“Ambiguity: first you’re bewildered by it, then you tolerate it, then you relish its inherent challenge[s].” – Arnold Kunst

From “The Human Condition: A User’s Manual,” by Arnold Kunst

31 October

You’ll know your dream is worth striving for if it is big enough for the God of the universe to romp about in.

“The best revenge is to have enough self-worth not to seek it.” – Anonymous

From “The Human Condition: A User’s Manual,” by Arnold Kunst

30 October

Forgiving is important. I think it’s more important than you and I imagine. Admittedly, I haven't much experience at up-close-and-personal forgiving, but hopefully I'll work myself to expert status before I’m finished because, like, I don’t think there’s any alternative. After all, if the Lord’s Prayer is anything to go by, God’s forgiving me is directly proportional to my forgiving others, and if that’s true then learning how to forgive is about as crucial a task as tasks get. It requires a laser-beam focus on what gives Life and a commensurate letting go of things that don't. I think I’m supposed to let them fall away, as though of their own weight; just stop clinging to them any more because they represent death and decay. Maybe it's like letting go of the control-freak thing at night and falling asleep. I think the sign I'm getting it down is the realization that I'm traveling far lighter - it means I am, as best I can, leaving the dead to bury the dead while I turn my face toward whatever gives life.

“Now that I no longer desire it all, I have it all without desire.” – John of the Cross

From “Lincoln 365,” by Arnold Kunst

October 31

When pressed for biographical details concerning his early life, Lincoln replied, 'It is a great piece of folly to attempt to make anything out of my early life. It can be all condensed into a simple sentence, and that sentence you will find in Gray's Elegy: “The short and simple annals of the poor.” That's my life, and that's all you or any one else can make out of it.'

- Abraham Lincoln

‘Be content with your own company. Relish tranquility.'

- Anonymous

“God’s peace is not the calm after the storm, but the steadfastness during it.” - Anonymous

From “Lincoln 365,” by Arnold Kunst

October 30

‘The Lincolns enjoyed a relatively stable marriage…. Lincoln, for his part, understood Mary better than anyone, loved her in spite of her flaws, shielded her from criticism, and remained thoroughly loyal to her as a husband. In turn, Mary could be tender to him, extremely tender. And no matter how lonely she was with him gone so much of the time, she shared his love of politics, wanted him to succeed, and was fiercely proud of him.’

Stephen Oates

‘If God created shadows it was to better emphasize the light.’

- Pope John XXIII

"Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated." [Confucius]

From “The Human Condition: A User’s Manual” by Arnold Kunst

29 October

I need to get the balance right. In life sometimes I just have to do it myself [“nobody cares about this issue like I do”]; sometimes I have to get help [“I need all the help I can get.”] It’s not all one and none of the other.

“It’s heartbreaking to watch people working against themselves.” – Gloria Steinem

From “Lincoln 365,” by Arnold Kunst

October 29

'In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The Government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the Government, while I shall have the most solemn one to “preserve, protect, and defend” it.’

- Abraham Lincoln, First Inaugural Address

‘One of the true tests of leadership is the ability to recognize a problem before it becomes an emergency.’

- Anonymous

“The secret of patience is to do something else in the meantime.” – Croft M. Pentz

From “The Human Condition: A User’s Manual,” by Arnold Kunst

28 October

Be happy to settle in and, patiently, pay the price life requires of all winners.

“Fear not, for God hath not given you a spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.” – The Bible

From “Lincoln 365,” by Arnold Kunst

October 28

'The probability that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just; it shall not deter me.'

- Abraham Lincoln

'The true worth of a man is to be measured by the objects he pursues.'

- Marcus Aurelius

“A man does a thing for two reasons: the one that sounds good, and the real reason.” – J. P. Morgan

From “The Human Condition: A User’s Manual” by Arnold Kunst

27 October

We think we've really done it [“He who dies with the most toys wins.”] when we've gotten a hernia reaching for the baubles our culture holds as the choicest fruit on the tree of "life" - up there, just beyond our reach. But more pertinent is the fact that on our deathbed very few of us are going to say, "If only I had spent more time at the office."

Put it this way: Assuming you’re a young person, there are parts of your anatomy that you are proud of right now because they glow pink and firm, but in a few brief years those same parts will become, shall we say, less firm. Your ear lobes, jowls, tummy are going to hang there, like a dog biscuit that's been soaking apathetically for three days in a puddle of milk. Your thighs will end up looking like congealed cottage cheese; when you lift your arm off the table, the part in the middle is going to leave last. It's called aging, and there's no escape from it. Between now and then you are going to exchange your youth for something, or some series of things, that you will have valued between now and then. You want to be sure that the thing[s] you get is/are worth the inevitable price you're going to pay anyway.

“A kind gesture can reach a wound that only compassion can heal.” – Steve Maraboli

From “The Human Condition: A User’s Manual,” by Arnold Kunst

26 October

The play of moonlight on the wings of a thousand birds; the intricate geometry of a spider's web; the innocence and wonder of a baby's saucer-eyes as he gazes out on a universe that awaits his distinctive ministrations - are these not the infallible echoes of a loving, imaginative, fun-filled God?