“Monday is for curating a story, Tuesday is reserved for editing. Wednesday is for relaxing. Thursday if for drafting. Fridays are reserved for sharing stories. The weekend is reserved for sharing memories.”
Source: Compilation of Contemplation
“Dear God, I commit to remember that the absence of a parent never means the absence of you.”
“My family, the Alderidge family, is one of the major four syndicates that specializes professionally in what some might call “criminal activity.” We never leave enough evidence to get caught, and we never fail a mission. If you are born in the family, you work for the family, and you never go against the family. With members all over the world, we have our hand in everything from elections and assassinations to bank robberies and jewelry heists. That is how it has been for hundreds of years. I, however, am praying I get stationed in Paris with my Aunt Magdalena who makes personnel files on everyone from presidents in Polynesia to your average pancake flipper in Memphis. You never know who you might need to blackmail, bribe, or break to complete a mission. You may fear Big Brother spying on you, but the person you should truly fear getting your personal information is my Aunt Magdalena.”
Source: Rule 25: Don't Fall For The Target
“Life is energy and, as such, it belongs to all, reaches all, and blesses all.”
Source: The Love of Devotion
“God knows your company’s needs, He knows your means, and He is capable of using your five loaves and two fish.”
Source: Hospitality: Obedience To God, Love For Neighbor
“Returning to our question, “How are we to be hospitable to our family?”. We love them, we are thankful for them, and we offer up praise to God for them. We do not cook and feed our families with a grudging, discontent spirit. Rather, we do so with a gentle and quiet spirit, eager to demonstrate our love.”
Source: Hospitality: Obedience To God, Love For Neighbor
“The family-- predicated on the privatization of that which should be common, and on proprietary concepts of couple, blood, gene, and seed-- is a state institution, not a popular organism.”
“...I submit that kinship, at least right now, is always a reference to something that is imagined to be inerasable; to "nature." Perhaps one day it will be fit for purpose again, who knows? Perhaps because the concept of nature has itself been turned inside out. But right now, even when it is conceptualized as practice-based, kinship functions as a linguistic appeal to something non-contingent that can ground a relation. And I am asking: can we suspend that fantasy of something non-contingent? Can we let go of it?”
Source: Die Familie abschaffen: Wie wir Care-Arbeit und Verwandtschaft neu erfinden
“Warmth fills my chest. It creeps into my fingers and toes, until there is so much of it, it hurts. I'm overfilled. No one person should ever have quite so much love in their body at one time.”
Source: Book Lovers
“People like to say that it--significance, import--is all about the family. But lots of people do not have rich networks of hilarious uncles and adorable cousins, who all live nearby, to help them. Many people have truly awful families: insane, abusive, repressive. So we work hard, we enjoy life as we can, we endure. We try to help ourselves and one another. We try to be more present and less petty. Some days go better than others. We look for solace in nature and art and maybe, if we are lucky, the quiet satisfaction of our homes.
Is solace meaning? I don't know. But it's pretty close.”
Source: Stitches: A Handbook on Meaning, Hope and Repair by Anne Lamott