Quote of the Day

I don't want to cover up anymore.  Not my face, not my mind, not my soul, not my thoughts, not my dreams, not my struggles . . . Nothing.

-- Alicia Keys

Quote of the Day

Now I understand what the fuss is all about.  Mona Lisa is the patron saint of honest, resolute, fully human women -- women who feel and who know.  She is saying for us: Don't tell me to smile.  I will not be pleasant.  Even trapped here, inside two dimensions, you will see the truth.  You will see my life's brutal and beautiful right here on my face.  The world will not be able to stop staring.

-- Glennon Doyle, Untamed, p. 96-97

Quote of the Day

Everywhere I looked in Paris, I found proof that leaders come and go, buildings are built and fall, revolutions begin and end; nothing -- no matter how grand -- lasts.  Paris says: We are here for such a short time.  We might as well sit down for a long while with some good coffee, company, and bread.  Here, there is more time to be human, maybe because there has been more time to learn how.

-- Glennon Doyle, Untamed, p. 96

Quote of the Day

If you are uncomfortable -- in deep pain, angry, yearning, confused -- you don't have a problem, you have a life.  Being human is not hard because you're doing it wrong, it's hard because you're doing it right.  You will never change the fact that being human is hard, so you must change your idea that it was ever supposed to be easy.

-- Glennon Doyle, Untamed, p. 93

Quote of the Day

In my thirties ... I quit trying to be the perfect woman and decided to "celebrate my imperfection."  I claimed a new identity: Jacked-Up Human!  I announced to anyone who would listen, "I'm a hot mess and proud of it!  I love this crappy version of humanity that I am!  I am broken and beautiful!!  Eff you, Perfect Woman!"  The problem was that I still believed that there was an ideal human and that I was not her ... I had just decided to live in defiance of perfection instead of in pursuit of it.  Rebellion is as much of a cage as obedience is.  They both mean living in reaction to someone else's way instead of forging your own.  Freedom is not being for or against an ideal, but creating your own existence from scratch.

-- Glennon Doyle, Untamed, p. 91-92

Quote of the Day

A broken family is a family in which any member must break herself into pieces to fit in.  A whole family is one in which each member can bring her full self to the table knowing that she will always be both held and free.

-- Glennon Doyle, Untamed, p. 75-76

Quote of the Day

I've seen what happens out in the world and inside our relationships when women stay numb, obedient, quiet, and small.  Selfless women make for an efficient society but not a beautiful, true, or just one.  When women lose themselves, the world loses its way.  We do not need more selfless women.  What we need right now is more women who have detoxed themselves so completely from the world's expectations that they are full of nothing but themselves.  What we need are women who are full of themselves.  A woman who is full of herself knows and trusts herself enough to say and do what must be done.

-- Glennon Doyle, Untamed, p. 75

Quote of the Day

For a long while I contorted myself to live according to a set of old memos I'd been issued about how to become a successful woman and build a strong family, career, and faith.  I thought those memos were universal Truth, so I abandoned myself to honor them without even unearthing and examining them.  When I finally pulled them out of my subconscious and looked hard at them: I learned that these memos had never been Truth at all -- just my particular culture's arbitrary expectations.  Hustling to comply with my memos, I was flying on autopilot, routed to a destination I never chose.  So I took back the wheel.  I quit abandoning myself to honor those memos.  Instead, I abandoned the memos and began honoring myself.  I began to live as a woman who never got the world's memos.

-- Glennon Doyle, Untamed, p. 74-75

Quote of the Day

When a woman finally learns that pleasing the world is impossible, she becomes free to learn how to please herself.

-- Glennon Doyle, Untamed, p. 56

Quote of the Day

Consumer culture promises us that we can buy our way out of pain -- that the reason we're sad and angry is not that being human hurts; it's because we don't have those countertops, her thighs, these jeans.  This is a clever way to run an economy, but it is no way to run a life.  Consuming keeps us distracted, busy, and numb.  Numbness keeps us from becoming.

-- Glennon Doyle, Untamed, p. 51

Quote of the Day

Whether I like it or not, pain is the fuel of revolution.

-- Glennon Doyle, Untamed, p. 51

Quote of the Day

What I thought would kill me, didn't.  Every time I said to myself: I can't take this anymore -- I was wrong.  The truth was that I could and did take it all -- and I kept surviving.  Surviving again and again made me less afraid of myself, of other people, of life.  I learned that I'd never be free from pain but I could be free from the fear of pain, and that was enough.  I finally stopped avoiding fires long enough to let myself burn, and what I learned was that I am like that burning bush: The fire of pain won't consume me.  I can burn and burn and live.

