Getting Schooled 2015-2016

"Why do you go away? So that you can come back. So that you can see the place you came from with new eyes and extra colors. And the people there see you differently too. Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving."

-Terry Pratchett

Breathing just a little

"Listen,
are you
breathing just
a little,

and calling it
a life?"

Mary Oliver

Preach

"I don't trust a theologian who dismisses the beauty of science or a scientist who doesn't believe in the power of mystery."

-Brene Brown

Effort Surplus

"A surplus of effort could overcome a deficit of confidence."

-Sonia Sotomayor

Wilderness

"The clearest way into the universe is through a forest wilderness."

-John Muir

The pearl is the oyster's autobiography - Federico Fellini

"You guys know how pearls are made, right? The most valuable ones are called 'wild pearls,' created spontaneously in the sea and are extremely rare. A pearl is the byproduct of an unwanted irritant (typically something sharp, dangerous or painful like a parasite, a grain of sand or a piece of shell) that has lodged itself inside the walls of the shell, where it becomes impossible to abandon. The oyster then reacts with a defense mechanism that coats the irritant, over time turning it into a thing of lateral iridescent beauty. I love this. We don't get to choose the irritants that invade our beings, the things that make it past the shell. But the story doesn't end there: the pearl is the oyster's art, it's her novel, her paining, her song. In the same way it is possible for our wounds and our pain, our grit, to be our gift of transformation and transcendence as well. Slowly and surely, layer by beautiful layer, we are growing something of high worth and deep, incontestable beauty inside us."

-Ali Makes Things

The Innkeeper

"My favorite Christmas character: the innkeeper. I mean, I get him. He's like me. On most days, I can't be Mary or Joseph or the wisest of men or the gentlest of shepherds, but I still get to decide day after day, year after year, to make room for a miracle."

-Erin Loechner