Remorse is impotence, it will sin again. Only repentance is strong, it can end everything.

Remorse is impotence, it will sin again. Only repentance is strong, it can end everything.

The sinning is the best part of repentance

The sinning is the best part of repentance

A wise old owl sat on an oak; The more he saw the less he spoke; The less he spoke read more

A wise old owl sat on an oak; The more he saw the less he spoke; The less he spoke the more he heard; Why aren't we like that wise old bird?

What then? What rests?
Try what repentance can. What can it not?
Yet what can it when read more

What then? What rests?
Try what repentance can. What can it not?
Yet what can it when one cannot repent?
O wretched state? O bosom black as death!
O limed soul, that struggling to be free
Art more engaged!

I have learned as much about writing about my people by listening to blues and jazz and spirituals as I read more

I have learned as much about writing about my people by listening to blues and jazz and spirituals as I have by reading novels.

Everything has been said before, but since nobody listens we have to keep going back and beginning all over again.

Everything has been said before, but since nobody listens we have to keep going back and beginning all over again.

Amid the roses, fierce Repentance rears
Her snaky crest; a quick-returning pang
Shoots through the conscious heart.

Amid the roses, fierce Repentance rears
Her snaky crest; a quick-returning pang
Shoots through the conscious heart.

An essential part of true listening is the discipline of bracketing, the temporary giving up or setting aside of one's read more

An essential part of true listening is the discipline of bracketing, the temporary giving up or setting aside of one's own prejudices, frames of reference and desires so as to experience as far as possible the speaker's world from the inside, step in inside his or her shoes. This unification of speaker and listener is actually and extension and enlargement of ourselves, and new knowledge is always gained from this. Moreover, since true listening involves bracketing, a setting aside of the self, it also temporarily involves a total acceptance of the other. Sensing this acceptance, the speaker will fell less and less vulnerable and more and more inclined to open up the inner recesses of his or her mind to the listener. As this happens, speaker and listener begin to appreciate each other more and more, and the duet dance of love is begun again. -M. Scott Peck.

When the scourge
Inexorable, and the torturing hour
Calls us to penance.

When the scourge
Inexorable, and the torturing hour
Calls us to penance.