ecclesiastes

The trick is that you’re willing to help them.
The rule is to sound like you’re doing them a favor.

The rule is to create a commission system.
The trick is to get their number.

The trick is to make it personal:
No one in the world suffers like you.

The trick is that you’re providing a service.
The rule is to keep the conversation going.

The rule is their parents were foolish,
their children are greedy or insane.

The rule is to make them feel they’ve come too late.
The trick is that you’re willing to make exceptions.

The rule is to assume their parents abused them.
The trick is to sound like the one teacher they loved.

And when they say “too much,”
give them a plan.

And when they say “anger” or “rage” or “love,”
say “give me an example.”

The rule is everyone is a gypsy now.
Everyone is searching for his tribe.

The rule is you don’t care if they ever find it. 

The trick is that they feel they can.

Khaled Mattawa

Healing

The desire to grow without dying

reveals not all childish things have been put away.

This was the still and wounding prick

Peter felt during the cock-crow at dawn.

Boy, I bet that was quite the morning, huh? -

a warm-up crucifixion before the main event.

All illusions of hasty transformations were squashed

as the sun began its crawl over Golgotha.

There the stony disciple began his betrayal of

the gross inadequacy of speedy recoveries

in favor of the long difficult repentance

required to save the soul.

John Blase

Youth

Youth is not a period of time.

 It is a state of mind, 

a result of the will, 

a quality of the imagination, 

a victory of courage over timidity, 

of the taste of adventure 
over the love of comfort. 

A man doesn't grow old 

because he has lived a certain number of years. 

A man grows old when he deserts his ideal. 

The years may wrinkle his skin, 

but deserting his ideal wrinkles his soul. 

Preoccupations, fears, doubts, and despair 

are the enemies, which slowly bow us 

toward earth and turn us into dust before death. 

You will remain young as long as 

you are open to what is beautiful, 
good and great; 

receptive to the messages of 
other men and women, 

of nature and of God. 

If one day you should become bitter, 

pessimistic and gnawed by despair, 

may God have mercy on your old man's soul.

General Douglas MacArthur

The power of women

There were 11 people – ten men and one woman – 

hanging onto a rope that came down from a helicopter.

They all decided that one person should get off, 

because if they didn’t, the rope would break and everyone would die.

No one could decide who should go, 

so finally, the woman gave a really touching speech saying how she would give up her life 

to save the others, 

because women were used to giving up things for their husbands and children, 

giving in to men, 

and not receiving anything in return.

When she finished speaking, all the men started clapping.

Little Flower

It seems to me that if a little flower could speak, 
it would tell simply all what God has done for it 
without trying to hide its blessings. 

It would not say, 
under the pretext of a false humility, 
it is not beautiful or without perfume, 
that the sun has taken away its splendor 
and the storm has broken its stem 
when it know that all this is untrue. 

The flower about to tell her story
rejoices at having to publish 
the totally gratuitous gifts of Jesus. 

She knows that nothing in herself 
was capable of attracting the divine glances, 
and His mercy alone brought about 
everything that is good in her.

Thérèse de Lisieux