When tears come, I breathe deeply and rest. I know I am swimming in a hallowed stream where many have gone before.

I am not alone, crazy, or having a nervous breakdown . . . My heart is at work. My soul is awake. ~ Mary Margaret Funk

Mourning is showing and doing. When you cry, you are mourning. When you talk to someone else about the death, you are mourning. When you write in a journal, put together a photo display,

or write a thank-you note for a casserole you received, you are mourning.

~ Dr. Alan Wolfelt

A Prayer from Native American Tradition

O Great Spirit of our Ancestors, we raise the pipe to you, to your messengers the four winds, and to Mother Earth who provides for your children.

Give us the wisdom to teach our children to love, to respect, to be kind to each other so that they may grow with peace in mind. Let us learn to share all the good things that you provide for us on this Earth.

The greatness of a nation can be judged

by the way its animals are treated.

~ Mahatma Gandhi

We may have pets, but when it comes to unconditional love they are the masters.

~ Donald L. Hicks

When we adopt a dog or any pet, we know it is going to end with us having to say goodbye, but we still do it.

And we do it for a very good reason:

They bring so much joy and optimism and happiness. They attack every moment of every day with that attitude.

~ W. Bruce Cameron

While you were busy trying to prove God stands behind you, God was before me lighting the trail, so he could lead us both. ~ Shannon L. Alder

The spirit that emerged outside a Mafia-run bar in 1969 became the pulse of the gay community and inspired not just an annual parade but ways to express gay pride in individual lives. Stonewall happens every day.

~ Ann Bausum, Stonewall: Breaking Out in the Fight for Gay Rights

Worship that does not lead to neighborly compassion and justice cannot be faithful worship of YHWH. The offer is a phony Sabbath!

~ Walter Brueggemann, Sabbath as Resistance

"Somebody, your father or mine, should have told us that not many people have ever died of love. But multitudes have perished, and are perishing every hour--

and in the oddest places!--for the lack of it." ~ Author James Baldwin

Our job is to love others without stopping

to inquire whether or not they are worthy.

~ Unknown

There is no pit so deep that God’s love is not deeper still. ~ Corrie Ten Boom

Sabbath is the regular, disciplined, visible, concrete yes to the neighborly reality of the community beloved by God…

Sabbath is taking time…time to be holy…time to be human. ~ Walter Brueggemann

All shall be well, and all shall be well and

all manner of things shall be well.

~ Julian of Norwich

Sometimes the most important thing in a whole day is the rest taken between two deep breaths. ~ Etty Hillesum

Sabbath is the break, regular and public, that permits us to remember. Sabbath is the opportunity to recall Egypt and

Pharaoh and then to remember YHWH and exodus. Sabbath is the day to dance and sing…Those who remember and keep the Sabbath find they are less driven, less coerced, less frantic to meet deadlines, free to be, rather than to do.

~ Walter Brueggemann

In this interpretive tradition, Sabbath is not simply a pause. It is an occasion for reimagining all social life away from coercion and competition to compassionate solidarity…Sabbath is not simply the pause that refreshes. It is the pause that transforms.

~ Walter Brueggemann

Take a rest.

A field that has rested gives a beautiful crop. ~ Ovid

In our own contemporary context of the rat race of anxiety, the celebration of the Sabbath is an act of both resistance and

alternative. It is resistance because it is a visible insistence that our lives are not defined by the production and consumption of commodity goods…It is an alternative to the demanding,

chattering, pervasive presence of advertising and its great liturgical claim of professional sports that devour all our “rest time.” ~ Walter Brueggemann

Rest and be thankful.

~ William Wordsworth

Four marks of true repentance are: acknowledgement of wrong,

willingness to confess it, willingness to abandon it, and willingness to make restitution. ~ Corrie Ten Boom

Repentance is more than saying “I’m sorry,” and knowledge that God’s grace requires more of me than singing every verse of “Just as I am.”

~ Barbara Brown Taylor

Grace is the mysterious strength God lends human beings who commit themselves to the work of transformation.

To repent is both to act from that grace and to ask for more of it, in order to follow Christ into the startling freedom of new life. ~ Barbara Brown Taylor

It [repentance] calls individuals to take responsibility for what is wrong with the world - beginning with what is wrong with them - and to join with other people

who are dedicated to turning things around. ~ Barbara Brown Taylor