Favorite Quotes

"He who works with his hands is a laborer. He who works with his hands and his head, is a craftsman. He who works with his hands, and his head, and his heart, is an artist. " --St. Francis of Assisi

"Believing as we do in growth, and in a new generation, both of those who create and those who enjoy, we call all young people together, and as young people, who carry the future with us, we want to wrest freedom for our actions and our lives from the older, more comfortably established forces. We claim as our own everyone who reproduces directly, and without falsification, whatever it is that drives him to create" --Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, 1906 (quote found at XPOhaas - Nostalgia - Creativity - Entertainment)

Excerpt of a television interview with Sister Wendy Becket and Bill Moyers:
"BM: Is religious art synonymous with spiritual?

SW: No, not at all. Religious art can be spiritual but it can be very dull. Religious art works in an iconography and it works to the extent that you believe in it. If you believe in this image, then the image will remind you of your faith and will have a religious effect.

BM: It's a vehicle to God for the devout.

SW: Yes, yes, spiritual art will take you further than you know you believed, it will take you into uncharted realms.

BM: and that spiritual power is what?

SW: The spiritual power is this ability to lift us out of the confines of our ego, out of the traps that many people are in: their relationships, their jobs, their worries, mortgages, health, and there they go round in the cage. And art opens a door, and takes you into something bigger than yourself, something immensely exhilarating and refreshing, so when you come back into your cage you know that's not all there is to life."

"Years ago I heard of a scientific study that was using hyacinths to clean up water pollution. Apparently, hyacinths feed on waste products, transforming them into something lovely. Hyacinths are beautiful, sturdy, fragrant flowers, made up of hundreds of tiny florets that form these round, robust clusters on each strong stem.

When I read in the Hidden Words about the "hyacinths of knowledge," I think about the capacity of this flower to transform garbage into grace and I think maybe He's trying to tell us that it's possible not only to digest bitter experiences, but to use them to nourish and beautify our souls.

-- Ronnie in NYC (where hyacinths are about $10 each when you can get them...I don't know why....There's plenty of gunk around here for them to grow on...)" -Veronica Shoffstall

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