children’s bookshelf supplied by my bookclub to local food bank
“Worthy persons deserve to be called so because they are not carried away by the eight winds: prosperity, decline, disgrace, honor, praise, censure, suffering, and pleasure. They are neither elated by prosperity nor grieved by decline.”
This quote by Nichiren grabbed my attention, mainly because of the phrase “elated by prosperity”. There seem to be too many people in charge of the world who are delirious over money. Andrew Carnegie was very wise in telling us: “Surplus wealth is a sacred trust which its possessor is bound to administer in his lifetime for the good of the community.” Mr. Carnegie created 1,689 libraries in the United States. Information is power, and he was not afraid of that idea. I’m reminded of the women on horseback who would deliver books to people far out in the woods, such as those in the novel by Jo Jo Moyes, “The Giver of Stars”. How I wish we could reclaim the excitement associated with gaining knowledge! Perhaps we feel that the information freeway known as the internet takes care of our educational needs. To me, nothing replaces falling into a good book. I think it's necessary to develop critical thinking, don't you?
“Being in sympathy with matter, the worldly man is at the beck and call of error, and will be attracted thither ward. He is like a traveller going westward for a pleasure-trip. The company is alluring and the pleasures exciting. After following the sun for six days, he turns east on the seventh, satisfied if he can only imagine himself drifting in the right direction. By-and-by, ashamed of his zigzag course, he would borrow the passport of some wiser pilgrim, thinking with the aid of this to find and follow the right road.”
Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 21:25-2
“Look at the kindly world you see extend before you as you walk in gentleness. Look at the helpers all along the way you travel, happy in the certainty of Heaven and the surety of peace. And look an instant, too, on what you left behind at last and finally passed by.” A Course in Miracles C-2.7:4-6
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