Things...

that I'm glad I've come across on this cold and snowy week-end:

. . . I grew up in a Montessori environment and I believe that it had an impact on the person I have become. The Montessori Method is about learning by living. Learning in that way, from preschool through eighth grade, I was always allowed to set my own pace, my own goals, and, for the most part, study what I wanted. In unexpected ways, my elementary school experience prepared me well for my college experience. . . . my early education, as well as my parents, fostered an independence that I carried through high school and into college.

~ from an internship essay the Lovely Daughter has written. (Every once in awhile, you sense that maybe you did something right somewhere along the way.)

*****

Outward indications of authentic prayer, however described, are recognizable over time: interor freedom and trust of God, self, and others; greater flexibility and less judgmentalism; lessening of various kinds of fear; a mellowing-out or gentleness; absence of defensiveness; and, of course, peace and joy.

~ from The Spiritual Exercises Reclaimed: Uncovering Liberating Possibilities for Women, by Katherine Dyckman, Mary Garvin & Elizabeth Liebert. (At other times, you sense that you might have a few things to work on.)

*****

[P]oetry: the power of language to restore

and

How do we know there's a God? Because he keeps disappearing.

and

The catastrophe of grace.

~ all from Fugitive Pieces by Anne Michaels. (A guide through the Ignatian Spiriutal Exercises who loves literature is a good person to have in your life.)