This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
As I got older, I discovered that nothing within me cried out for a baby. My womb did not seem to have come equipped with that famously ticking clock. Unlike so many of my friends, I did not ache with longing whenever I saw an infant. (Though I did ache with longing, it is true, whenever I saw a good used-book shop)
Contentment | Distress | Focus | Friend | Global | Search | Sorrow | Suffering | Unhappiness | World | Trouble |
Here was something I already knew to be true about myself: Just as there are some wives who will occasionally need a break from their husbands in order to visit a spa for the weekend with their girlfriends, I will always be the sort of wife who occasionally needs a break from her husband in order to visit Cambodia. Just for a few days!
I look at the Augusteum, and I think that perhaps my life has not actually been so chaotic, after all. It is merely this world that is chaotic, bringing changes to us all that nobody could have anticipated. The Augusteum warns me to not to get attached to any obsolete ideas about who I am, what I represent, whom I belong to, or what function I may once have intended to serve. Yesterday I might have been a glorious monument to somebody, true enough--but tomorrow I could be a fireworks depository. Even in the Eternal City, says the silent Augusteum, one must always be prepared for riotous and endless waves of transformation.
Computer | Day | Earth | Humanity | Life | Life | Little | Music | Nature | Nothing | People | Television | Time | World |
Your problem is you don't understand what that word means. People think a soul mate is your perfect fit, and that's what everyone wants. But a true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that's holding you back, the person who brings you to your attention so you can change your life. A true soul mate is probably the most important person you'll ever meet, because they tear down your walls and smack you awake. But to live with a soul mate forever? Nah. Too painful. Soul mates, they come into your life just to reveal another layer of yourself to you, and then they leave.
Eternal | Evolution | God | History | Humanity | Ideas | Individual | Longing | Means | Need | Nothing | Order | Peace | Providence | Right | Sacred | Search | Spirit | Story | Thinking | Thought | Will | Wonder | God | Think | Thought |
Spirituality is fearlessness. It is a way of looking boldly at this life we have been given, here, now, on earth, as this human being.
The search for satisfaction to Aahdf to protection and interest Almatatin, but a generous gift to the world. Saved one of every misery, Azaha of the way. To dream an obstacle, not in front of himself, but also in front of others. Only then will be free to serve the people and enjoy Bhbhm.
Belief | Destiny | Faith | God | Hope | Humanity | Life | Life | Meaning | Nature | Search | Will | God |
Meditation practice is like piano scales, basketball drills, ballroom dance class. Practice requires discipline; it can be tedious; it is necessary. After you have practiced enough, you become more skilled at the art form itself. You do not practice to become a great scale player or drill champion. You practice to become a musician or athlete. Likewise, one does not practice meditation to become a great meditator. We meditate to wake up and live, to become skilled at the art of living.
Attention | Divinity | Longing | Meditation | Mysticism | Nature | Religion | Self | Spirituality | Time | Friends |
The Silly Putty-like malleability of the institution [marriage], in fact, is the only reason we still have the thing at all. Very few people... would accept marriage on it's thirteenth-century terms. Marriage survives, in other words, precisely because it evolves. (Though I suppose this would not be a very persuasive argument to those who probably also don't believe in evolution).
The search for God is a reversal of the normal, mundane worldly order. in search for God, you revert from what attracts you and swim toward that which is difficult. you abandon your comforting and familiar habits with the hope (the mere hope!) that something greater will be offered you in return for what you have given up... if we truly knew all the answers in advance as to the meaning of life and the nature of God and the destiny of our souls, our belief would not be a leap of faith and it would not be a courageous act of humanity ; it would just be... a prudent insurance policy.
Contentment | Search |
Until-as often happened during those first months travel, whenever I would feel such happiness-my guilt alarm went off. I heard my ex-husband's voice speaking disdainfully in my ear: So this is what you gave up everything for? This is why you gutted our entire life together? For a few stalks of asparagus and an Italian newspaper?
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We were talking the other evening about the phrases one uses when trying to comfort someone who is in distress. I told him that in English we sometimes say, 'I've been there.' This was unclear to him at first-I've been where? But I explained that deep grief sometimes is almost like a specific loacation, a coordinate on a map of time. When you are standing in that forest of sorrow, you cannot imagine that you could ever find your way to a better place. But if someone can assure you that they themselves have stood in that same place, and now have moved on, sometimes this will bring hope.
If we can stay awake when our lives are changing, secrets will be revealed to us--secrets about ourselves, about the nature of life, and about the eternal source of happiness and peace that is always available, always renewable, already within us.
Cynicism | Life | Life | Nothing | Religion | Search | Spirituality | Truth |
There's a wonderful old Italian joke about a poor man who goes to church every day and prays before the statue of a great saint, begging, Dear saint-please, please, please...give me the grace to win the lottery. This lament goes on for months. Finally the exasperated staue comes to life, looks down at the begging man and says in weary disgust, My son-please, please, please...buy a ticket. Prayer is a realtionship; half the job is mine. If I want transformation, but can't even be bothered to articulate what, exactly, I'm ainming for, how will it ever occur? Half the benefit of prayer is in the asking itself, in the offering of a clearly posed and well-considered intention. If you don't have this, all your pleas and desires are boneless, floppy, inert; they swirl at your feet in a cold fog and never lift.
Belief | Books | Care | Decision | Destiny | Divinity | Faith | God | Life | Life | Meaning | Nature | Reason | Religion | Scripture | Will | God |
Tis' better to live your own life imperfectly than to imitate someone else's perfectly.
To feel physically comfortable with someone else's body is not a decision you make. It has very little thing to do with how two people think or act or talk or even look. The mysterious magnet is either there, buried somewhere deep behind the sternum, or it is not.
Are you becoming more and more aware of the interconnection of all beings, creatures and elements? Do you hold as your own Jesus' words: 'And whatsoever you do to the least of my brothers, you do to me'? Are you getting tired of the way our society celebrates the false ego's selfish and insatiable drive to acquire and use more and more? And does that make you want to be an agent of healing? A declaration of life's interdependence is a sign of spiritual progress.
Arrogance | Fear | Fighting | Health | Life | Life | Listening | Nature | Practice | Soul | Surrender | Uncertainty | Will |