"To understand the world at all, sometimes you could only focus on a tiny bit of it, look very hard at what was close to hand and make it stand in for the whole. . ."
There was supposed to be a weekend seminar held at this Benedictine monastery here in Germany about Thomas Merton which I was excited about and signed up for. It was called off because of lack of participants.
Spent the day in Stuttgart visiting museums walking around downtown. I saw thousands of people but not one of them would look me in the eye or show any sign of recognizing me as a fellow human being.
She was a 22 year university student here in Germany. One evening last week she intervened to help two girls, 13 and 16, who were being harassed by three men near the rest room in a McDonald's restaurant. She helped to free the girls but shortly thereafter an 18-year-old attacked her in the parking lot hitting her so violently that she fell and suffered a brain concussion when her head hit the pavement. Taken to the hospital she survived in a coma for one week. This morning Tugce Albayra passed away. It was her 23rd birthday.
In spite of all my weaknesses, my hang-ups, my excesses I know that I am Your creation, Your flawed creation. Maybe, maybe, You have always wanted me just that way. Maybe You take delight in me. That's why I bear with myself, trusting You.
Would like to let you know that you were, and are, an inspiration for me on my life's rough fairways. I often recalled your composed determination, and it kept me going.
Last evening at a concert on Ochsenhausen, Germany, the full quaking power of Schubert's Adagio, Trio Opus 100 overcame me on hearing the first three notes and did not let up until the movement ended.
In the garden the birds are busy. The bird houses and nests are occupied and there is constant feeding. Other young birds are learning to fly. The lilacs bushes are favorite perching places. There is a lot of fluttering in the bird bath.
Haven't played golf for quite a few years now, at 81. But I could have been a much better golfer if I had only listened to some advice and not insisted on being my own pro.
To commemorate the day the bombs fell there was a concert in the Dresden opera: Johannes Brahms: A German Requiem. When the music had ended the audience did not clap. Quietly, everyone stood up and remained standing, long, in silence.
A six-year-old first grader in Colorado was suspended from school for one day for sexual harassment because he bent over and kissed his "girlfriend's" hand during a reading lesson.
These are called "Trip-Stones" and are to be found on the sidewalk in front of houses where Jewish families lived who were deported and murdered during the Nazi regime.
I must consciously free my mind from the idea that God is just a person who lived in Palestine. Christianity keeps me focused on that. Break away from that notion and begin to realize more what God means.
The most important things we do in life we do without knowing: like taking a spouse, like choosing a career, like bringing up children. We take the leap!
How many people sit before their TV sets watching Sunday services? Will that some day be forbidden so that people will have to go back to their church and fill up the benches?