“I think the biggest disease the world suffers from in this day and age is the disease of people feeling unloved. I know that I can give love for a minute, for half an hour, for a day, for a month, but I can give. I am very happy to do that, I want to do that.”
Princess Diana (July 1, 1961 – August 31, 1997)
“It may be that you are not yourself luminous, but that you are a conductor of light. Some people without possessing genius have a remarkable power of stimulating it.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle
We never tire of Sherlock Holmes. I paid a visit to 221 B Street when I was in London and found the great detective in residence, looking out the window, waiting for Dr. Watson to appear. He turned and said, “The game is afoot.”
And so began our adventure….
There are things in this world that are bigger than you and me: mountains, oceans, and the sky. Perhaps the greatest stretch for humanity is to live up to our ideals and fulfill our personal destinies. Carl Schurz, (1829 – 1906), with all his life experience as a German revolutionary, American statesman and reformer, and Union Army General in the American Civil War, can give us a fresh approach.
“Ideals are like stars: you will not succeed in touching them with you hands, but like the seafaring man on the ocean desert of waters, you choose them as your guides, and following them, you reach your destiny.” Carl Schurz
The week is already one day old and it is time to open myself up to a new idea. Ideas need a door or window to come through. It is very difficult for them to chisel through hardened hearts and closed minds.
“Man’s mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions.”
Oliver Wendell Homes
Today, I will start. Start to enjoy, to smile, to laugh, to think, to care, to love…to be.
“There is only one day left, always starting over: it is given to us at dawn and taken away from us at dusk.”
Jean-Paul Sartre
With the sun high in the heavens, and a gently chilled wind at our back, we sailed to Bowen Island, British Columbia. As I looked across the glittering water, I remembered a poem from high school: The Secret of the Sea by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. I have included a few lines….
Ah! what pleasant visions haunt me
As I gaze upon the sea!
All the old romantic legends,
All my dreams, come back to me.
In each sail that skims the horizon,
In each landward-blowing breeze,
I behold that stately galley,
Hear those mournful melodies;
Till my soul is full of longing
For the secret of the sea,
And the heart of the great ocean
Sends a thrilling pulse through me.
