January 29: The Courage to Do
You cannot demonstrate courage merely by plunging down a black diamond ski trail at breakneck speed, although courage sometimes requires facing significant risks. Nor can you demonstrate courage merely by leaping out of a plane with a parachute, although courage always requires grappling with fear. Rather, courage is the ability to do two things. It is the ability see good afar off and take a step toward it—despite obvious risks. It is also the ability to see evil close at hand and take steps to confront it—despite present danger. To know courage is to know a calling that is greater than fear.
~ Galen Guengerich
February 5: The Profit of Prophets
~ Rev. Suzanne Wasilczuk
February 12: The Gladness of the World
Compassion is an outward expression of an inner awareness—an awareness of our own vulnerability. People who lack compassion foolishly believe that they are invincible, that they will never need anyone’s help. On these terms, compassion is the converse of gratitude. Gratitude recognizes how dependent I am on the people and world around me. Compassion recognizes that other people are dependent and needy as well, and that I am one of the people on whom they depend. To lack compassion is to lack the most basic understanding of how the world works.
~ Galen Guengerich
February 19: How to Care for Others
Compassion is the best basis for helping others, but we don’t always feel it. The Buddhist tradition shows us how to develop compassion for all living beings through meditations that gradually transform the pattern of our thoughts and feelings for others. When we feel genuine concern for others, we can find delight rather than dutiful drudgery in the work of relieving needless misery.
~ Guy Newland
February 26: Walking with One Another
"To care, truly care, about someone who is suffering means opening our hearts to their suffering and thus to our own. Of course our human tendency is to be self-protective, to try to fix their pain, and thus, our own. When we truly listen and take in the suffering of others, we are touched by it – we feel pain ourselves for that person and for the memories of our own losses it evokes – and this is exactly why truly walking with another is both so difficult and such a tremendous gift."
~ Kristin Maier
