"The Summer Day"

This is one of my favorite poems, "The Summer Day," by Mary Oliver:

Who made the world?

Who made the swan, and the black bear?

Who made the grasshopper?

This grasshopper, I mean--the one who the one who has flung herself out of the grass, the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,

who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down--

who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.

Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.

Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.

I don't know exactly what a prayer is.

I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down

into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,

how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,

which is what I have been doing all day.

Tell me, what else should I have done?

Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?

Tell me, what is it you plan to do

with your one wild and precious life?

The Fool in Me...

"I must learn to love the fool in me--the one who feels too much, talks too much, takes too many chances, wins sometimes and loses often, lacks self-control, loves and hates, hurts and gets hurt, promises and breaks promises, laughs and cries. It alone protects me against that utterly self-controlled, masterful tyrant whom I also harbor and who would rob me of my human aliveness, humility, and dignity but for my Fool."

--Theodore I. Rubin

KISS

The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak.

--Hans Hoffman

Cooking with the Bible Now Available via iPhone apps

Just an update:

We've gotten word that 10 iPhone apps based on our book Cooking with the Bible are now live (the rest of the chapters should follow very soon).

Here's the direct link to the App Store webpage for one of the Cooking with the Bible apps, FYI (you can see the product without being in iTunes or on an iPhone/iPad):
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/by-numbers-by-anthony-f-chiffolo/id369857175?mt=8

If you want to check them all out, it's probably easiest to find them by searching either iTunes on your computer or the app store on your iPhone using the keyword "Chiffolo."

We hope you like them. Please spread the word!
Thanks.
Anthony & Rusty

The Power of the Green Leaf

Francis sighed. "Brother Leo," he said, "there was once an ascetic who died, mounted to heaven, and fell deep into God's embrace. He had found the perfect beatitude. One day, however, he leaned out so far that he could see the earth below him, and when he did this, he spied a green leaf. 'Lord,' he cried, 'Lord, let me leave, let me touch the green leaf once again!' Do you understand, Brother Leo?"

His words frightened me, and I did not answer. Alas! it was true: the power of the green leaf was as great as that!

--Saint Francis by Nikos Kazantzakis

Heaven Is Fine...

"Forgive me, Lord: heaven is fine, as fine as one could wish, but oh, the scent of the almond tree in springtime!"

--Brother Leo in Saint Francis by Nikos Kazantzakis

The Infinite "Mind"

My dear boy, we are all God's children, yea, even unto the beasts of the wild, the stones of the fields and the stars in the firmament. Who among us would constrain the mind of God?

--Jesse Yancy

Litany against Fear

Here is the "Litany against Fear" recited by the Bene Gesserit order in Frank Herbert's Dune books.

I must not fear.

Fear is the mind-killer.

Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.

I will face my fear.

I will permit it to pass over me and through me.

And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.

Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.

Only I will remain.