Be the Change

© 2024 Hector Viveros Lee

 Happy birthday Armando!

Something happens to me when I witness someone’s courage

 

(c) Mary Pimmel

“Something happens to me when I witness someone’s courage. They may not know I’m watching and I might not let them know. But something happens to me that will last me for a lifetime. To fill me when I’m empty, and rock me when I’m low.”

. –Holly Near

All will be well

 

(c) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Statue_of_Dame_Julian.JPG

 “All will be well, and all will be well, and all manner of things will be well.”

--Julian of Norwich

Even a wounded world is feeding us

 

(c) Mohamed Abed (AFP_

Even a wounded world is feeding us. Even a wounded world holds us, giving us moments of wonder and joy. I choose joy over despair. Not because I have my head in the sand, but because joy is what the earth gives me daily and I must return the gift.

Robin Wall Kimmerer,

Do not be dismayed by the brokenness of the world

(c) davetoaster https://openverse.org/image/collection?source=flickr&creator=davetoaster

Do not be dismayed by the brokenness of the world. All things break. And all things can be mended. Not with time, as they say, but with intention. So go. Love intentionally, extravagantly, unconditionally. The broken world waits in darkness for the light that is you.

 L. R. Knost

They want you to feel powerless

 

(c) quinn.anya

They want you to feel powerless and surrender and let them trample everything and you are not going to let them. You are not giving up, and neither am I. The fact that we cannot save everything does not mean we cannot save anything and everything we can save is worth saving.

Rebecca Solnit

Still I Rise

 

Still I Rise

Maya Angelou

 

You may write me down in history

With your bitter, twisted lies,

You may trod me in the very dirt

But still, like dust, I’ll rise. 

 

Does my sassiness upset you?

Why are you beset with gloom?

‘Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells

Pumping in my living room. 

 

Just like moons and like suns,

With the certainty of tides,

Just like hopes springing high,

Still I’ll rise. 

 

Did you want to see me broken?

Bowed head and lowered eyes?

Shoulders falling down like teardrops,

Weakened by my soulful cries? 

 

Does my haughtiness offend you?

Don’t you take it awful hard

‘Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines

Diggin’ in my own backyard. 

 

You may shoot me with your words,

You may cut me with your eyes,

You may kill me with your hatefulness,

But still, like air, I’ll rise. 

 

Does my sexiness upset you?

Does it come as a surprise

That I dance like I’ve got diamonds

At the meeting of my thighs? 

 

Out of the huts of history’s shame

I rise

Up from a past that’s rooted in pain

I rise

I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,

Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

 

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear

I rise

Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear

I rise

Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,

I am the dream and the hope of the slave.

I rise

I rise

I rise.

Cioccolate

© 2024 Hector Viveros Lee

Happy bday Anna!
 

Life doesn't frighten me

 

LIFE DOESN’T FRIGHTEN ME
By: Maya Angelou

Shadows on the wall
Noises down the hail
Life doesn’t frighten me at all

Bad dogs barking loud
Big ghosts in a cloud
Life doesn’t frighten me at all.
Mean old Mother Goose
Lions on the loose
They don’t frighten me at all

Dragons breathing flame
On my counterpane
That doesn’t frighten me at all.
I go boo
Make them shoo
I make fun
Way they run
I won’t cry
So they fly
I just smile
They go wild
Life doesn’t frighten me at all.

Tough guys in a fight
All alone at night
Life doesn’t frighten me at all.
Panthers in the park
Strangers in the dark
No, they don’t frighten me at all.

That new classroom where
Boys pull all my hair
(Kissy little girls
With their hair in curls)
They don’t frighten me at all.

Don’t show me frogs and snakes
And listen for my scream,
If I’m afraid at all
It’s only in my dreams.

I’ve got a magic charm
That I keep up my sleeve,
I can walk the ocean floor
And never have to breathe.

Life doesn’t frighten me at all
Not at all
Not at all
Life doesn’t frighten me at all.

Do not lose heart

 

Do not lose heart. We were made for these times. There can be no despair when you remember why you came to Earth, who you serve and who sent you here. The good words we say and the good deeds we do are not ours: They are the words and deeds of the One who brought us here.

– Clarissa Pinkola Estés

 

Let nothing disturb you

Let nothing disturb you.
Let nothing frighten you.
All things pass away.
God never changes.
Patience obtains all things.
They who have God
lack nothing.
God alone is enough.

--St. Teresa of Avila

Resistencia

(c) Hector Viveros Lee

Resistencia

No te rindas, 

aunque a veces duela la vida.

 Aunque pesen los muros 

y el tiempo parezca tu enemigo.

No te rindas,

 aunque las lágrimas surquen tu rostro y tu entraña

demasiado a menudo.

 Aunque la distancia con los tuyos parezca insalvable. 

Aunque el amor sea, hoy, un anhelo difícil, y a menudo te muerdan el miedo, el dolor, la soledad, la tristeza y la memoria.

No te rindas. 

Porque sigues siendo capaz 

de luchar, de reír, de esperar, 

de levantarte las veces que haga falta. 

Tus brazos aún han de dar muchos abrazos, 

y tus ojos verán paisajes hermosos.

Acaso, cuando te miras al espejo, 

no reconoces lo hermoso, 

pero Dios sí. 

Dios te conoce, 

y porque te conoce sigue confiando en ti,

sigue creyendo en ti, 

sabe que, como el ave herida, 

sanarán tus alas y levantarás el vuelo, 

aunque ahora parezca imposible.

 No te rindas.

Que hay quien te ama sin condiciones, 

y te llama a creerlo.

José Mª Rodríguez Olaizola, sj

Resistance

Don’t give up.

Although life sometimes hurts.

Even if walls weigh in on you

And time seems like you enemy.

Don’t give up,

Although tears

Mark you face and your insides

Too often.

Although the distance from your loved ones 

seems impassable.

Althgouth love is, today, 

A difficult longing,

And you are often beaten 

By fear, by pain, by loneliness,

By sadness and my memory. 

Don’t give up,

Because you are still able 

To fight, to laugh, to hope 

To get up as many times as necessary.

YOur arms still have to give 

Lots of hugs, and your eye

Will see incredible landscapes.

Perhaps when you look yourself in the mirror,

You do not recognized beauty in you,

But God does. God knows you,

And because he knows you,

He keeps trusting you

He keeps believing in you

He knows that, like a wounded bird,

Your wings will heal and you will take flight,

Although now it seems impossible.

Don’t give up.

Because there is someone who love you

Unconditionally

And he calls you

To believe in him.

Amen.

Jose Maria Rodriguez Olaizola S. J.

If I had no choice about the age in which I was to live

 

(c) Kelly Latimore @

kellylatimoreicons

“If I had no choice about the age in which I was to live, I nevertheless have a choice about the attitude I take and about the way and the extent of my participation in it’s living ongoing events. To choose the world is… an acceptance of a task and a vocation in the world, and history and in time. In my time, which is the present.”

~Thomas Merton, “ Contemplation in a World of Action”

 

 

“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo.
“So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”  

--J.R.R. Tolkien