This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
In war, they will kill some of us; we shall destroy all of them
Experience | Mother | Principles | Reflection | Space | Will |
The motion of my blood no longer keeps time with the tumult of the world. It leads me to seek for happiness in the lap and love of my family, in the society of my neighbors and my books, in the wholesome occupations of my farm and my affairs, in an interest or affection in every bud that opens, in every breath that blows around me, in an entire freedom of rest, of motion, of thought, owing account to myself alone of my hours and actions.
Thomas Mann, fully Paul Thomas Mann
The past is immortalized; that is to say, it is dead; and death is the root of all godliness and all abiding significance.
One of the most important-and most neglected-elements in the beginning of the interior life is the ability to respond to reality, to see the value and the beauty in ordinary things, to come alive to the splendor that is all around us.
The mature person realizes that life affirms itself most, not in acquiring things, but in giving time, efforts, strength, intelligence, and love to others. Here a different kind of dialectic of life and death begins to appear. The living drive, the vital satisfaction, by “ending” its trend to self-satisfaction and redirecting itself to and for others, transcends itself. It “dies” insofar as the ego is concerned, for the self is deprived of the immediate satisfactions which it could claim without being contested. Now it renounces these things, in order to give to others. Hence, life “dies” to itself in order to give itself away and thus affirms itself more maturely, more fruitfully, and more completely. We live in order to die to ourselves and give everything to others. …This “dying” to self in order to give to others is nothing more or less than a higher and more special affirmation of life. Such dying is the fruit of life, the evidence of mature and productive living. It is, in fact, the end or the goal of life.
Indeed, modern Jewish history in the Western countries is the recasting of the Jewish legacy in a Western matrix. The predicaments and attritions of the modern Jewish community and its civilization stem from the deluded quest of “Westernizing” Judaism. To be sure, Western versions of Judaism have been promulgated and millions of Jews in this country, as elsewhere in the Western world, are integrated as individuals into the Western culture and its way of life. But the stagnation of Jewish creativeness in the Western world and the Jewish loss by the total assimilation of complete alienation is the other side of the coveted coin of “being fully integrated into the Western world.”
Parenting is a spiritual path which can bring great pain and great joy and which can have a tremendous positive impact on your personality and behavior. I believe our children, unknowingly and with innocent trickery, teach us the deeper knowledge of how to be a true human being.
Consciousness | Gentleness | Love | Mother | Wise |
The most fearful phenomenon of these mid-century years is not the atom bomb; atomic energy does have its constructive possibilities... The most fearful event of these times is the colossal expansion of the government of the United States and the constant increase of executive power within the government.
Willard L. Sperry, fully Willard Learoyd Sperry
Man is not yet so transfigured that he has ceased to keep the window of his mind and heart open towards Jerusalem, Galilee, Mecca, Canterbury, or Plymouth. The abstract proposal that we worship at any place where God lets down the ladder is not yet an adequate substitute for the deep desire to go up to some central sanctuary where the religious artist vindicates a concrete universal in the realm of the spirit.
Character | Commerce | God | Heart | Magic | Man | Men | Mind | Mother | Mystery | Mystical | Peace | Question | Reality | Religion | Reverence | Right | Sacred | Soul | Spirit | Temper | Will | World | Worship | Trial | Commerce | God |
Willard L. Sperry, fully Willard Learoyd Sperry
Pay it forward with gratuities: This is a good rule of thumb. However, in our day, we sometimes travel several hours to do a funeral because we've worked with other congregations. I’ve done funerals that have paid as if it was my salary, and I’ve had some that barely paid the gas to drive the four hours to do the funeral. Nevertheless, it’s not about the money. It is about honoring that person as much as you can. God will supply all our needs.
Love's Secret - Never seek to tell thy love, Love that never told can be; For the gentle wind doth move Silently, invisibly. I told my love, I told my love, I told her all my heart, Trembling, cold, in ghastly fears. Ah! she did depart! Soon after she was gone from me, A traveler came by, Silently, invisibly: He took her with a sigh.
Comfort | Earth | God | Joy | Little | Love | Men | Mother | Soul | Will | God | Learn |
To be or not to be Of great capacity, Like Sir Isaac Newton, Or Locke, or Doctor South, Or Sherlock upon Death— I’d rather be Sutton! 2 For he did build a house For agèd men and youth, With walls of brick and stone; He furnish’d it within With whatever he could win, And all his own. He drew out of the Stocks His money in a box, And sent his servant To Green the Bricklayer, And to the Carpenter; He was so fervent. The chimneys were threescore, The windows many more; And, for convenience, He sinks and gutters made, And all the way he pav’d To hinder pestilence. Was not this a good man— Whose life was but a span, Whose name was Sutton— As Locke, or Doctor South, Or Sherlock upon Death, Or Sir Isaac Newton?
