a mesh of words of wisdom from people who have lived longer than i

“Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved.”
~ Helen Keller

“What we learn from experience depends on the kind of philosophy we bring to experience.”
~ C.S. Lewis

“There comes the baffling call of God in our lives also. The call of God can never be stated explicitly; it is implicit. The call of God is like the call of the sea, no one hears it but the one who has the nature of the sea in him. It cannot be stated definitely what the call of God it to, because his call is to be in comradeship with himself for his own purposes, and the test is to believe that God knows what he is after.”
~ Oswald Chambers

James 3:13-18
"Who is wise and understanding among you? Let him show it by his good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom. But if you harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast about it or hide the truth. Such "wisdom" does not come down from heaven but is earthly, unspiritual, of the devil. For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice. But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. Peacemakers who sow in peace raise a harvest of righteousness."

When Christ spoke, he not only spoke to his disciples, the crowds, the Pharisees, poor and sinners, women and the sick, but seeing all of us in their faces, spoke to all of us. ...Costa Rica, Spiritual Journey...

From Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton, about mysticism and reason...
"... But that transcendentalism by which all men live has primarily much the position of the sun in the sky. We are conscious of it as of a kind of splendid confusion; it is something both shining and shapeless, at once a blaze and a blur. But the circle of the moon is as clear and unmistakable, as recurrent and inevitable, as the circle of Euclid on a blackboard. For the moon is utterly reasonable; and the moon is the mother of lunatics and has given them all her name."

more Chesterton...
"... It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we. The repetition in Nature may not be a mere recurrence; it may be a theatrical encore..."

"... I had always believed that the world involved magic: now I thought that perhaps it involved a magician. And this pointed a profound emotion always present and sub-concious; that this world of ours has some purpose; and if there is a purpose, there is a person. I had always felt life first as a story: and if there is a story there is a story-teller..."

Psalm 51:10-12, 17 ; 55:22; 56:4; 68:19
Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrire heart, O God, you will not despise.
Cast your cares on the Lord and he will sustain you; he will never let the righteous fall.
In God, whose word I praise, in God I trust; I will not be afraid. What can mortal man do to me? Praise be to the Lord, to God our Savior, who daily bears our burdens.