-- Glennon Doyle, Untamed, p. 51

Quote of the Day

... a kind woman revealed to me that being fully human is not about feeling happy, it's about feeling everything.  From that day forward, I began to practice feeling it all.  I began to insist upon my right and responsibility to feel it all, even when taking the time and energy for feeling made me a little less efficient, a little less convenient, a little less pleasant.

-- Glennon Doyle, Untamed, p. 50

Quote of the Day

Our society is so hell-bent on expansion, power, and efficiency at all costs that the folks like [my daughter] Tish -- like me -- are inconvenient.  We slow the world down.  We're on the bow of the Titanic, pointing, crying out, "Iceberg!  Iceberg!" while everyone else is below deck, yelling back, "We just want to keep dancing!"  It is easier to call us broken and dismiss us than to consider that we are responding appropriately to a broken world.

-- Glennon Doyle, Untamed, p. 16

Quote of the Day

The opposite of sensitive is not brave.  It's not brave to refuse to pay attention, to refuse to notice, to refuse to feel and know and imagine.  The opposite of sensitive is insensitive, and that's no badge of honor.

-- Glennon Doyle, Untamed, p. 15

Quote of the Day

To heal was to be familiar with what destroyed.

-- Ray Young Bear

Quote of the Day

Over time, I walked away from my cages.  I slowly built ... a new worldview, a new purpose, a new family, and a new identity by design instead of default.  From my imagination instead of my indoctrination.

-- Glennon Doyle, Untamed, p. 6

Quote of the Day

I looked hard at my faith, my friendships, my work, my sexuality, my entire life and asked: How much of this was my idea?  Do I truly want any of this, or is this what I was conditioned to want?  Which of my beliefs are of my own creation and which were programmed into me?  How much of who I've become is inherent, and how much was just inherited?  How much of the way I look and speak and behave is just how other people have trained me to look and speak and behave? ... Who was I before I became who the world told me to be?

-- Glennon Doyle, Untamed, p. 6

Hearing Joy Harjo

On Oct. 25, I was pleased to watch Hope College professor emeritus and poet Jack Ridl host a conversation with the 23rd poet laureate of the United States, Joy Harjo, as a part of this year's NEA Big Read Lakeshore lineup.  I am currently reading the related book selection, Harjo's An American Sunrise: Poems.

Quote of the Day

Music is a moral law.  It gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, a charm to sadness, gaiety and life to everything.  

-- Plato

Quote of the Day

To tell the truth is to become beautiful, to begin to love yourself, value yourself.  And that's political, in its most profound way.

-- June Jordan

Quote of the Day

stories entertain

engage, outrage

uplift, help us

overcome

our troubles

-- Laurie Halse Anderson, SHOUT, p. 291

Quote of the Day

the spines of books connect

page to page

writer to reader

teacher to student

page to page

past to future

pain to power

page to page

rage to peace

-- Laurie Halse Anderson, SHOUT, p. 289

Quote of the Day

As I type this, the Supreme Court is reviewing a case about whether it should be legal to fire someone if they're gay...As those who would dismantle our rights repeatedly run the protections back on my marriage, it occurs to me that I can't cope with finding out that there's no such thing as precedent.  That my family could cease to be protected under the law.  I'm not going to sugarcoat it: this is what it means to be an LGBTQ American citizen today.

-- Brandi Carlile, Broken Horses, p. 194-195

Quote of the Day

When you are told your whole life that it's wrong for two women or two men to marry, when your homeland agrees and when you realize that you believe it, too, deep within your primitive senses, a reckoning is imperative.  It is a process but it's mandatory whether you're LGBTQ or not.  A person's self-worth is dictated by what inalienable rights are allowed to them.  The right to not live your life alone is a big one.  If your family can accept you, if they want to celebrate your life and bear witness to your solemn vow, you'll have as many weddings as you need to.

-- Brandi Carlile, Broken Horses, p. 171

Quote of the Day

Write your life.  No matter how young or old.  Even if you feel like you're not interesting enough.  Do it.  Believe me you are.  Your life is in fact twisted and beautiful and you'll find that as you peel back the layers, the unexpected side effect is that it feels wonderful to be known.  Even if it's just by you.

-- Brandi Carlile, Broken Horses, p. 307-308

Quote of the Day

People in this country who are in positions of privilege must learn to find ways of fighting for the just treatment of others not by centering and platforming themselves but by holding up the ones who are suffering.

