"Regina Brett"の名言

We see the world as fragmented, because we blink. But God, who never blinks, sees the entire universe as we cannot see it. Whole.

The secret to success, to parenting, to life, is to not count up the cost. Don't focus on all the steps it will take. Don't stare into the abyss at the giant leap it will take. That view will keep you from taking the next small step.

There are few places you can find silence. Air travel could be the last fortress of solitude.

Summer is the annual permission slip to be lazy. To do nothing and have it count for something. To lie in the grass and count the stars. To sit on a branch and study the clouds.

We've come a long way from having one land line that was forbidden to be answered during dinner. We had no answering machine, just a dad who barked, 'Who calls during dinner? If it's important, they'll call back.' He was right.

No one really has a bad life. Not even a bad day. Just bad moments.

Cooking involves a deadline and hungry people and ingredients that expire in a week. It's stressful. Cooking happens on the stove and on the clock. Baking happens with ingredients that last for months and come to life inside a warm oven. Baking is slow and leisurely.

If baking is any labor at all, it's a labor of love. A love that gets passed from generation to generation.

When I was 41, I found a lump the size of a grape in my right breast. I ended up bald, sick and exhausted from surgeries, chemo and radiation treatments. Ah, but I got to live.

Cancer is a great wake-up call. A call to take the tag off the new lingerie and wear that black lacy slip. To open the box of pearls and put them on. To crack open the bath oil beads before they shrivel up in a bowl on the toilet tank.

Sometimes you have to disconnect to stay connected. Remember the old days when you had eye contact during a conversation? When everyone wasn't looking down at a device in their hands? We've become so focused on that tiny screen that we forget the big picture, the people right in front of us.

Almost every month, I have a day where I get stuck in the mud of me. I used to blame hormones and PMS. After I hit 50, I blamed the lack of hormones. But men get stuck, too, so it must simply be the human condition.

I still miss my gramma. I can see her at the farm, in her apron, babushka and support stockings. My Slovak gramma spoiled us with pig in the blankets, kalachi, pop, chips and a drawer full of lollipops. It was heaven.

Some days, 24 hours is too much to stay put in, so I take the day hour by hour, moment by moment. I break the task, the challenge, the fear into small, bite-size pieces. I can handle a piece of fear, depression, anger, pain, sadness, loneliness, illness. I actually put my hands up to my face, one next to each eye, like blinders on a horse.

Everything can change in the blink of an eye. But don't worry; God never blinks.

A book store is a treasure chest. Every time you walk in one, you strike gold.

Some people hate funerals. I find them comforting. They hit the pause button on life and remind us that it has an end. Every eulogy reminds me to deepen my dash, that place on the tombstone between our birth and our death.

I like that they call it an airplane cabin. A cabin is where you go to get away from stress. The cabin is a respite from the terminals on either end of the flight where noise bombards you as soon as you walk through the gate.

It's rare to find someone excited over jury duty. If they're out there, I've never met them. Not a one. When the summons for jury duty arrives in the mail, how many people scream, 'Yes!' and run to clear the calendar? None. Our first and only reaction is, 'Oh, no,' quickly followed by, 'How can I get out of this?'

Pope Francis is not only changing the face of the Catholic Church, he's challenging us to be the face of God in the world by seeing the face of God in the person we least expect to see it, including the person in the mirror.