Albert Einstein

"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand wrapped in awe, is as good as dead; his eyes are closed. The insight into the mystery of life, coupled though it be with fear, has also given rise to religion. To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty, which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their most primitive forms―this knowledge, this feeling, is at the center of religiousness. In this sense, and in this sense only, I belong to the rank of devoutly religious men."

Anyway

From a sign on the wall of Shishu Bhavan, the children's home in Calcutta:

ANYWAY

People are unreasonable, illogical and self-centered,

LOVE THEM ANYWAY

If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives,

DO GOOD ANYWAY

If you are successful, you win false friends and true enemies,

SUCCEED ANYWAY

The good you do will be forgotten tomorrow,

DO GOOD ANYWAY

Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable,

BE HONEST AND FRANK ANYWAY

What you spent years building may be destroyed overnight,

BUILD ANYWAY

People really need help but may attack you if you help them,

HELP PEOPLE ANYWAY

Give the world the best you have and you'll get kicked in the teeth,

GIVE THE WORLD THE BEST YOU'VE GOT ANYWAY.

A Simple Faith

I finished this book yesterday, and Jodi―mostly just making conversation―asked me if I had learned anything from it.

Hmmm...

I didn't learn anything earth-shattering, nothing that I wasn't aware of on some level. In fact, I approach anything I don't believe or understand with a measure of skepticism, and I probably always will.

However, I was inspired by what I read.

(Note: I can completely disagree with your theology, but work side-by-side with you in any good work. I wasn't always that way.)

Some excerpts, which are all quotes from Missionaries of Charity volunteers:

p. 95
"In the West we have a tendency to be profit-oriented, where everything is measured according to the results and we get caught up in being more and more active to generate results. In the East―especially in India―I find that people are more content to just be, to just sit around under a banyan tree for half a day chatting to each other. We Westerners would probably call that wasting time. But there is value to it. Being with someone, listening without a clock and without anticipation of results, teaches us about love."

pp. 145-146
"For the first couple of days I was completely ecstatic―I thought, 'I'm so wonderful, I'm doing all these wonderful things looking after these children, I'm giving them loads of love and they just smile at me and love me.' I felt so brilliant and so holy! And then, after three days, I had a complete breakdown because I suddenly realized that I was a terrible person to be going there for only a short while. I was playing with these children, cuddling them, giving them lots of attention―and at the end of my time there I was coming back to my nice cozy little place in England, my nice cushy job, and my weekly wage. I was giving sweets to a baby and then taking them away again. I started to cry, I had felt so good, such a good person, and now I realized that I wasn't, because I was volunteering for me, not them. I was giving because of something in me that needed healing, and that was the need I had for love.

"A volunteer who had been there much longer than I comforted me and said, 'Whatever love you give, however small, they wouldn't have had if you hadn't come, or given it. Each volunteer who will come after you will give them a little more.'"

p. 152-153
"I'd do two nights a week at a shelter for women who were mostly drug addicts, alcoholics, ex-prostitutes, and people just out of prison. It was a dangerous place but I learned a lot about the homeless. You know, we tend to see them as visitors from another planet. We never think of hunkering down and talking to them, because we think they might be violent or mentally unbalanced; but from my experience those are usually in the minority. Most of them are quiet, gentle people where something has just gone wrong. They are vulnerable and more endangered than dangerous."

"Every morning I am delighted to be here. I think, Thank God, and let's get started. I'm always happy to start the day, unlike the way I felt at other jobs I had―secular, paying jobs―where I would always be discontented. Here what I am doing is compatible with what I'm thinking inside. There's no conflict between feeling and thinking and doing."

p. 156
"We've certainly learned a great deal from helping the sisters with their work. One of these lessons is that you become less vulnerable when you concern yourself with other people's vulnerability rather than your own. We've found that when we're fully involved with helping others, all around the place, we haven't really got time to worry about our own fears―and so they fall into perspective."

p. 157
"When you got to know the characters, I found you looked past the labels we use like 'alcoholic', or 'drug addict'―you saw the people and they became friends."

p. 174
"I've found that working here puts the things in my life in perspective, in balance. When I'm in the office I'm in the so-called real world, but then when I started volunteering with the Missionaries of Charity one day a week, I realized that this was the real world, not the other. The home isn't a glamorous or beautiful place but the people here are real live human beings who are being born again because they're dying. The people downtown are alive but the're not really living at all."