Cities are 2% of the earths crust, but they are 50% of the worlds population.
The spiritual response is too often a simplistic one: we abandon God or we blame God for abandoning us.
Life always comes out of death. The present rises from the ashes of the past. The future is always possible for those who are willing to re-create it.
Judaism calls for us to honor the rhythm of human life, the demands of the human community around us, the call of the divine order as the filter and scale for the decisions that drive our own small lives. We do not rule the universe, Judaism reminds us. God does. We are not its standard or its norms. We are only its keepers, its agents, its stewards. To do right by the universe at large is the measure of a happiness framed with the entire cosmos in mind but lived in microcosms across time.
Life is a series of lessons, some of them obvious, some of them not. We learn as we go that dreams end, that plans get changed, that promises get broken, that our idols disappoint us.
Mystery is what happens to us when we allow life to evolve rather than having to make it happen all the time. It is the strange knock at the door, the sudden sight of an unceremoniously blooming flower, an afternoon in the yard, a day of riding the midtown bus. Just to see. Just to notice. Just to be there.
But we are here to depart from this world as finished as we can possibly become.
There’s no card, business card, better than a compact disc for a composer. It doesn’t half impress people and they get a long way on it. . . these composers they will get more performances, more commissions, more recognition just by having that disc
Imagine the first Burmese "giraffe woman"; she was probably a local icon in her village in the way she put the rings around her neck to sell her craft. Then she became a celebrity, so all of the wannabes started following her in that uncomfortable and unhealthy trend. But is that so different from Pamela Anderson? I don't think so.
Governing a large state is like boiling a small fish.
I think that special relationship between the UK and the US has been an important part of security across the world particularly to the West.