”””"""My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind."
“A human being is a part of the whole, called by us Universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest-a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole nature in its beauty.” “The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.” “The human mind is not capable of grasping the Universe. We are like a little child entering a huge library. The walls are covered to the ceilings with books in many different tongues. The child knows that someone must have written these books. It does not know who or how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. But the child notes a definite plan in the arrangement of the books---a mysterious order which it does not comprehend, but only dimly suspects.” “What I see in Nature is a magnificent structure that we can comprehend only very imperfectly, and that must fill a thinking person with a feeling of humility. This is a genuinely religious feeling that has nothing to do with mysticism.” “The finest emotion of which we are capable is the mystic emotion. Herein lies the germ of all art and all true science. Anyone to whom this feeling is alien, who is no longer capable of wonderment and lives in a state of fear is a dead man. To know that what is impenetrable for us really exists and manifests itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty, whose gross forms alone are intelligible to our poor faculties - this knowledge, this feeling ... that is the core of the true religious sentiment. In this sense, and in this sense alone, I rank myself among profoundly religious men.” “The real problem is in the hearts and minds of men. It is easier to denature plutonium than to denature the evil spirit of man.” What a genius he was! And a truly spiritual person, his mind had torn the web of illusions and seen reality....he had gone beyond what we call in Hinduism 'Maya' or the Illusion of Life!!!
Her hair was up in a pony tail,
Her favorite dress tied with a bow.
Today was Daddy's Day at school,
And she couldn't wait to go.
But her mommy tried to tell her,
That she probably should stay home.
Why the kids might not understand,
If she went to school alone
But she was not afraid;
She knew just what to say.
What to tell her classmates
Of why he wasn't there today.
But still her mother worried,
For her to face this day alone.
And that was why once again,
She tried to keep her daughter home.
But the little girl went to school
Eager to tell them all.
About a dad she never sees
A dad who never calls.
There were daddies along the wall in back,
For everyone to meet.
Children squirming impatiently,
Anxious in their seats.
One by one the teacher called
A student from the class.
To introduce their daddy,
As seconds slowly passed.
At last the teacher called her name,
Every child turned to stare.
Each of them was searching,
For a man who wasn't there.
"Where's her daddy at?"
She heard a boy call out.
"She probably doesn't have one,"
Another student dared to shout.
And from somewhere near the back,
She heard a daddy say,
"Looks like another deadbeat dad,
Too busy to waste his day."
The words did not offend her,
As she smiled up at her Mom.
And looked back at her teacher,
Who told her to go on.
And with hands behind her back,
Slowly she began to speak.
And out from the mouth of a child,
Came words incredibly unique.
"My Daddy couldn't be here,
Because he lives so far away.
But I know he wishes he could be,
Since this is such a special day.
And though you cannot meet him,
I wanted you to know.
All about my daddy,
And how much he loves me so.
He loved to tell me stories
He taught me to ride my bike.
He surprised me with pink roses,
And taught me to fly a kite.
We used to share fudge sundaes,
And ice cream in a cone.
And though you cannot see him.
I'm not standing here alone.
"Cause my daddy's always with me,
Even though we are apart
I know because he told me,
He'll forever be in my heart".
With that, her little hand reached up,
And lay across her chest.
Feeling her own heartbeat,
Beneath her favorite dress.
And from somewhere here in the crowd of dads,
Her mother stood in tears.
Proudly watching her daughter,
Who was wise beyond her years.
For she stood up for the love
Of a man not in her life.
Doing what was best for her,
Doing what was right.
And when she dropped her hand back down,
Staring straight into the crowd.
She finished with a voice so soft,
But its message clear and loud.
"I love my daddy very much,
he's my shining star.
And if he could, he'd be here,
But heaven's just too far.
You see he was a policeman
And died just this past year
When airplanes hit the towers
And taught Americans to fear.
But sometimes when I close my eyes,
it's like he never went away."
And then she closed her eyes,
and saw him there that day.
And to her mothers amazement,
she witnessed with surprise.
A room full of daddies and children,
all starting to close their eyes.
Who knows what they saw before them,
who knows what they felt inside.
Perhaps for merely a second,
they saw him at her side.
"I know you're with me Daddy,"
to the silence she called out.
And what happened next made believers,
of those once filled with doubt.
Not one in that room could explain it,
for each of their eyes had been closed.
But there on the desk beside her,
was a fragrant long-stemmed pink rose.
And a child was blessed, if only for a moment,
by the love of her shining star.
And given the gift of believing,
that heaven is never too far.
They say it takes a minute to find a special person,
an hour to appreciate them, a day to love them,
but then an entire life to forget them.
(Source unknown)
Until eternity. God bless!
Folk art is linked with the forgotten art of story telling.
Paintings are used to depict the visual counterpoint in narration in every region of India
Anna Mary Robertson (Grandma Moses) was born on September 7, 1860 in Greenwich New York. She spent most of her life as a farmer's wife and raising her five children. She didn't become serious about painting until she was in her mid seventies.
Up until that time, she enjoyed embroidery work with colorful scenes on canvas but when her hands became stiff with arthritis, she switched to painting. Her first picture was painted on a piece of canvas with house paint.
Gimbel's Department Store invited Grandma to New York to see a display of her painting at a Thanksgiving festival. Here she met many people who were fascinated by her paintings and by 1941 she received New York state prize for one of her paintings, "The Old Oaken Bucket." In 1949, President Harry S. Truman presented her with the Women's National Press Club Award for outstanding accomplishment in art.
In 1955, the news reporter Edward R. Murrow invited her on his TV show, See It Now. People watched the TV screen as Grandma painted a picture from her house. She sat at an old table and painted on masonite, a thin hard board. "I like to paint old-timey things," she said.
Her work is called primitive art, a simple and clear style and her theme was American rural life. Many primitive artists have not had formal training yet seem to paint in a natural way. Grandma drew from her memory and captured activities such as capturing the Thanksgiving turkey, Halloween night on the farm and having a family reunion picnic.
At age 100, she illustrated an edition of The Night Before Christmas by Clement Moore and the book was published after her death. Grandma Moses died on December 13, 1961. She lived to be 101 and in the last year of her life painted twenty-five pictures.
In a recent interview on National Public Radio, art scholar and organizer of the Moses retrospective Jane Kallir recalled seeing a Grandma Moses painting for the first time in 1954 in her father's gallery:
"I remember an amazing combination of emotional intensity, a visceral capturing of the landscape of different weather and seasons. You can practically smell the hay in a Grandma Moses painting. You can imagine yourself walking around in them. There's a technical brilliance, a handling of form and color that is really on a par with the great artists of all time. I was bowled over by what this little farm woman had managed to achieve on an artistic level."