Quotes from Parker Palmer, always a rich source

What I know for sure is this: We come from mystery and we return to mystery. I arrived here with no bad memories of wherever I’d come from, so I have no good reason to fear the place to which I’ll return. And I know this, too: Standing closer to the reality of death awakens my awe at the gift of life.

I’m old enough to know that the world can delight me, so my expectation is not of the world but of myself: Delight in the gift of life and be grateful

When Florida Scott-Maxwell was 85, she wrote in The Measure of My Days:

“You need only claim the events of your life to make yourself yours. When you truly possess all you have been and done...you are fierce with reality.”

That’s how I feel when I’m able to say:

“I am that to which I gave short shrift and that to which I attended. I am my descent into darkness and my arising into light, my betrayals and my fidelities, my failures and my successes. I am my ignorance and my insight, my doubts and my convictions, my fears and my hopes.”

Wholeness does not mean perfection: It means embracing brokenness as an integral part of life.

"What I know for sure is this: We come from mystery and we return to mystery."

Self, i loved reading The Measure of My Days, decades ago.  I would probably even more so today, being 70!  Other quotes of hers:http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/f/florida_scottmaxwell.html

http://www.timegoesby.net/weblog/2012/06/elder-prose-interlude-the-measure-of-my-days.html