"The plain fact is that the planet does not need more successful people. But it does desperately need more peacemakers, healers, restorers, storytellers, and lovers of every kind. It needs people who live well in their places. It needs people of moral courage willing to join the fight to make the world habitable and humane. And these qualities have little to do with success as we have defined it.”
Staying committed to this while I figure out where else my time and energy should go as a result of current events going on in the world over the last week.
💜
When you travel, and when you read, you are not actually alone, but rather surrounded by other worlds entirely, the footsteps and phrases of whole other lives keeping you company as you go.
Friendship is about risk. Love is about risk. If we can control it and manage it and manufacture it, then it‘s something else, but if it‘s really love, really friendship, it‘s a little scary around the edges.
We have to give something up in order to get friendship like that. We have to give up our need to be perceived as perfect. We have to give up our ability to control what people think of us. We have to overcome the fear that when they see the depths of who we are, they‘ll leave. But what we give up is nothing in comparison to what this kind of friendship gives to us.
True friendship is a sacred, important thing, and it happens when we drop down into that deeper level of who we are, when we cross over into the broken, fragile parts of ourselves.
Here‘s something I‘ve learned the hard way: what we do everyday matters far more than what we do once in a while. The daily routines and rhythms that we build to scaffold our days do more to shape who we become than the grand gestures of once-in-a-while ever could.
Especially when we‘re in the middle of transformation of any kind, it‘s the things we do every day that build a meaningful support along the way.
We‘re nearly at the end of the year and I‘m just diving into my first book….
And while I would and sort of do feel shame over that, it‘s appropriate that the book came from Shauna.
Her words have always been deeply meaningful to me & met me right where I‘m at when I needed them.
I‘m expecting that this little book of bite sized thoughts will be no different & leave their mark just as Shauna‘s other books have done for me at the perfect time.
If you love reading and/or writing and you‘re voting blue, this might be an event you want to tune into tonight at 7PM ET!!
https://events.democrats.org/event/725958/?force_banner=true&share_context=event...
It is a grey day where I am, which always puts me in a blah mood, but book mail makes it better!!
I have done more book collecting than I have actually reading this year, but nonetheless excited for these to have arrived today!!
Anyone feeling stifled by life and/or other people lately or is it just me?
They finally made it!!
The books in my box this month were as blue and white as the box they come in!!
Do I have any box twins?!?
😍💙📚🤍🤩
Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet confinement of your aloneness to learn anything or anyone that does not bring you alive is too small for you. You must learn one thing: the world was made to be free in. except the one to which you belong.
Inquiring minds would like to know, do you think a person can find this in a friend/platonic soulmate?
September is Suicide Prevention Month. This felt appropriate for the feelings behind a loss like that.
Do you agree? Why or why not?
Kind of loving the blue and white covers theme coming in Septembers box!! 💙🤍
And there‘s an author whose first name is Chelsea, so that‘s pretty fitting to be getting as well!!
Awareness is like the sun. When it shines on things, they are transformed.
~Thich Nhat Hanh~
The healing journey isn‘t for the faint of heart, but it‘s worth it.
Didn‘t get a full box this month, but I have high hopes for these!! 📚
Where are my box twins at?!?
“One of the risks of being quiet is that the other people can fill your silence with their own interpretation: You‘re bored. You‘re depressed. You‘re shy. You‘re stuck up. You‘re judgmental. When others can‘t read us, they write their own story—not always one we choose or that‘s true to who we are.”
What else can you come up with?!?
When a friend of yours writes a book, you go buy it!!
Support the authors you know, Littens!!
🙌🏻💜🙏🏻💙✝️🩷👏🏻
I might have a meeting that I am absolutely dreading first thing this morning, but my box showed up and I got to unpack it before that, so I‘m actually starting the day off with something that‘s happy and excites me!!
🙌🏻📚👏🏻
Five new to me books from a new to me bookstore and new stickers for my laptop!!
I‘d call todays trip to the bookstore a success!! 📚
“The buying of more books than one can read is nothing less than the soul reaching toward infinity...”
~ Edward Newton~
The good news? My BOTM box showed up right on time today and SIX new books this month!!
The box looked opened/damaged when I retrieved it.
First time in 5 years of being a BOTM member that that has happened.
One more silver lining is that none of the books inside the box were actually damaged.
Ready to dive in!
Did I lose my health insurance this month?
Yes. Yes I did.
Did I console myself with a brand new box of books?
Also yes.
Don‘t judge me!
📚
Making a dent in my TBR list on the BOTM app!! With a blanket as blue as their boxes to boot!! We‘ve had a pretty tame winter season so far, but I‘m not writing off time to get cozy and snuggle up with these and others that I‘ve now made part of my collection!!
Understanding, accepting, and advocating for our many differences is what brings hope to humanity. Different does not equal deficient; limitations don‘t equal liability; and boundaries don‘t have to translate to burdens.
The ministry of presence is about showing up, giving support, sharing the burden, and, when necessary, staying silent.
Hope is the antibiotic for grief.
All we have is the here and now.
![[tagged book]](https://image.librarything.com/pics/litsy_webpics/icon_taggedBook@3x.png){kind=icon}
