Oh really?

On my iGoogle homepage, one of the apps I have installed is a "Quote of the Day" feature... today's quote is from the western novelist Louis L'amour:

Nobody got anywhere in the world by simply being content.

I beg to differ, at least in one aspect. I believe that being content is actually the ONLY way to get anywhere. Perhaps not content to remain in one spot or one mindset... but content in knowing that God's up to something cool and exciting, and that He's got a plan for me to be a part of it, whatever it is, and that I don't really need to be concerned about the details. I just need to be content in the circumstances He's put me in TODAY, and to be prepared for any changes He might have in mind for me TOMORROW.

I think that the Apostle Paul might even agree with me...

Not that I was ever in need, for I have learned how to be content with whatever I have. I know how to live on almost nothing or with everything. I have learned the secret of living in every situation, whether it is with a full stomach or empty, with plenty or little. For I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strength. Philippians 4:11-13

Yet true godliness with contentment is itself great wealth. After all, we brought nothing with us when we came into the world, and we can’t take anything with us when we leave it. So if we have enough food and clothing, let us be content. But people who long to be rich fall into temptation and are trapped by many foolish and harmful desires that plunge them into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. 1 Timothy 6:6-10

I'd be thrilled to have money -- don't get me wrong. But I can't allow myself to be driven by the love of it. There actually are lots more important things than money. I suppose I can be thankful I wasn't given the immense responsibility; I probably wouldn't be very trustworthy with scads of money. It's certainly easier to stay out of trouble if I can't afford troublesome behavior in the first place.

A six-month vacation in Fiji would be fun, though rather impractical and selfish of me. If I got a big bukkit of money, I'd probably sink a sizeable amount into the restoration of this terrific house I live in. No, I don't imagine there would be much return on investment, but if I had money to burn, who cares? And then I'd pay for Isaac to go to college (at OU, preferably... astrophysics or petroleum engineering or something like that).

And then I'd buy a beach house in Virginia or the Carolinas and I'd paint watercolors forever and forever.

But contentment? I haz it. Even right now, when things aren't exactly ideal. Because I know things won't always be thus. So no, Mr. L'amour, I beg to differ. Everybody suffers at some point if they're ever going to be a worthwhile person... contentment is much more constructive at such times than resentment.

Since I'm on a My Fair Lady bent...

Here's a terrific quote from that terrific musical:

Mrs. Higgins: However did you learn good manners with my son around?

Eliza Doolittle: It was very difficult. I should never have known how ladies and gentlemen really behaved, if it hadn't been for Colonel Pickering. He always showed what he thought and felt about me as if I were something better than a common flower girl. You see, Mrs. Higgins, apart from the things one can pick up, the difference between a lady and a flower girl is not how she behaves, but how she is treated. I shall always be a common flower girl to Professor Higgins, because he always treats me like a common flower girl, and always will. But I know that I shall always be a lady to Colonel Pickering, because he always treats me like a lady, and always will.

Professor Henry Higgins: The question is not whether I've treated you rudely but whether you've ever heard me treat anyone else better.

Awesome quote

Saw this over at Tracey's place and decided it was just too good not to post it here, too:

There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket — safe, dark, motionless, airless — it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell. I believe that the most lawless and inordinate loves are less contrary to God’s will than a self-invited and self-protective lovelessness … We shall draw nearer to God, not by trying to avoid the sufferings inherent in all loves, but by accepting them and offering them to Him; throwing away all defensive armour. If our hearts need to be broken, and if He chooses this as a way in which they should break, so be it. What I know about love and believe about love and giving one’s heart began in this.

C.S. Lewis

Thought for the day

Quote of the day

A newspaper accepting government money to stay afloat is about as sensible as an unemployed American woman staving off homelessness by becoming a Saudi housewife.

Jennifer, Feral Genius

Quote of the day

Today's Quote Of The Day comes from SteveH of HogOnIce:

Part of the art in art, if you will excuse me for putting it that way, is in deciding what to leave out. It's always a problem for me, because I have both an artistic side and a mathematical side. It's like having Ted Nugent and the character Ray from Rain Man, constantly fighting inside your skull. If I leave a detail out, Ray has a fit. And Ted won't let me proofread.

Quote of the day

"Republicans scare me."
--Elizabeth Edwards

Umm, we're kinda scared of you, too, Liz.

Just sayin'.

Music

If you develop an ear for sounds that are musical it is like developing an ego. You begin to refuse sounds that are not musical and that way cut yourself off from a good deal of experience.
-John Cage

I found that to be the case while I was a teenager and a young adult; I knew what "good music" was and I was intolerant for much else. It didn't help that I have perfect pitch. While sitting in church during the heyday of the "solo" era, I would writhe uncomfortably when someone sang with poor pitch.

When I realized that this was preventing me from enjoying much of ordinary life, I put a large effort into "turning off" my perfect pitch so that I could be nice to people and enjoy the spirit behind their musical efforts.

And then I began to realize that my definition of "music" was far, far too narrow. I'm now in a waking-up period, where I've begun to hear the music all around me, in me, in others, even in ambient "noise" and nature. It gives me an inner exuberance that I never really knew before.

And I'm still exploring it.

Quote to think about

A nation which prefers disgrace to danger is prepared for a master, and deserves one.

-- Alexander Hamilton