The Wonderful Words of Andrea Gibson
Category Archives: Quotes
“‘There’s time enough, but none to spare.’”
| — | Charles W. Chesnutt, from The Marrow of Tradition |
Without You Adding To It
“It bugs me when people are unnecessarily mean. Like, you didn’t have to make that comment.
You could have just kept your mouth shut and left that person not feeling bad about themselves.
What do you gain from making someone else feel like shit? Nothing of substance.
Maybe a fleeting moment of power but that’s gone as soon as it comes so why?There’s enough unhappiness in the world without you adding to it.”
Funny? No
A Quote:
Why I don’t think it’s funny when men make jokes about that their lives are over once they’re married:
-No man is forced to get married. But thousands of girls and women are forced to marry someone they don’t love or even know every year.
-There are thousands of couples all over the world who would give everything to be allowed to marry the person they love.
-It’s disrespectful to your wife.
Run Where?
Where can you run from the truth?
Think I will stand firm…and call.
Yes…I call.
OH! God, This Is ME!
What Prints Does YOUR Heart Leave?
This asks us to do this…but it is a bit incomplete! It should read this way:
“Everywhere you go, you leave your heart print. Be sure the marks are kind.”
Words ARE Power
Breathtaking Quote!
This. My goal when I create poetry.
“We want
to decipher skies
and paintings,
go behind these starry backgrounds
or these painted canvases and,
like kids
trying to find a gap
in a fence,
try to look through the cracks
in the world.”
— Georges Bataille
To Truly Heal and Move On:
“Let it hurt. Let it bleed. Let it heal. And let it go.”
| — | Nikita Gill, How to Deal with a Painful Experience |
Octavio Paz: Listen
Octavio Paz
listen to me as one listens to the rain,
the years go by, the moments return,
do you hear the footsteps in the next room?
not here, not there: you hear them
in another time that is now,
listen to the footsteps of time,
inventor of places with no weight, nowhere,
listen to the rain running over the terrace,
the night is now more night in the grove,
lightning has nestled among the leaves,
a restless garden adrift-go in,
your shadow covers this page.
Octavio Pas Breaks It DOWN!
“This is perhaps
the most noble aim of poetry,
to attach ourselves to the world around us,
to turn desire into love,
to embrace,
finally what always evades us,
what is beyond,
but what is always there
the most noble aim of poetry,
to attach ourselves to the world around us,
to turn desire into love,
to embrace,
finally what always evades us,
what is beyond,
but what is always there
– the unspoken, the spirit, the soul.
”| — | Octavio Paz
The Other Voice: |
You, Me, We
“There is no “us” and “them.”
Whatever your religion, philosophy, color, ethnicity, language,
or socio-economic class, we are all fundamentally the same.
or socio-economic class, we are all fundamentally the same.
We all share basic needs for food, shelter, safety, and love.
We all desire happiness and avoid suffering.
We all desire happiness and avoid suffering.
Each of us has hopes, worries, dreams, and fears.
Each of us wants the best for our family and loved ones.
Each of us wants the best for our family and loved ones.
We all experience pain when we suffer loss,
and joy when we achieve what we seek.
and joy when we achieve what we seek.
Each of us share the same image, likeness, and being of God.
Remember this as you walk the everyday paths of life.
Don’t be fooled by the differences you notice on the surface.
Look deeper, and see yourself in the other, and the other as yourself.”
| — | Jim Palmer |
Victor Frankl on Meaning
We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread.
They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.
Do Justice. Love Mercy. Walk Humbly.
Love, Charissa
Echoes
“What we do in life echoes in eternity.”
| — | Gladiator (2000), Dir. Ridley Scott |
Moi Aussi, dearest ones of my heart…moi aussi
10 things your mother never told you
1. You made her cry.. a lot
2. She wanted that last piece of cake
3. It hurt
4. She was always afraid
5. She knows she’s not perfect
6. She watched you as you slept
7. She carried you for longer than 9 months
8. It broke her heart every time you cried
9. She always put you first
10. She would do it all again
Memorial Day Mourning
“…Everyone’s Got One”
An opinion…sometimes I am just walking along, living my life, and somebody just has to give it to me…about who I am, or what I am…about whether I am legitimate, or have a right to be.
