Cody Gilman > Recent Status Updates

“Whenever the world was dark around me and I could not
see my way out of the dangers and difficulties that beset me, I would sit down
and compose an ode to Jawhara; and when it was finished, the world was
suddenly lighted, and I knew what I had to do.” (Pg 153)

“It was at this moment that I became aware how near their God and their
faith were to these people. Their prayer did not seem to be divorced from their
working day; it was part of it - not meant to help them forget life, but to
remember it better by remembering God.” (Pg 120)

“Whatever our gift, we are called to give it and to dance for the renewal of the world.
In return for the privilege of breath.”
Pg 384

“But we were also given the responsibility to care for the land. What people forget is that means participating — that the natural world relies on us to do good things[…] you have to contribute to the wellbeing of the world.” (Pg 363).

“Land as teacher, land as healer.” (333)

“Despair is paralysis. It robs us of our agency. It blinds us to our own pier and the power of the earth.” (Pg 328)

“Joanna Macy writes that until we can grieve for our planet we cannot love it — grieving is a sign of spiritual health. But is is not enough to weep for our lost landscapes;we have to put our hands in the earth to make ourselves whole again. Even a wounded world is feeding us. Even a wounded world holds us, giving us moments of wonder and joy. I choose joy over despair.” (Pg 327)

“It is not a mere noble tradition which enables the Arabs to be hospitable [to guests] in so effusive a way: it is their inner freedom. They are so free of distrust of themselves that they can
easily open their lives to another man. They need none of the specious security of the walls which in the West each person builds between himself and his neighbour.” (Pg 108)

“all our (Europe/Europeans) machines and skyscrapers could do nothing to restore the broken wholeness of our souls” (pg 96)

Interesting insights on the perspective (and shortsightedness) of the Zionist project in the 1920s from pages 89-95.

Interesting commentary on Muslim prayer pages 86-87.

“On the cultural side, the outcome was the creation of a human type whose morality appeared to be confined to the question of practical utility alone, and whose highest criterion of right and wrong was material success.” (Pg 70)

“The average European - whether democrat or communist, manual worker or intellectual- seemed to know only one positive faith: the worship of material progress, the belief that there could be no other goal in life than to make that very life continually easier or, as the current expression went, ‘independent of nature’.” (Pg. 70)

“We’ve allowed the ‘market’ to define what we value so that the redefined common good seems to depend on profligate lifestyles that enrich the seller while impoverishing the soul and the earth.” (Pg 307)

“We need acts of restoration, not only for polluted waters and degraded lands, but also for our relationship to the world. We need to restore honor to the way we live, so that when we walk through the world we don’t have to avert our eyes with shame, so that we can find our heads up high and receive the respectful acknowledgment of the rest of earths beings.” (Pg 195)

Powerful pages too big for quotes: 183, 188-189.

“Imagine New England without maples. Unthinkable. A brown fall instead of hills afire. Sugar houses boarded up. No more fragrant clouds of steam. Would we even recognize our homes? Is that a heartbeat we can bear?” (Pg 173). I’m no climate change pessimist but it really is going to doom us all. From our human brothers and sisters to the beautiful orange-red maples in our hills and mountains.

“Through reciprocity the gift is replenished. All of our flourishing is mutual.” (Pg 166)

“Asking ‘what is our responsibility’ is the same as asking ‘what is our gift’ it is said that only humans have the capacity for gratitude. This is among our gifts.” (Pg 115

“being a good mother doesn’t end with creating a home where just my children can flourish. A good mother grows into a richly eutrophication old woman, knowing that her work doesn’t end until she’s created a home where all of life’s being can flourish. There are grandchildren to nurture, and frog children, nestlings, goslings, seedlings, and spores, and I still want to be a good mother.” (Pg 97)

“It came to me once again that restoring a habitat, no matter how well intentioned, produces casualties. We set ourselves up as arbiters of what is good when often our standards of goodness are driven by narrow interests, by what we want.” (Pg.92)

“As I raked and plucked, it challenged my conviction that all lived are valuable, protozoan or not. As a theoretical matter I hold this to be true, but on a practical level it gets murky, the spiritual and pragmatic bumping heads. With every rake I knew that I was prioritizing. Short, single-cell lives were ended because I wanted a clearer pond. I’m bigger, I have a rake, so I win. (Pg.90)”

“And then I swear I heard to zap of synapses firing.” (Pg 55). Sometimes it rlly do b like that.

“When I stare too long at the world with science eyes, I see an afterimage of traditional knowledge. Might science and traditional knowledge be purple and yellow to one another, might they be goldenrod and asters? We see the world more fully when we use both.” (Pg 46).

“He offered me only the cliche that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and since science separates the observer and the observed, by definition beauty could not be a valid scientific question. I should have been told that my questions were bigger than science could touch.” (Pg 45).

“…the power of ceremony: it marries the mundane to the sacred. The water turns to wine, the coffee to a prayer. The material and the spiritual mingle like grounds mingled with humus, transformed like steam rising from a mug into the morning mist. What else can you offer the earth, which has everything? What else can you give but something of yourself? A homemade ceremony, a ceremony that makes a home” (Pg37-38)

“Wally says of sweet grass for sale, ‘don’t buy it.’ Refusal to participate is a moral choice. Water is a gift for all, not meant to be bought and sold. Don’t buy it. When food has been wrenched from the earth, depleting the soil and poisoning our relatives in the name of higher yields, don’t buy it.” (Pg. 31)