Tag Archives: eloquent questions

A Smile To Remember – Charles Bukowski

Posted on November 20, 2014 by ivonprefontaine

Charles Bukowski is a poet who uses wit, sarcasm, and everyday experience, good and bad, to catch my attention. In this poem, domestic violence is the topic he explored.

I don’t know if he was a product of this violence, but he provides an insight that is perhaps a survivor’s insight and poses a question that needs exploring.

What do we notice in life? Is it the trivial things? Or, is it the major things? What happens in a child’s life when she/he live in violence? What can we each do to reach out and touch the lives of those living in violence? Perhaps, it is a smile to remember making the difference.

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Day of the Imprisoned Writer: a letter to Mahvash Sabet

Posted on November 19, 2014 by ivonprefontaine

Day of the Imprisoned Writer: a letter to Mahvash Sabet.

We have many people around the world who are imprisoned for their political and religious beliefs. Usually, I find when we put a face on those that are somehow different they become real and human. It is important to reach out and take the hand of those who suffer persecution at the hands of others regardless of the reasons. It is important to make people real and human.

When I did my undergraduate work, I was able to take one special education course. In the course, a point that was made several times and stuck with me was that we are more alike despite obvious differences than we are different. It is overwhelmingly so.

Do we need science to tell us the obvious? Or, can we see the humanity that lies beneath the differences we want to see?

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quotation: Don’t put money before everything else -Pope Francis

Posted on November 15, 2014 by ivonprefontaine

quotation: Don’t put money before everything else -Pope Francis.

In the West, this is a hard concept to understand and grasp. We need money to live and perhaps even survive. What about when money becomes our raison d’etre? What happens when money takes over our lives and, for that matter, we obsess over one thing at the expense of living?

This is an open question we should live with, embrace, and explore daily. How does our living make the living of others better? There are no easy answers. In fact, there may not be an answer. Each time we explore this question, it may pose new questions.

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Quotes on Humility

Posted on October 30, 2014 by ivonprefontaine

Quotes on Humility.

Humility, human, and humble all share the same root word, humus. When we are humble and human we lower ourselves in those moments accepting the humility and humiliation that comes with being human.

The quotes come from a variety of sources, but one that caught my attention was from Abraham Lincoln. We have to lower ourselves sometimes to find our way through living’s dense thicket and underbrush. It is here we find our wisdom and can discern the next possible step.

Humility is accepting that nothing comes with certainty. Discerning at this level allows us to look upwards and find the stars again as they help us on the journey called living. In these spaces, we seek the questions which open space rather than the answers so often fixed firmly in our beliefs.

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Letting Go

Posted on October 15, 2014 by ivonprefontaine

Letting Go.

The closing paragraph in the article linked speaks about the journey we are and the letting go that is required in the earthly part of the journey. There is a spiritual essence to our journey, one that takes us amongst the stars.

Parker Palmer writes extensively about spending time with our self in the quietness and silence of solitude. Here, we listen to what is being said to us by our spirit. We explore the depth and nature of who we are in relationship to the world. We let go of the busyness that surrounds even briefly feeling rested in the effort.

Joyce Sutphen shared the poem How to Listen. She describes the letting go listening requires.

Tilt your head slightly to one side and lift
your eyebrows expectantly. Ask questions.

Delve into the subject at hand or let
things come randomly. Don’t expect answers.

Forget everything you’ve ever done.
Make no comparisons. Simply listen.

Listen with your eyes, as if the story
you are hearing is happening right now.

Listen without blinking, as if a move
might frighten the truth away forever.

Don’t attempt to copy anything down.
Don’t bring a camera or a recorder.

This is your chance to listen carefully.
Your whole life might depend on what you hear.

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quotation: Henry David Thoreau (above morality by points)

Posted on October 13, 2014 by ivonprefontaine

quotation: Henry David Thoreau (above morality by points).

Thoreau provided great insights in living off the grid long before we thought seriously about that idea. Living life based on a checklist of moral behaviour is nearly impossible. Living a life that we are good at is a growing experience.

We cultivate our lives like farmers and gardeners when we pay attention to our work, our living. It is in the moment that we realize and recognize the ethical needs. Certainly, there are rules to live by i.e. The Ten Commandments and The Three Universal Truths of Buddhism. When we live life and include those rules and truths, it is in living that we become who we are. It is in living we become good for something.

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“Your daily life is your temple and your religion…”(Khalil Gibran)

Posted on October 10, 2014 by ivonprefontaine

“Your daily life is your temple and your religion…”(Khalil Gibran).

The quote from Kahlil Gibran is a wonderful reminder that daily life when attended to and tended to is our temple and religion. Do we choose to make daily life sacred? That is a question with no answer, because one is always being negotiated in living our lives in the moment.

The word religion shares the root with ligaments and suggests religion not as a divisive institution, but a way of living that binds us together in our humanness, humanity, and humaneness. We are more alike than we are different although we lose sight of that.

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Capturing The Moment — Papilio multicaudata Butterfly

Posted on October 8, 2014 by ivonprefontaine

Capturing The Moment — Papilio multicaudata Butterfly.

The image and the short verse in the link are spectacular. Martin Buber wrote complex prose which was poetic. His central point in his seminal work I and Thou was we become who we are in relationship with ourselves, others, and the world. He has a beautiful section about our relationship with trees. In our relationships, we become unique. We are not duplicates of anyone else.

We are who we are because of our relationships, the impact they have on us, and the sense we make of them. Sometimes, more often than not I imagine, the relationships go unnoticed and are taken-for-granted just as our uniqueness is. We become whats in the world rather than a particular who in the world. We might even fall victim to seeing ourselves as whats, as products, rather than that unique person who is only expressed in our particular whoness.

In a world driven by standardization and conformity to standards, it is difficult to find one’s voice and express one’s self through that voice.

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Accept Yourself

Posted on October 7, 2014 by ivonprefontaine

Accept Yourself.

In a highly materialistic and competitive world, it is hard sometimes to accept who we are. My reading and writing has taken me on a detour through this as I explore what teaching means to teachers in their forming identities. There is an essential part of who we are that often goes unexplored. We often reduce to what we do, how we do it, and why we do it, but rarely let the who be revealed.

It is almost Seuss-like with the question “Who is the who that teaches or lives this life?” When we slow down and move from moment to moment, it allows us to speak to our self and listen more deeply. This conversation is a rich and deep requiring stillness and mindfulness that the busyness of daily life often prohibits. When we slow down, we touch the essential spirit of who we are without completely knowing the answer. The questions we ask open space for living and creativity.

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Inspiration Point

Posted on October 2, 2014 by ivonprefontaine

Inspiration Point.

We carry umbrellas to protect us from the rain. Rain can feel soothing on the body. It cools and warms. We walk in it to gain fresh perspective on life. We splash in the puddles to recall childhood.

Walking in the rain is walking through life which the link suggests in a wonderful way. We are having a conversation as we walk in the rain listening for what life has to say. When we are mindful, we hear the wisdom in rain drops. We are living into the questions that life is.