Food for Thought

When Einstein gave lectures at U.S. universities, the recurring question that students asked him most was “Do you believe in God?” And he always answered: “I believe in the God of Spinoza.

Baruch de Spinoza was a Dutch philosopher considered one of the great rationalists of 17th century philosophy, along with René Descartes.

According to Spinoza, God would say

Stop praying and pounding your chest.
What I want you to do is go out into the world and enjoy your life. I want you to sing, have fun and enjoy everything I’ve made for you.

“It is literally impossible to be a woman.

You are so beautiful, and so smart, and it kills me that you don’t think you’re good enough. Like, we have to always be extraordinary, but somehow we’re always doing it wrong.

We have to be thin, but not too thin. And you can never say you want to be thin. You have to say you want to be healthy, but also you have to be thin.

Everyone can see what’s going on
They laugh ‘cause they know they’re untouchable
Not because what I said was wrong

Whatever it may bring
I will live by my own policies
I will sleep with a clear conscience
I will sleep in peace

is a mirror to presence and a testament to forgiveness. Friendship not only helps us see ourselves through another’s eyes, but can be sustained over the years only with someone who has repeatedly forgiven us for our trespasses, as we must find it in ourselves to forgive them in turn.

Sensitive ones,
don’t be so quick
to pathologize yourself

What we call
an emotional crisis
can be truth
desperately needing to erupt
from within
and take every untrue structure
down with it.

Life,

Break in me whatever needs to be broken.
Fix my hope of every being fixed.

Use me. Draw every ounce of creativity out of me.
Help me live a radically unique life, forever forging a never-before-trodden path in the forest.

We gather together to remember,
To RE-member all parts of ourselves back into wholeness
(And Holiness)

You are Well-come to join me at my fire.

In life, we think that the point is to pass the test or
overcome the problem. The real truth is that things
don’t really get solved. They come together for a time,
then they fall back apart. Then they come together
again and fall apart again. It’s just like that.

I will enjoy this life. I will open it
like a peach in season, suck the juice
from every finger, run my tongue over
by chin. I will not worry about clichés
or uninvited guests peering in my windows.
I will love and be loved. Save and be saved
a thousand times. I will let the want into
my body, bless the heat under my skin.
My life, I will not waste it. I will enjoy this life.

Kate Baer

Why do we start a new year, with promises to improve?
Who began this tradition of never-ending pressure?
I say, the end of a year, should be filled with congratulation, for all we survived.
And I say a new year should start with promises to be kinder to ourselves, to understand better just how much we bear, as humans on this exhausting treadmill of life.