-- Brandi Carlile, Broken Horses, p. 301

Quote of the Day

Maybe we all just want to be immortal.  To leave imprints and art and moments and words.

-- Brandi Carlile, Broken Horses, p. 292

Quote of the Day

I heard someone from the music business saying they are no longer looking for talent; they want people with a certain look and a willingness to cooperate.  I thought, that's interesting, because I believe a total unwillingness to cooperate is what is necessary to be an artist -- not for perverse reasons, but to protect your vision.  The considerations of a corporation, especially now, have nothing to do with art or music.  That's why I spend my time now painting.

-- Joni Mitchell

Quote of the Day

Scott Avett and Joni Mitchell, two of my favorite painters, actually both paint themselves a lot.  It's not vain; it's a superpower to know what you look like -- not on the surface, but what you really look like.  It's even more of a superpower to know and accept it.  Now, here's the truly unattainable nirvana...what if you could actually know -- even love it?  Most people are unaware of the story their eyes tell or the way their lines show us how often they've laughed.  I don't want to be worried about my face or my body.  I want to love it ... I wanted to know what I look like and not just accept it but completely embrace it.

-- Brandi Carlile, Broken Horses, p. 239

Hearing Laurie Halse Anderson

Tonight, I attended Herrick District Library's virtual author event featuring the New York Times-bestselling author Laurie Halse Anderson.  I look forward to reading her poetic memoir, SHOUT, in the days ahead.

Quote of the Day

When I was growing up, to be a girl was to be told to minimize the space you took up: "Close your legs.  Don't be loud.  Smile.  Be cute.  Be attractive.  Be pleasing."  I inherently balked against that as a kid.  I was a rebellious kid, and I wasn't going to sit in the corner and be quiet.  I've never been like that.  However, looking back, I still notice some of the patterns of my own compliance.  It's not that I hate myself for it, but I just wish I could turn around and say to my young self, "Take your seat.  If there's not a seat there, drag a seat up to the table and sit down."

-- Shirley Manson

Quote of the Day

Because of the dog's joyfulness, our own is increased.

-- Mary Oliver, Dog Songs, p. 119

Quote of the Day

Rights are won only by those who make their voices heard.

-- Harvey Milk

Quote of the Day

You are not responsible for your mother's emotions.  You are not responsible for your mother's reactions to your boundaries.  You are not responsible to make your mom understand you choosing a different life.  You are responsible to live your life in a way that shows self-respect.

-- Nate Postlethwait

Quote of the Day

Music to me is like breathing.  I don't get tired of breathing, I don't get tired of music.

-- Ray Charles

Quote of the Day

Put a grin on the groove and aim the beat at your feet.

-- Duffy Jackson

Quote of the Day

We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.

-- Maya Angelou

Quote of the Day

Men are afraid that women will laugh at them.  Women are afraid that men will kill them.

-- Margaret Atwood

Hearing Kristin Kobes Du Mez

On Nov. 18, 2020, it was my pleasure to hear author/historian/professor Kristin Kobes Du Mez speak about her poignant, pivotal book Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation via Zoom for Calvin University's history department colloquium, "Jesus and John Wayne."

Quote of the Day

(Artists) have a mission to go out there and be an antidote to war, and all of the dark side of what happens on Planet Earth.  We're the ones that go in and remind people about their creativity.

-- Chick Corea

Quote of the Day

Learning never exhausts the mind.

-- Leonardo da Vinci

Quote of the Day

Socialism is a scare world they have hurled at every advance the people have made in the last 20 years.  Socialism is what they called public power.  Socialism is what they called social security.  Socialism is what they called farm price supports.  Socialism is what they called bank deposit insurance.  Socialism is what they called the growth of free and independent labor organizations.  Socialism is their name for almost anything that helps all the people.

-- Harry Truman, Oct. 10, 1952

Hearing Michael Eric Dyson

I attended Grand Rapids Community College's Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Diversity Lecture Series featuring keynote speaker Michael Eric Dyson virtually, via Zoom, last night.  I have read two of Dyson's powerful, poignant books, Tears We Cannot Stop and What Truth Sounds Like, and am currently reading his latest release, Long Time Coming.

Quote of the Day

You can't use reason to convince anyone out of an argument that they didn't use reason to get into.

-- Neil deGrasse Tyson

Quote of the Day

If we are to have another contest in the near future of our national existence, I predict that the dividing line will not be Mason and Dixon's but between patriotism and intelligence on the one side, and superstition, ambition and ignorance on the other.

-- Ulysses S. Grant