Adventures in Relationship and Community

"Enlightenment is when you realize that what was planned is a party"

-- Victor Baranco

---

"I would say it in this sentence: “We were made for ecstasy.” We were made for ecstasy. Every human being is made for ecstasy. And not just an occasional ecstasy, but to live on a level of everyday that life is full of thanksgiving, full of wonder, full of awe, full of good sexual loving, and full of good everything. We are made for that. We have the capacity to be joyful, happy, loving, creative people. We have the capacity to do that. That’s it. We have that possibility. Everybody wants to feel good and not just human beings but a worm wants to feel good. Everything wants to feel good. And feeling good is a transcendent state. It is not the flatland. When you are in it, in a real high mood on a Shalom Retreat, you are in an altered state of consciousness. Shalom is an altered state. My commitment in my own life is that I can live that way. Everyday. Now I don’t do it everyday, but I intend it everyday. So to learn to love is to learn to alter flatland consciousness."

-- Jerry Jud in Love is an Intention

---

"Describe the steps you would take, the gifts you would buy, the generosity you would bestow, the kindness you would offer, the enthusiasm you would have, the attention you would give, and anything else that appeals to you, if you were able to give yourself the things you want someone else to give to you.

NONE OF US WANTS TO GROW UP"

-- Cheri Huber

---

"Don't ask yourself what the world needs; ask yourself what makes you come alive, and then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive."

--Howard Thurman

---

"The true test of your spiritual success is the happiness of the people around you."

-- Rudi

---

"When Love beckons follow him, though his ways are hard and steep...if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires...to know the pain of too much tenderness. To be wounded by your own understanding of love...to wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving."

-- Kahlil Gibran

---

Throw away
Your begging bowls at God’s door

For I have heard the Beloved
Prefers sweet threatening shouts,

Something on the order of:

Hey, Beloved,
My heart is a raging volcano
of love for you!

You better start kissing me –
Or else!"

-- Hafiz

---

"You don't need to get what you want if you can express what you want"

-- Strephon Kaplan-Williams

---

"The heart has its reasons that Reason knows not of."

-- Blaise Pascal