"If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.”
Mother Teresa
"You cannot belong to anyone else, until you belong to yourself."
Pearl Bailey
I've been contemplating the idea of belonging and that it is a human condition to need it. The real question is; what is belonging? There are many versions of what belonging looks like, and hundreds of quotes about it that I couldn't choose just one ...
Last night I watched a Ted talk about "Being Enough" which describes what I see as an epidemic disease of needing to belong to something to make us "enough" or complete or satisfied or whatever that feeling "we can't describe but will know when we find it" is. And we are looking for this feeling with blinders on, blinders that keep us looking at our differences and the more different and excluded we feel the more blind we are to where the answer lies.
Without the groundwork of being enough in our own selves, belonging to ourselves, loving ourselves, forgiving and being at peace with our strengths and faults and appreciating our individual beautiful eccentricities and idiosyncrasies we'll never belong anywhere. How can we belong anywhere else until belonging to ourselves is meaningful to ourselves. Its like asking someone to trust us when we don't trust ourselves.
Cheers
Jeanne
Mother Teresa Reflects on Working Toward Peace
The fruit of silence is prayer; the fruit of prayer is faith; the fruit of faith is love; the fruit of love is service; the fruit of service is peace.
Let us not use bombs and guns to overcome the world. Let us use love and compassion. Peace begins with a smile. Smile five times a day at someone you don't really want to smile at; do it for peace. Let us radiate the peace of God and so light His light and extinguish in the world and in the hearts of all men all hatred and love for power.
Today, if we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other-that man, that woman, that child is my brother or my sister. If everyone could see the image of God in his neighbor, do you think we would still need tanks and generals?
Today, if we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other-that man, that woman, that child is my brother or my sister. If everyone could see the image of God in his neighbor, do you think we would still need tanks and generals?
Peace and war begin at home. If we truly want peace in the world, let us begin by loving one another in our own families. If we want to spread joy, we need for every family to have joy.
Today, nations put too much effort and money into defending their borders. They know very little about the poverty and the suffering that exist in the countries where those bordering on destitution live. If they would only defend these defenseless people with food, shelter, and clothing, I think the world would be a happier place.
The poor must know that we love them, that they are wanted. They themselves have nothing to give but love. We are concerned with how to get this message of love and compassion across. We are trying to bring peace to the world through our work. But the work is the gift of God.
A Note From Photographer Michael Collopy
I was blessed to have known Mother Teresa for fifteen years. I especially treasure the times I was asked to drive her around while she was in San Francisco, because it enabled me to ask her questions. In the course of knowing Mother, I always saw her receive each person the same way. She saw the face of God in everyone, always approaching each person with love, compassion, and the gift of her complete self. Time was never an issue. I once asked her, "How is it that you never seem to judge anyone who comes to you?" She said, "I never judge anyone because it doesn't allow me the time to love them."
About Pearl Bailey:
Born: March 29, 1918
Died: August 17, 1990
Pearl Bailey was a gifted artist and humanitarian, whose performing career spanned all mediums. She began as a singer and dancer in her father’s Pentecostal church at the age of three. A childhood ambition to teach was side-railed in 1933, when she won an amateur contest at Philadelphia’s Pearl Theater.
Bailey quickly dropped out of school to join the vaudeville and nightclub circuits of Pennsylvania and Washington DC. She began to work with Big-Band orchestras in the early 1940s, and toured with the USO from 1941 until the year of her death.
Her acting career began in 1946, when she starred in the Broadway musical St. Louis Woman, a role that netted her an award for best Broadway newcomer. The following year the first of her films, Variety Girl, was released. A television career beginning in the 1950s led to her own ABC series, The Pearl Bailey Show, in 1970-71. Bailey also authored six books.
Bailey was honored by the Screen Actors Guild in 1978 for “outstanding achievement in fostering the finest ideals of the acting profession,” and by the Women’s International Center in 1989 for her active support of human rights around the world.
Other awards and honors include a Tony Award for her title role in the all-black cast of Hello Dolly in 1967; a 1970 appointment as America’s “Ambassador of Love” by President Richard Nixon; and the Medal of Freedom, presented by President Ronald Reagan in 1988.
Bailey served as Goodwill Ambassador to the United Nations under the administrations of Presidents Ford, Reagan and George Bush.
Pearl Bailey returned to school in 1978, and received a bachelor’s degree in theology from Georgetown University at the age of sixty-seven, as well as an honorary doctorate degree from the school.
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