Chapter 263: Miracle

Character is like a tree and reputation its shadow. The shadow is what we think it is and the tree is the real thing.

-- Abraham Lincoln

Beyond the edge of the world there's a space where emptiness and substance neatly overlap where past and future form a continuous, endless loop. And, hovering about, there are signs no one has ever read, chords no one has ever heard.

-- Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore

I have been finding treasures in places I did not want to search. I have been hearing wisdom from tongues I did not want to listen. I have been finding beauty where I did not want to look. And I have learned so much from journeys I did not want to take. Forgive me, O Gracious One; for I have been closing my ears and eyes for too long. I have learned that miracles are only called miracles because they are often witnessed by only those who can see through all of life's illusions. I am ready to see what really exists on other side, what exists behind the blinds, and taste all the ugly fruit instead of all that looks right, plump, and ripe.

-- Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem

depth and substance.

the two most exquisite qualities.

be it in a poem

or a person.

-- Sanober Khan

As long as politics is the shadow of big business, the attenuation of the shadow will not change the substance.

-- John Dewey

Sensuality is the substance of all the things you desire and hope for.

-- Lebo Grand

 Emptiness is the absence of some things, not the absence of everything.

-- Mokokoma Mokhonoana

I thought back to med school, when a patient had told me that she always wore her most expensive socks to the doctor's office, so that when she was in a patient's gown and shoeless, the doctor would see the socks and know she was a person of substance, to be treated with respect.

-- Paul Kalanithi, When Breath Becomes Air

Man's concern is not to gain pleasure or to avoid pain but rather to see meaning in his life. That is why man is ever ready to suffer, on the condition, to be sure, that his suffering has a meaning. 

-- Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning

x--------x

This Chapter is sponsored by YORK Athletics Mfg.