I think you have all heard what opinions are like, right? Something that everyone has that generally stinks.
Omg…Happens To Me Every Day With Gender
“He’s So Calm…”
Kid throws a fit next to Obama
He’s so calm because that’s basically what the Republicans do every day
You Just Love Them
“You don’t love people at their best, sweetheart. You just love them because you can’t help it.”
| — | Amy Lane, Keeping Promise Rock |
Too Much In-Between
“There can be no half measures in love.
There is no maybe, no almost, no might.
You either love or you lack love.
Everything in-between is running from truth.”
There is no maybe, no almost, no might.
You either love or you lack love.
Everything in-between is running from truth.”
| — | garden-of-cinders |
I Talk Seriously About God…
“And when the event, the big change in your life, is simply an insight—isn’t that a strange thing? That absolutely nothing changes except that you see things differently and you’re less fearful and less anxious and generally stronger as a result: isn’t it amazing that a completely invisible thing in your head can feel realer than anything you’ve experienced before?
“You see things more clearly and you know that you’re seeing them more clearly.
“And it comes to you that this is what it means to love life, this is all anybody who talks seriously about God is ever talking about. Moments like this.”
| — | Jonathan Franzen, The Corrections |
Spread Love
“Spread love
everywhere you go.
Let no one ever come to you
without leaving happier.”
everywhere you go.
Let no one ever come to you
without leaving happier.”
| — | Mother Teresa |
Only A Smidge Lower…
Constance…I am here today to admit. OMG there is sooo much I would change about my body if I could. The more salient question is what would I not change? So this really hit me…hit me hard.
What am I supposed to do, stuck in this skin of some biological male creature that so many seem to have attached to, and now hate me because that creature has been revealed as who it was all along…and that revelation happening to me at the same time?
Do you have any idea how it feels to be othered so hard that certain people now act like I am dead? And when I am blessed enough to have communication it is of the harshest, cruelest and most dehumanizing form possible, stripping me of personhood, of being, and reducing me to a verb, or a mask, or a nothing?
I can never remember a time when I did not feel this way…never. Reading about these children, wow.
So I post this…for your thought. Likely there is not much we can do now about our own body image issues…but we darn sure can be kind to others now. We darn sure can touch our children with gentle words…and no matter what we can speak to other human beings cognizent always that they are stamped with Mama’s image, they are riddled with God’s Image, and are thus just a smidge lower than God and are as gods themselves.
In case you weren’t convinced that hating yourself is a learned behavior
Physical shame comes from parents, teachers, media, and peers. It’s not something you’re born with. You were born naked, wonderful, and gorgeous, and no one should make another being feel as if that wasn’t, and isn’t true.
Failure and Forgiveness
There is a brand new recycling of an old, ancient lie told to soothe one’s enflamed ego and sense of being wounded and let down in experiencing the world.
The lie is that there is no such thing as failure, and that as a human being it is impossible to fail another person.
I would laugh if it wasn’t such a tragic and poisonous lie.
But the lie is told for a more basic reason than to just insulate one’s heart against hurt: the lie is told to free one’s self from the pain of forgiveness, from giving forgiveness and even more important, from receiving forgiveness…
…and those pains are freely paid to avoid confronting the root: Pride. I think it likely that Pride is the root of all evils in the world.
At any rate, Desmond Tutu has some very cogent things to say about forgiveness:
“The quality of human life on our planet is nothing more than the sum total of our daily interactions with one another. Each time we help and each time we harm we are dramatically impacting our world.As long as we are human, some of our interactions will go wrong, and then we will hurt or be hurt or both. It is the nature of being human and it is unavoidable.Forgiveness is the way we set those interactions right. It is the way we mend tears in the social fabric. It is the way we stop our human community from unraveling.”
— Desmond Tutu, The Book of Forgiving
Joni Mitchell Lays The Truth!
“Here’s the thing. You have two options…
They’re going to crucify you for staying the same.
