Spewing

Why must you be a stranger? I know thee no more!

No matter what you've done for yourself or for humanity, if you can't look back on having given love and attention to your own family, what have you really accomplished?  

 -Elbert Hubbard

Children in a family are like flowers in a bouquet: there's always one determined to face in an opposite direction from the way the arranger desires.   

-Marcelene Cox

Families are about love overcoming emotional torture.  

 - Matt Groening

Whatever they grow up to be, they are still our children, and the one most important of all the things we can give to them is unconditional love. Not a love that depends on anything at all except that they are our children.   

-Rosaleen Dickson

Any problem, big or small, within a family, always seems to start with bad communication. Someone isn't listening.   

-Emma Thompson

At the end of the day, a loving family should find everything forgivable.   

-Mark V. Olsen

Your family and your love must be cultivated like a garden. Time, effort, and imagination must be summoned constantly to keep any relationship flourishing and growing.  

 -Jim Rohn

You are woven into my very fiber, my soul.  Where are you?

Sarah Kay- Spoken Word Artist

Also, check out this video below if you have 18 minutes to spare.  She is BRILLIANT, and it's WELL worth it!

Stumbled Upon: A poem by Oriah

The Invitation

It doesn't interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for, and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing. It doesn't interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dreams, for the adventure of being alive. It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life's betrayals or have become shrivelled and closed from fear of further pain. I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it or fade it or fix it.   I want to know if you can be with joy mine or your own. if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, be realistic, remember the limitations of being human. It doesn't interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself. If you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul. If you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy. I want to know if you can see Beauty even when it is not pretty every day, and if you can source your own life from its presence. I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand at the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon,“Yes.”  It doesn't interest me to know where you live, or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone, and do what needs to be done to feed the children. It doesn't interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the centre of the fire with me and not shrink back. It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away. I want to know if you can be alone with yourself, and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.

© Oriah Mountain Dreamer, from the book The Invitation published by HarperSanFrancisco, 1999

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