David Matteson: Exploring the Spiritual

From the cowardice that shrinks from the new truth,
From the laziness that is content with the half-truth,
From the arrogance that thinks it knows all truth,
O God of Truth, deliver us.

--Ancient Hebrew prayer, cited in Brown

Even if the majority agrees on an idiotic idea,
it is still an idiotic idea.

-- Sam Levenson

There is one thing that, when cultivated and regularly
practiced, leads to deep spiritual intention, to peace. . .
and to the culmination of wisdom and awakening. And
what is that one thing? It is mindfulness centered on the body.

--The Buddha, from the Satipatthana Sutra cited in Brach

Spirituality emerges in the midst of differences
through respecting the journey of the other person.

--Timothy Pedigo

If God is God, He is not good,
If God is good, He is not God;
Take the even, take the odd,
I would not sleep here if I could
Except for the little green leaves in the wood
And the wind on the water.

--Archibald MacLeish

J. B.: Why did you leave me alone?

Sarah: I loved you.
I couldn't help you any more.
You wanted justice and there was none-
only love.

--Archibald MacLeish

There are two major groups of people in the world-
those who want certitude and those who want understanding.

--Karl Rahner, German Jesuit theologian.

Sometimes the crises of life are the very events which crack open
the brittle system, and through the cracks come new rays of light.

--Dave Matteson

I feel more fellowship with the defeated than with saints.
Heroism and sanctity don't really appeal to me - -
What interests me is becoming a man.

---Albert Camus

If loving does not include celebration I'll have none of it!

--Jalál Al-Din ar Rumi

The Summer Day

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean--
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down---
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

---Mary Oliver

REFERENCES for Quotes:

Brach, Tara (2003). Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life with the Heart of a Buddha. New York: Bantam Books

Brown, H.B. (March 29, 1958). A final testimony. Speech given at Brigham Young University.

Camus, Albert (1948). The Plague. S. Gilbert, trans. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.

King, Coretta Scott (April,1996). Presentation given at the Prevention Summit, HIV Prevention Community Planning Co-Chairs meeting, Atlanta, Georgia. Windy City Times http://www.windycitymediagroup.com.

Matteson, David R. (1999). Video: Trauma Relief Special Project, Taiwan. Aired on TV after earthquake. Editor: Julia Yang.

MacLeish, Archibald (1958). J.B.: A Play in Verse (Sentry ed.). Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, pp. 11 and 149-152.

Oliver, Mary (1992). New and Selected Poems. Boston: Beacon Press, p. 94.