They’re going to crucify you for staying the same.
If you change, they’re going to crucify you for changing.
But staying the same is boring. And change is interesting.
So of the two options, I’d rather be…changing.”
I Call Bull Sh*t!
Constance, I reject this notion that is going around these days, as it is stated in the graphic below:
…the part about forget the ones who don’t treat you right, and love the people who do?
Are you f-ing kidding me??
That stampede of people running the other way? That is the stampede of people taking the easy way, the low way, the lazy and unloving way, running away from those that they will forget because they “didn’t treat them right”…
Ah.
And who will stand for you? Because to you, your “bad day”, your “bitchy moment”, your “lashing out in anger to cover up your grief”…?? That is you…not treating other people right, and thus they run away.
Except this stampede is everyone running from everyone else, and so no one runs together…after all, they might not treat you right.
And then we come to the last part…the part about it not being easy…
What in the f-ing hell is so G Dam difficult about running away? That is the path of least resistance!!
All the world loves Gentle Jesus meek and mild, the kind teacher, the good man, platitudes about him unending…unless you really listen to His Lion Roar Word terrifying. I dare you to listen to them…right now…and then join me on the front lines in this war of Love on the war on love…oh, and I have heard it said that the only words in the Bible that are trustworthy are the words in Red…and here ya go, oh ye of such courage and fortitude that you will dwell in the strongholds of cold love, words in Red for your imbibing.
May you become drunk on Love, and reckless enough to find your courage once again.
But I say to you who hear: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, and pray for those who spitefully use you. To him who strikes you on the one cheek, offer the other also.
And from him who takes away your cloak, do not withhold your tunic either. Give to everyone who asks of you. And from him who takes away your goods do not ask them back.
And just as you want men to do to you, you also do to them likewise.
But if you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. And if you lend to those from whom you hope to receive back, what credit is that to you? For even sinners lend to sinners to receive as much back.
But love your enemies, do good, and lend, hoping for nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High.
For He is kind to the unthankful and evil. Therefore be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful.
Judge not, and you shall not be judged. Condemn not, and you shall not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give, and it will be given to you: good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be put into your bosom. For with the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you.
…Can the blind lead the blind? Will they not both fall into the ditch? A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone who is perfectly trained will be like his teacher.
And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not perceive the plank in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me remove the speck that is in your eye,’ when you yourself do not see the plank that is in your own eye?
Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck that is in your brother’s eye.
For a good tree does not bear bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit. For every tree is known by its own fruit. For men do not gather figs from thorns, nor do they gather grapes from a bramble bush. A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart brings forth evil.
For out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.
But why do you call Me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do the things which I say?
Whoever comes to Me, and hears My sayings and does them, I will show you whom he is like: He is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when the flood arose, the stream beat vehemently against that house, and could not shake it, for it was founded on the rock.
But he who heard and did nothing is like a man who built a house on the earth without a foundation, against which the stream beat vehemently; and immediately it fell.
And the ruin of that house was great.
Found Morning Funny!
- Cat:*puts paw on leg*
- Me:hoe dont do it
- Cat:*inserts claws*
- Me:oh m y g od
Lord Byron
And thus the heart will break,
yet brokenly live on.
yet brokenly live on.
LORD BYRON, POEMS
When All Seems Hushed (from Samuel Beckett’s “Molloy”)
And that night there was no question of moon,
nor any other light, but it was a night of listening,
a night given to the faint soughing and sighing
stirring at night in little pleasure gardens,
the shy sabbath of leaves and petals
and the air that eddies there
as it does not in other places,
where there is less constraint,
and as it does not during the day,
when there is more vigilance,
and then something else that is not clear,
being neither the air nor what it moves,
perhaps the far unchanging noise
the earth makes and which other noises cover,
but not for long. For they do not account for that noise
you hear when you really listen,
when all seems hushed. And there was another noise,
that of my life become the life of this garden
as it rode the earth of deeps and wildernesses.
Yes, there were times when I forgot not only who I was, but that I was, forgot to be.
