Wise Entries In the Cultural Conversation

“Never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat”— F. Scott Fitzgerald.

“The trouble about man is twofold: He cannot learn truths which are too complicated; he forgets truths which are too simple”— Rebecca West. Lord have mercy, how truthfully simple this is. And how simply truthful!

“People worry about kids playing with guns or watching violent videos. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands, literally thousands, of songs about heartbreak, rejection, pain, misery and loss”— English novelist and essayist Nick Hornby.

This one’s for all those ‘mountain-out-of-a-mole-hillers’ slithering in the reeds, otherwise known in our post-modern mess as drama kings and queens. Winston Churchill once said, “When a man cannot distinguish between small and great events, he is of no use.” We made a pact among us this Wednesday night, our small band of brave brothers and sisters, to kindly but genuinely reply the next time someone says something ridiculously stupid, wants to throw a hissy and make a major out of a minor: “Is this really the hill you want to die on?”

For those still refusing to acknowledge that they live in a much Larger Story than the socio-dramas {read ‘soap operas’} playing out at work, or at school, in their neighborhoods or deep in the nest of resentments swirling in their souls, I offer the words of Norman Cousins. “The tragedy of life is not death, but what we allow to die within us while we are yet still alive.”

And finally, I’ve saved perhaps the best for last. “The root of joy is gratefulness.... It is not joy that makes us grateful; it is gratitude that makes us joyful”— David Steindl-rast. Amen and amen.

Ric Webb, Shepherd
Heart's Journey Community
hjcommunity.org