but perhaps also a guardrail. The ideal, however, would be to draw strength from it and to refuse its weaknesses. Let it be the retreat that makes one stronger at the proper moment. And if one has to pay in suffering and renunciation, let’s pay up!” ~Albert Camus “Liberty is the…
Continue reading →“Forgive others, not because they deserve forgiveness, but because you deserve peace.” ~Jonathan Lockwood Huie “Truth does not mind bring questioned. A lie does not like being challenged.” ~Unknown
Continue reading →“Death is there to keep us honest.” ~Song lyric “I night not wake up tomorrow, but I definitely won’t wake up yesterday.” ~Variously ascribed
Continue reading →“Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player, That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more. It is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.” ― William Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act 5, Scene 5
Continue reading →“Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.” ~Carl Sagan “Science is not only compatible with spirituality, it is a profound source of spirituality.” ~Carl Sagan “We are like butterflies who flutter for a day and think it is forever.” ~Carl Sagan
Continue reading →Every Friday morning, Ada Sunrise Rotary, my civic club, meets at the Aldridge Hotel Banquet Room starting at 7 a.m. Meetings start with a ringing the ceremonial brass bell, followed by the Pledge of Allegiance, a non-denominational prayer, introduction of guests, announcement, “Words of Wisdom,” a guest speaker, singing the “Friday Song,” an appeal to…
Continue reading →“It was pride that changed angels into devils. It is humility that makes men as angels.” ~Saint Augustine “Humility is not thinking less of yourself. It is thinking of yourself less.” ~Rick Warren
Continue reading →“What is life? It is a flash of a firefly. It is the breath of a buffalo in the winter time. It is as the little shadow that runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset.” ~Crowfoot, Blackfoot Chief
Continue reading →“Hold on to the now, the here, through which all future plunges to the past,” ~James Joyce “We must teach our children how to think, not what to think.” ~Margaret Mead
Continue reading →I saw a woman in the parking lot as I walked to my car after photographing the Free Fair. She used a walker and seemed very unsteady. She told me she’d had a stroke, that left her with an uneven gait and slurred speech. I helped her to her truck, and put the walker in…
Continue reading →“Many men stumble across the truth, but most manage to pick themselves up and continue as if nothing has happened.” ~Winston Churchill
Continue reading →There is a scene towards the end of Richard Attenborough’s 1982 movie, Gandhi, where the late Om Puri, playing the role of a Hindu man whose son had been killed by Muslims, bursts onto a terrace where Gandhi, weakened by weeks of fasting, is lying on a bed. The man throws a chapati at Gandhi and shouts, “Eat!…
Continue reading →“Don’t have strong opinions about things you don’t understand.” ~Bumper sticker “War isn’t about who’s right, but about who’s left.” ~Variously ascribed
Continue reading →“I would rather have questions I can’t be answered than answers that can’t be questioned.” ~Richard Feynman “He who fears he will suffer already suffers because he fears.” ~Michele de Montaigne “The journey of a thousand miles starts with one step.” ~Lao Tsu “Strive not to be a success, but to be of value.” ~Albert…
Continue reading →“As children, we sometimes pretend to be blind, often without closing our eyes. As adults, we pretend we can see, often without opening our eyes.”
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