May 2021 Touchstones Ministry Theme: Acceptance
May 2021 Readings from the Common Bowl
May 1: “Listening is a form of accepting.” ~ Stella Terrill Mann
May 2: “It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.” ~ Aristotle
May 3: “No person is your friend who demands your silence, or denies your right to grow.” ~ Alice Walker
May 4: “It is not our differences that divide us. It is our inability to recognize, accept, and celebrate those differences.” ~ Audre Lorde
May 5: “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” ~ Reinhold Niebuhr
May 6: “For after all, the best thing one can do when it is raining is let it rain.” ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
May 7: “We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.” ~ Martin Luther King Jr.
May 8: “I have accepted fear as part of life – specifically the fear of change… I have gone ahead despite the pounding in the heart that says: turn back….” ~ Erica Jong
May 9: “A friend is one to whom one may pour out the contents of one’s heart, chaff and grain together, knowing that gentle hands will take and sift it, keep what is worth keeping, and with a breath of kindness, blow the rest away.” ~ George Eliot
May 10: “People have a habit of inventing fictions they will believe wholeheartedly in order to ignore the truth they cannot accept.” ~ Libba Bray
May 11: “I learned that accepting others and accepting myself are two sides of the same coin; you can’t love and accept yourself without doing the same for others.” ~ Steve Pavlina
May 12: “Beloved community is formed not by the eradication of difference but by its affirmation, by each of us claiming the identities and cultural legacies that shape who we are and how we live in the world.” ~ bell hooks
May 13: “You are imperfect, permanently and inevitably flawed. And you are beautiful.” ~ Amy Bloom
May 14: “The trance of unworthiness keeps the sweetness of belonging out of reach. The path to ‘the sweetness of belonging,’ is acceptance—acceptance of ourselves and acceptance of others without judgment.” ~ Tara Brach
May 15: “The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.” ~ Carl Rogers
May 16: “I want there to be a place in the world where people can engage in one another’s differences in a way that is redemptive, full of hope and possibility.” ~ bell hooks
May 17: “It was strange how your brain could know what your heart refused to accept.” ~ J.K. Rowling
May 18: “Thank you for accepting me as I am, with my virtues and defects.” ~ Jenni Rivera
May 19: “Art teaches something we all need to learn, especially about people who are different from ourselves: ‘To see things the way they truly are, sometimes you have to look more deeply.’” ~ Ron Hall
May 20: “When we look at things differently, things look different.” ~ Toni Sorenson
May 21: “All blame is a waste of time. No matter how much fault you find with another, it will not change you.” ~ Wayne Dyer
May 22: “Accepting others’ life choices is something most people only learn with age.” ~ Neil Strauss
May 23: “May I befriend the unwanted parts of myself and continually learn wisdom from them.” ~ Joyce Rupp
May 24: “To go through life wanting to be someone else must be a terrible burden. It is hard enough just learning to be myself.” ~ Joan Chittister
May 25: “What is essential is invisible to the eye. It is only with the heart that one sees rightly.” ~ Antoine de St Exupéry
May 26: “If you travel far enough, one day you will recognize yourself coming down the road to meet yourself. And you will say—YES.” ~ Marion Woodman
May 27: “So long as you are still worried about what others think of you, you are owned by them. Only when you require no approval from outside yourself can you own yourself.” ~
Neale Donald Walsch
May 28: “If you are going to judge others it is wisest to do so individually not collectively and on your own direct experience of them personally. But first—and throughout—examine yourself closely. Blurred vision can often occur due to the lens, perspective, and perceptions of the viewer projected onto the object that it sees. Be wary of taking to the judge’s seat. Above all, treat yourself and everyone else mindfully, compassionately with humanity.” ~ Rasheed Ogunlaru
May 29: “Solitude is essentially the discovery and acceptance of our uniqueness.” ~ Lawrence Freeman
May 30: “Most advice regarding acceptance involves accepting oneself. This ignores the reality that our ability to accept others, especially those who are very different from us, makes it possible to accept what we previously rejected within ourselves.” ~ Kirk Loadman-Copeland
May 31: “Our job on earth isn’t to criticize, reject, or judge. Our purpose is to offer a helping hand, compassion, and mercy. We are to do unto others as we hope they would do unto us.” ~ Dana Arcuri