I've often said that the most important thing you can give your children is wings. Because, you're not gonna always be able to bring food to the nest. You're... sometimes... they're gonna have to be able to fly by themselves.
Elizabeth EdwardsRead
I've had to come to grips with a God that fits my own experience, which is, my God could not be offering protection and not have protected my boy.
Interpretation
This quote reflects the struggle of reconciling personal beliefs about God with painful experiences.
Elizabeth Edwards expresses the deep conflict she faces in her belief system, grappling with the idea of a protective deity while dealing with the tragic loss of her son. This statement highlights the personal nature of faith and the challenges that arise when one's experiences seem at odds with traditional religious beliefs about divine protection and intervention.
In practice
During a support group meeting for bereaved parents, this quote can resonate deeply and spark discussion about faith and grief.
I've often said that the most important thing you can give your children is wings. Because, you're not gonna always be able to bring food to the nest. You're... sometimes... they're gonna have to be able to fly by themselves.
Part of resilience is deciding to make yourself miserable over something that matters, or deciding to make yourself miserable over something that doesn't matter.
I'm not a victim - I never want to be perceived that way.
I certainly have a lot to lament, as do we all, everybody has their griefs. But the griefs we can fix, shouldn't we go around fixing them?
... all things are possible if you are willing to put yourself on the line. You cannot stand back and hope for the best. You have to act.
If I had lost a leg, I would tell them, instead of a boy, no one would ever ask me if I was 'over it'. They would ask me how I was doing learning to walk without my leg. I was learning to walk and to breathe and to live without Wade. And what I was learning is that it was never going to be the life I had before.
The struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.
We throw to the winds the old dogma that governments can give rights. Before governments were organized, no one denies that each individual possessed the right to protect his own life, liberty and property.
A man develops a subtle power as a result of the strict observance of celibacy for twelve years. Then he can understand and grasp very subtle things which otherwise elude his intellect. Through that understanding the aspirant can have direct vision of God. That pure understanding alone enables him to realize Truth.
What you don't understand is that it is possible to be an atheist, it is possible not to know if God exists or why He should, and yet to believe that man does not live in a state of nature but in history, and that history as we know it now began with Christ, it was founded by Him on the Gospels.
I had the sense when I looked back over my life I would actually see a mess of decisions, a few of which I had thought about, some of which I had sort of stumbled on and many that I had no control over whatsoever.
Buddha taught kindness towards lower beings; and since then there has not been a sect in India that has not taught charity to all beings, even to animals. This kindness, this mercy, this charity - greater than any doctrine - are what Buddhism left to us.
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