SAMUEL BECKETT, MOLLOY
This Irony Is Too Good!
Omg…so I just wrote this poem about my hair…about my Cat-Hair (well, maybe it is about other things too…I will leave that to the more energetic of you)…
…and then I saw this quote and literally laughed, just guffawed!!
SHOUTOUT TO CATS
FOR GETTING THEIR CLAWS STUCK IN THINGS
AND THEN WHEN YOU HELP THEY GET OFFENDED
THAT YOU TOUCHED THEIR PAW
White Male Privilege? The Epitome
The Honey of Kindness
Transgender Today – Avery Jackson – NYTimes.com
Over 50% of transgender children try to commit suicide by their mid to late teenage years. A large number of them succeed. And the main reason that these children state that they try to harm themselves is the lack of love and support of their family and friends. My wife and I decided that we would much rather have a happy, healthy daughter than a dead son.
Dynamic Tension! Not “Balance”
I agree with this quote, if you understand that balance is the same as paralysis, because all is at stasis, and nothing moves.
Think about it: when you walk, when you bike, when you do most anything you place yourself in dynamic tension with being off balance and some sort of motion or momentum or direction.
Right?
Balance has a practical connotation, which means “don’t fall over” or don’t crash and burn”…but the culprit is not “lack of balance” (for balance is actually an illusion)…
The culprit is loss of direction! And thus one falls over. Remember! The right leg must follow the left…the arms must swing in harmonious yet dynamic tension…and the mind must be fixed on the goal, the prize so that the will can empower the legs to move, the arms to swing.
And now for the quote:
“Life is about balance. Be kind, but don’t let people abuse you. Trust, but don’t be deceived. Be content, but never stop improving yourself.”
| — | Nishan Panwar |
So how about this instead:
“Life is about dynamic tension. Be kind, but don’t let people abuse you. Trust, but don’t be deceived. Be content, but never stop improving yourself.”
| — | Nishan Panwar |
I LITrally Thought This When I Was Young!
“In school, I was taught that the word “men” could mean all genders—it was up to the reader to be inclusive with the word in their mind. The word women always just meant women. So maybe men just need to find their path to include themselves every time I say women.”
| — | Katherine Bernard, reading Maggie Nelson’s “The Argonauts” |
Impossibility Concealed
I saw this quote just now…and I want to comment on it afterwards. Read on:
“It annoys me so much when people take advantage of someone’s kindness.”
Please note: if a person is truly being kind, it is impossible to “take advantage”…you have already been given advantage. Any “taking” involved is just your mental gymnastics performed to justify something within yourself…the mere propping up of an ego-centered and self-oriented world view that fosters the idea that anything good must be taken.
The humiliation of receiving…it is a huge stumbling block for so many, and yet the privilege of being kind can overcome it.
Because kindness is only kindness if it is given with an open hand and a priori of any sort of reaction by the recipient.
How you respond to kindness given says nothing about me and everything about you.
Why not choose and act in kind?
Footprints of Kindness
Outgrowths of Purposive Grace
“You’ve been criticizing yourself for years and it hasn’t worked. Try accepting yourself and see what happens.”
| — | Louise Hay |
“Can’t We Just Be Us?”
This.
You’d have two completely different views of the trans movement if you either read all the recent articles, or just the comments on them.
Articles: Tipping Point! Hollywood trend! Rapid change in public understanding & acceptance! We love you!
Comments: Sick, disgusting, delusional, predatory harbingers of utter doom and destruction! Who are also ugly!
If there is a truth, I suppose it’s somewhere between. Trendy monsters perhaps? Loathsome darlings? Delusional seers?
When can we just be us?”
Wisdom From The Ancients
Seneca writes:
It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it. Life is long enough, and a sufficiently generous amount has been given to us for the highest achievements if it were all well invested. But when it is wasted in heedless luxury and spent on no good activity, we are forced at last by death’s final constraint to realize that it has passed away before we knew it was passing. So it is: we are not given a short life but we make it short, and we are not ill-supplied but wasteful of it… Life is long if you know how to use it.
