Wisdom For Your Friday: Thoughts From 5 Wise People

Happy Friday friends!

I wrote this post a few weeks ago, right after the Buffalo grocery store shooting, and then the Texas school shooting and then forgot about it and got busy with summer. The bad news stories are always the ones that seem to get the most attention, although there are probably just as many good news stories out there too. Sometimes when I leave my house and drive into the larger world I’m confronted with the reality I try to hide from in my small piece of enchanted forest where the songs of the wood thrush and the wings of the butterflies and the tall beech and oak trees soothe me.

All around there are forests being bulldozed for dollar stores, more apartments, or another fast food restaurant. I hear the unrelenting chainsaws daily, watch the trucks drive by, filled with old, ancient  trees. I see–and silently weep for– turtles, deer, squirrels, opossums and other wildlife dead in the road, their worlds colliding with us humans who seem hell-bent on taking over every little bit of wild land for ourselves. It’s hard to block it all out, hard sometimes to move forward and have energy for the present, hope for the future. I don’t know about you but these days I’ve very often overwhelmed by all the bad in the world. 

I definitely can’t solve the world’s problems and I can’t always block out all the bad news. 

So, here’s what I try to think of in these moments:

1. A poem by Kenny M. Fullington called 

Today

Outside my window
A new day I see
And only I can determine
What kind of day it will be

It can be busy and sunny
Laughing and gay
Or boring and cold
Unhappy and gray

My own state of mind
Is the determining key
For I am only the person
I let myself be

I can be thoughtful
And do all I can to help
Or be selfish
And think just of myself

I can enjoy what I do
And make it seem fun
Or gripe and complain
And make it hard on someone

I can be patient
With those who may not understand
Or belittle and hurt them
As much as I can

But I have faith in myself
And believe what I say
And I personally intend
To make the best of each day

2. A quote by Maya Angelou:

“My wish for you is that you continue. Continue to be who and how you are, to astonish a mean world with your acts of kindness. Continue to allow humor to lighten the burden of your tender heart.”

3. A poem by Wendell Berry:

The Peace of Wild Things

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

4. Two quotes by Mary Oliver, from Wild Geese:

“…whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting – over and over announcing your place in the family of things.”

“Ten times a day something happens to me like this – some strengthening throb of amazement – some good sweet empathic ping and swell. This is the first, the wildest and the wisest thing I know: that the soul exists and is built entirely out of attentiveness.” – Mary Oliver

5 And lastly, a quote from ― Deepak Chopra:

“In the midst of movement and chaos, keep stillness inside of you.”

Which one is your favorite? How do you keep moving forward when the world around you is filled with all things sad and troubling and negative?