Cold Days

Winter is the time for comfort, for good food and warmth, for the touch of a friendly hand and for a talk beside the fire: it is time for home. - Edith Sitwell

Cold! If the thermometer had been an inch longer we'd have frozen to death. - Mark Twain

Winter is nature's way of saying, "Up yours." —  Robert Byrne

Quotes For Happy George

The nice part about living in a small town is that when you don't know what you're doing, someone else does. - Anonymous

Living in a small town...is like living in a large family of rather uncongenial relations. Sometimes it’s fun, and sometimes it’s perfectly awful, but it’s always good for you. People in large towns are like only-children. - Joyce Dennys

Small towns make up for their lack of people by having everyone be more interesting.  - Doris "Granny D" Haddock

On life

What you are must always displease you, if you would attain to that which you are not. - St. Augustine

Strange is our situation here upon earth. Each of us comes for a short visit, not knowing why, yet sometimes seeming to divine a purpose. 
       From the standpoint of daily life, however, there is one thing we do know: that man is here for the sake of other men—above all for those upon whose smile and well-being our own happiness depends, and also for the countless unknown souls with whose fate we are connected by a bond of sympathy. Many times a day I realize how much my own outer and inner life is built upon the labors of my fellow men, both living and dead, and how earnestly I must exert myself in order to give in return as much as I have received. My peace of mind is often troubled by the depressing sense that I have borrowed too heavily from the work of other men. - Albert Einstein

Life never becomes a habit to me. It’s always a marvel.-  Katherine Mansfield

Three for St. Stephen

The tyrant dies and his rule is over, the martyr dies and his rule begins. ―  Søren Kierkegaard,

We can see clearly that the end of following Christ wholeheartedly is to share, very possibly, in his very end. We can have great confidence that multitudes of fellow pilgrims have won the contest, fought the good fight, and endured martyrdom before the watching hosts of heaven. ― Greg Gordon, The Following of Christ

It is not the torture, but the cause which makes the martyr.  - St. Augustine 

Christmas Eve

It is Christmas every time you let God love others through you.  - Mother Teresa

Blessed is the season, which engages the whole world in a conspiracy of love. - Hamilton Wright Mabi

Its Christmas Eve! Its the one night of the year when we all act a little nicer, we smile a little easier, we cheer a little more. For a couple of hours out of the whole year, we are the people that we always hoped we would be.  - Bill Murray

In memory of Tom Holstein: Friendship, Service and Faith

Friendship that flows from the heart cannot be frozen by adversity, as the water that flows from the spring cannot congeal in winter. - James Fenimore Cooper

The best things in life are never rationed. Friendship, loyalty, love do not require coupons. - George T. Hewitt

To give real service you must add something which cannot be bought or measured with money, and that is sincerity and integrity. - Douglas Adams

Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile. - Albert Einstein

“The word "Eucharist" means literally "act of thanksgiving." To celebrate the Eucharist and to live a Eucharistic life has everything to do with gratitude. Living Eucharistically is living life as a gift, a gift for which one is grateful. But gratitude is not the most obvious response to life, certainly not when we experience life as a series of losses! Still, the great mystery we celebrate in the Eucharist and live in a Eucharistic life is precisely that through mourning our losses we come to know life as a gift.” - Henri J.M. Nouwen

“I held the Host with two fingers and thought: How small Jesus made Himself, in order to show us that He doesn't expect great things of us, but rather little things with great love.”  -  Mother Teresa

The human condition - Oxymoronica Style

A life of ease is a difficult pursuit. - William Cowper

Life is easier than you'd think; all that is necessary is to accept the impossible, do without the indispensable, and bear the intolerable. - Kathleen Norris

The most exquisite folly is made of wisdom spun too fine. - Benjamin Franklin