You are living as if destined to live for ever; your own frailty never occurs to you; you don’t notice how much time has already passed, but squander it as though you had a full and overflowing supply — though all the while that very day which you are devoting to somebody or something may be your last. You act like mortals in all that you fear, and like immortals in all that you desire… How late it is to begin really to live just when life must end! How stupid to forget our mortality, and put off sensible plans to our fiftieth and sixtieth years, aiming to begin life from a point at which few have arrived!
This…When It Is The Time To Speak
“Nothing haunts us like the things we don’t say.”
| — | Mitch Albom, Have a Little Faith: a True Story |
Answers In The Storm-Watch
“Sometimes, not saying anything is the best answer. You see, silence can never be misquoted.”
| — | Unknown |
The Power of Grieving, The Power of Time
I’m pretty sure that all of us have experienced sadness, but I really don’t know if all of us have experienced grief.
I’m talking about that helpless rage that is so great it is calm, so empty that you have never felt so full, and so sticky it seems you can never be expiated.
It comes from the loss of something or someone you were not designed to lose.
You do realise that, don’t you? Human beings were not designed to experience this sort of relational loss.
Loss is the result of something else that happened to creation due to the way free will was/is decided to be used.
But as with all forms of fracture, God is faithful to bring forth creative answers and counter-creations, in all Their faithful infiniteness…They always have a beauty that will come to you and weld with you and in you, and though the fracture is never “not have happened”, it is somehow made beautiful.
This.
This is the hope, and the glory of God. They are faithful, each and every time, if you will be patient, hold on, and keep your heart open.
-
I’m going to take this from you
but give this to you instead:
more space, cleansing tears,
better questions, compassion,
pathways to the center,
maps to deeper wells,
less distractions,
blankets of darkness,
little pools of light under your skin
where he touched you
but will never touch you again,
and holes in your heart
that nothing but pure love can fill.~ McCall Erickson
Be Ye Not Lot’s Wife!
“Don’t stumble over something that’s behind you.”
| — | Unknown |
ESPECIALLY with transgender people…
“You shouldn’t point out things about people’s appearances if they can’t fix it in ten seconds.”
| — | Something my sister said once, that’s become an important thing to me |
Say On, Maya!
“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”
| — | Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings |
Please: Try to Grasp This, And Change…
Constance, this quote below…just this.
All you have is your experience in this world. The good…the bad…the whole and broken…add to that the sorts of experiences that the quote speaks of.
I would add one thing: dysphoria is a real condition that exists, of utter dislocation that transcends understanding, acceptance, and action. It can be managed and worked around, even built into certain things? But it can never be thought away, prayed away, or believed away.
The brain and body of a person with gender dysphoria will never flow together
They are oil and vinegar.
As such, they can be a fabulous and tasty dressing…but they will not find the congruence that is present with a cis-gendered person.
So all the crap and stuff that all humans endure? Differently abled people endure all that with additional conditions placed on their lives…dysphoria is one of them.
That doesn’t give me or any dysphoric person a pass…because each human has conditions on them that are invisible to everyone else.
So be tender hearted…understanding…full of forgiveness…and above all be kind.
Lives depend on it.
Of all the things I keep trying to tell cis people, “don’t presume your child’s gender” is the one that they consistently, deliberately refuse to understand and it is so deeply telling.
You cannot truly understand the transgender experience, and cannot count yourself an ally, until you accept that the trauma of being transgender is not inherent, it is a product of being coerced into thinking that you had absolutely no choice but to be the gender you were assigned.
Not “born with”, not “biologically”, the gender you were assigned.
The problem is assignment. The problem is doctors and parents believing it is their place to dictate their child’s gender, starting before they can even conceptualize what a gender is, let alone have the mental development necessary to object to what they’re given. This defines a child’s entire life, cuts short countless possibilities. It etches itself into the fabric of our developing minds and it is a ticking psychological time bomb for those children who are given a gender assignment that they cannot or do not wish to live with. This culture of dictated identity must end if transgender people are ever to be regarding as whole and equal members of society.
Easy to Confuse
Charissa's Grace Notes 
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