Ridgerunner Joe

“There is a legend that has often been told
Of the boy who searched for the Windows of Gold.
The beautiful windows he saw far away
When he looked in the valley at sunrise each day.


And he yearned to go down to the valley below
But lived on a mountain covered with snow,
And he knew it would be a difficult trek,
But that was a journey he wanted to make.


So he planned by day and he dreamed by night
Of how he could reach The Great Shining Light.
And one golden morning when dawn broke through
And the valley sparkled with diamond of dew.


He started to climb down the mountainside
With the Windows of Gold as his goal and his guide.
He traveled all day and, weary and worn,
With bleeding feet and clothes that were torn.


He entered the peaceful valley town
Just as the Golden Sun went down.
But he seemed to have lost his "Guiding Light,"
The windows were dark that had once been bright.


And hungry and tired and lonely and cold
He cried, "Won't You Show Me The Windows of Gold?"
And a kind hand touched him and said, "Behold!
High On The Mountain Are The Windows of Gold."


For the sun going down in a great golden ball
Had burnished the windows of his cabin so small,
And the Kingdom of God with its Great Shining light,
Like the Golden Windows that shone so bright.


Is not a far distant place, somewhere,
It's as close to you as a silent prayer,
And your search for God will end and begin
When you look for Him and find Him within.”
― Helen Steiner Rice

“The strongest people are people who faced the toughest situations in life. People who are defeated by the toughest battles are stronger than those who have won by using the escape route!”
― Israelmore Ayivor, Daily Drive 365

“The most dangerous lie in America isn't a political one," he'd told her, as he stood by the plate glass window, gazing down at the frigid Helsinki skyline. "It's the lie that who we are is some fixed self-determined truth. That there's some absolute us-ness in our character that's unchangeable and real, and that we have an obligation to be true to this us-ness, no matter the cost. As if who we are could exist in the absence of other people. We're no more eternal than a single star, Sadie. Remember that. We shine. We burn out. But together, we can light the sky.”
― Stephanie Kuehn, Delicate Monsters

“I’ve now interviewed a couple hundred researchers in the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Japan, and China. I visited Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, where I met brain-injured veterans. I went to the San Francisco offices of Lumosity, the biggest online provider of these cognitive games aimed at improving intelligence. And I met twice with the guy who leads the funding in this area at the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity, or IARPA. It’s a government intelligence agency, like DARPA for spies.”
― Dan Hurley, Smarter: The New Science of Building Brain Power