Father | Grief | Joy | Man | Mother | Pity | Sorrow | Tears |
Songs of Innocence (Introduction) - Piping down the valleys wild, Piping songs of pleasant glee, On a cloud I saw a child, And he laughing said to me: ‘Pipe a song about a Lamb!’ So I piped with merry cheer. ‘Piper, pipe that song again;’ So I piped; he wept to hear. ‘Drop thy pipe, thy happy pipe; Sing thy songs of happy cheer:’ So I sang the same again, While he wept with joy to hear. ‘Piper, sit thee down and write In a book, that all may read.’ So he vanish’d from my sight, And I pluck’d a hollow reed, And I made a rural pen, And I stain’d the water clear, And I wrote my happy songs Every child may joy to hear.
Angels | Comfort | Darkness | Day | Death | Eternal | Family | Grave | Heaven | Joy | Light | Little | Mother | Nature | Silence | Sin | Sorrow | Soul | Sound | Space | Spirit | Tears | Thinking | Woman | World | Youth | Youth |
The Land of Dreams - Awake, awake, my little boy! Thou wast thy mother’s only joy; Why dost thou weep in thy gentle sleep? Awake! thy father does thee keep. ‘O, what land is the Land of Dreams? What are its mountains, and what are its streams? O father! I saw my mother there, Among the lilies by waters fair. ‘Among the lambs, clothèd in white, She walk’d with her Thomas in sweet delight. I wept for joy, like a dove I mourn; O! when shall I again return?’ Dear child, I also by pleasant streams Have wander’d all night in the Land of Dreams; But tho’ calm and warm the waters wide, I could not get to the other side. ‘Father, O father! what do we here In this land of unbelief and fear? The Land of Dreams is better far, Above the light of the morning star.’
Day | Father | Mother | Nothing | Rage | Sorrow | Thought | Time | World | Youth | Youth | Thought |
My Spectre around me night and day Like a wild beast guards my way; My Emanation far within Weeps incessantly for my sin. ‘A fathomless and boundless deep, There we wander, there we weep; On the hungry craving wind My Spectre follows thee behind. ‘He scents thy footsteps in the snow, Wheresoever thou dost go, Thro’ the wintry hail and rain. When wilt thou return again? ‘Dost thou not in pride and scorn Fill with tempests all my morn, And with jealousies and fears Fill my pleasant nights with tears? ‘Seven of my sweet loves thy knife Has bereavèd of their life. Their marble tombs I built with tears, And with cold and shuddering fears. ‘Seven more loves weep night and day Round the tombs where my loves lay, And seven more loves attend each night Around my couch with torches bright. ‘And seven more loves in my bed Crown with wine my mournful head, Pitying and forgiving all Thy transgressions great and small. ‘When wilt thou return and view My loves, and them to life renew? When wilt thou return and live? When wilt thou pity as I forgive?’ [‘O’er my sins thou sit and moan: Hast thou no sins of thy own? O’er my sins thou sit and weep, And lull thy own sins fast asleep.] [‘What transgressions I commit Are for thy transgressions fit. They thy harlots, thou their slave; And my bed becomes their grave.] ‘Never, never, I return: Still for victory I burn. Living, thee alone I’ll have; And when dead I’ll be thy grave. ‘Thro’ the Heaven and Earth and Hell Thou shalt never, never quell: I will fly and thou pursue: Night and morn the flight renew.’ [‘Poor, pale, pitiable form That I follow in a storm; Iron tears and groans of lead Bind around my aching head.] ‘Till I turn from Female love And root up the Infernal Grove, I shall never worthy be To step into Eternity. ‘And, to end thy cruel mocks, Annihilate thee on the rocks, And another form create To be subservient to my fate. ‘Let us agree to give up love, And root up the Infernal Grove; Then shall we return and see The worlds of happy Eternity. ‘And throughout all Eternity I forgive you, you forgive me. As our dear Redeemer said: “This the Wine, and this the Bread.”’
A Divine Image - Cruelty has a human heart, And Jealousy a human face; Terror the human form divine, And Secrecy the human dress. The human dress is forgèd iron, The human form a fiery forge, The human face a furnace seal’d, The human heart its hungry gorge.
Better | Dreams | Father | Land | Light | Little | Mother | Unbelief |