Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Knowledge and Wisdom

"Never mistake knowledge for wisdom. One helps you make a living the other helps you make a life."

- Sandra Carey

Listen Up

"It requires wisdom to understand wisdom: The music is nothing if the audience is deaf."

- Walter Lippmann

Gandhi

"It is unwise to be too sure of one's own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err."

- Mahatma Gandhi

Do The Math: Two Ears. One Mouth.

"It is the province of knowledge to speak and it is the privilege of wisdom to listen."

- Oliver Wendell Holmes

In The Now

"It is always wise to stop wishing for things long enough to enjoy the fragrance of those now flowering."

- Patrice Gifford

Sharing

"If wisdom were offered me with this restriction, that I should keep it close and not communicate it, I would refuse the gift."

- Lucius Anneaus Seneca

Monday, October 3, 2011

Our WyzerCircle

"The next best thing to being wise oneself is to be in a circle with those who are."

- C. S. Lewis

All Those Wyzer Than I

"I love quotations because it is a joy to find thoughts one might have, beautifully expressed with much authority by someone recognized wiser than oneself."

- Marlene Dietrich

Seekers, Finders, Seekers Still

"A man is not old as long as he is seeking something."

- Jean Rostand


"There is a vast and important difference between a Pauline creed and a Pauline life...Tens of thousands of believers who pride themselves on their understanding of Romans and Ephesians cannot conceal the sharp spiritual contradiction that exists between their hearts and the heart of Paul.

"That difference may be stated this way: Paul was a seeker and a finder and a seeker still. They seek and find and seek no more. After 'accepting' Christ they tend to substitute logic for life and doctrine for experience."

- A. W. Tozer

Written On Your Heart

"There’s a lovely Hasidic story of a rabbi who always told his people that if they studied the Torah, it would put Scripture on their hearts. One of them asked, 'Why on our hearts, and not in them?' The rabbi answered, 'Only God can put Scripture inside. But reading sacred text can put it on your hearts, and then when your hearts break, the holy words will fall inside.'"

-Anne Lamott


So I pray we take the quotes I'm going to post and write the wisdom on our hearts, so that when our hearts break--yes, when--God's wisdom from Scripture will fill in the empty places inside and these quotes will heal the open wound.

Sunday, October 2, 2011

A New Book, A Substory

With an inciting incident comes a new book in our story. A sub story if you will. This blogs current sub story is going to be quotes.

I LOVE quotes! Why use my quickly spat out thoughts when we can hear a dedicated wise author's thoughts that their brains have bled out (see Robert Pinsky's poem, Lair)? That they have labored over for possibly years? And if they put all that effort into their works (sometimes Toni Morrison would spend an entire day trying to find one word!) we can at the very least take a little time to absorb them into our souls and lives and see if they incite change in us.

So I hope you enjoy these quotes. I truly do. I wouldn't make it without them. I hope this experience makes us all the wyzer. Blessings to you all!


Love Always,

Zoe Elizabeth

An Inciting Incident?

As characters in stories, otherwise known as our lives, we function as characters more than we do as just people. We experience plot, setting, exposition, conflict, climax, and resolution. Life imitating art, imitating life.

Life is a story. We are characters in not only our own story, but we are also characters in The Story as well.

And the thing about characters is they never do what the author wants them to do. They have their own ideas of right and wrong. They have strong desires. And so sometimes we veer off track. And that's what I've been doing. Until now...I hope.

Except characters don't change on their own. You can't just wake up and say, "I want to change." No, it doesn't work like that. We need something to push us in a new direction. We need conflict. Conflict is the only thing that changes a character, ask Robert McKee. And conflict only comes in what story tellers call "an inciting incident."

"James Scott Bell says an inciting incident is a doorway through which a protagonist cannot return." - Donald Miller

And right now I am praying to God every day He, the Author of my story, our story, just brought Liz to me, not just because we need each other, but because He is hoping to bring about my change. To put me on a path. A better path. A path with a bigger purpose.

I mean, after all, the point of story is character transformation, and what's gonna change me more than God working through conflict and an inciting incident. Nothing.

Liz, may you be the inciting incident that gets me back on writing's path.