The Growing Edge

 All around us worlds are dying and new worlds are being born; 

all around us life is dying and life is being born. 

The fruit ripens on the tree, the roots are silently at work 

in the darkness of the earth against a time when 

there shall be new lives, fresh blossoms, green fruit. 

Such is the growing edge! It is the extra breath 

from the exhausted lung, the one more thing to try 

when all else has failed, the upward reach of life 

when weariness closes in upon all endeavor. 

This is the basis of hope in moments of despair, 

the incentive to carry on when times are out of joint 

and men have lost their reason, the source of confidence 

when worlds crash and dreams whiten into ash. 

The birth of a child — life’s most dramatic answer to death — 

this is the growing edge incarnate. 

Look well to the growing edge!

—Howard Thurman

[Photo of Ella (2) meeting her baby sister, Harper Grace, our youngest grandchild.]

What the World Needs

Don't ask yourself

what the world needs,

ask yourself what

makes you come alive,

and then go do it.

Because what the

world needs is people

who have come alive.

--Howard Thurman

Give Me the Courage to Live

Give me the courage to live! Really live—not merely exist.
Live dangerously.
Scorning risk!
Live honestly.
Daring the truth—
Particularly the truth of myself.
Live resiliently—
Ever changing, ever growing, ever adapting.
Enduring the pain of change.
As though ‘twere the travail of birth.
Give me the courage to live,
Give me the strength to be free
And endure the burden of freedom
And the loneliness of those without chains;
Let me not be trapped by success
Nor by failure, nor pleasure, nor grief,
Nor malice, nor praise, nor remorse!
Give me the courage to go on!
Facing all that waits on the trail –
Going eagerly, joyously on,
Without anger or fear or regret
Taking what life gives,
Spending myself to the full,
Head high, spirit winged, …
Gracious God, hear my prayer;
Give me the courage to live.

--Howard Thurman