The only real prison is fear, and the only real freedom is freedom from fear.

-Aung San Suu Kyi

Take, feel, give, say.
Open your eyes to the value of days.

Keep, touch, breath, know.
Find pace in the strides and grace in the flow.

Teach, live, smile, learn.
Have faith in the moments and let passions burn.

Hope, heal, love, hold.
Reach to the limits wherever you go.

-Sera Johnson

People that wish they were someone else,
Have just never truly found themselves

"There is really nothing you must be.
And there is nothing you must do.
There is really nothing you must have.
And there is nothing you must know.
There is really nothing you must become.
However. It helps to understand that fire burns,
and when it rains, the earth gets wet..."

Robert Fulghum

"One word. All you've been saying is quite right, I shouldn't wonder. I'm a chap who always liked to know the worst and then put the best face I can on it. So I won't deny any of what you said. But there's one thing more to be said, even so.

"Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things - trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones. Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one. And that's a funny thing, when you come to think of it. We're just babies making up a game, if you're right. But four babies playing a game can make a playworld which licks your real world hollow. That's why I'm going to stand by the play-world.

"I'm on Aslan's side even if there isn't any Aslan to lead it. I'm going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn't any Narnia. So, thanking you kindly for our supper, if these two gentlemen and the young lady are ready, we're leaving your court at once and setting out in the dark to spend our lives looking for Overland. Not that our lives will be very long, I should think; but that's a small loss if the world's as dull a place as you say."

-Puddleglum, in Ch. 12 : The Queen of Underland

Without God, Nothing is powerful.

-Anon

If you think education is expensive, try ignorance!
-Andy McIntyre

"Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire."
-William Butler Yeats

Loving By Letting Go

To Let Go does not mean I stop caring for you.
It means a new form of trying is to let you be.
To Let Go does not mean I abandon you,
It means I realize I can't control you.
To Let Go does not mean letting you take advantage,
It means I allow you to learn through natural consequences.
To Let Go does not mean piloting alternatives for you,
It means I hope you choose to affect your own destiny.

To Let Go is to admit powerlessness
Which means the outcome is not in my hands.
To Let Go is not to change or blame you.
It's to make the most of myself.
To Let Go is not to take care of your feelings,
It's to care about how you feel.
To Let Go is not to fix or judge you,
It's to support and accept you.

To Let Go does not mean I shelter you from truth,
It means I offer you experience and growth.
To Let Go does not mean I regret the past,
It means I grow and live for the future.
To Let Go does not mean I criticize or regulate you,
It means letting us both become what we dream we can be.
To Let Go is to fear less and love more.

To Let Go might be the only way to love.

(Revised and Edited by Sera Johnson, originally credited to Barbra Layton)

Don't give up what you want most for what you want now.
-CURT BRINKMAN