Thought for the Week From University Minister Ira DeSpain

These weekly thoughts are intended to stimulate your thinking and provide a context and backdrop for your life,work and study for the week ahead.

May 13-19

Faith makes things possible, not easy.
—Anonymous

I love this quote because it clarifies the "follow your dreams" sentiment.

This is the last of the "thought for the week" series until late August. To the graduates: Congratulations! To all of you: my prayers for a meaningful summer - realizing that for some of you, there will be no break at all.

May 6-12

Failure is an event, never a person.
—William D. Brown

Final exams begin this week in Baldwin City, and this may seem like a strange thought to share. Yet, the opposite is also true: Success is an event, never a person. Remember the next couple of weeks that the results of the semester may say a lot about your academic skill, study habits or work ethic, but the results will say nothing of your worth as a person.

April 29-May 5

God is the friend of silence.
See how nature—trees, flowers, grass—grows in silence;
see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence...
We need silence to be able to touch souls.
—Mother Teresa (1910-1997)

April 22-28

It is a wholesome and necessary thing for us to turn again to the earth and in the contemplation of her beauties
to know of wonder and humility.
—Rachel Carson (1907-1964)

April 15-21

I could not, at any age, be content to take my place by the fireside and simply look on. Life was meant to be lived. Curiosity must be kept alive. One must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life.
—Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962)

April 8-14

Friendship . . . is not something you learn in school. But if you haven't learned the meaning of friendship, you really haven't learned anything.
—Muhammad Ali

 I agree that friendship may not be learned from the textbooks and class discussion portion of school, but perhaps it can be learned from the other portions of our community life.

April 1-7

Beware you be not swallowed up in books! An ounce of love is worth a pound of knowledge.
—John Wesley (the primary founder of the Methodist Movement)

March 25-31

The soul should always stand ajar.
Ready to welcome the ecstatic experience.
—Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

March 18-24

It is a wholesome and necessary thing for us to turn
again to the earth and in the contemplation of her beauties
to know of wonder and humility.
—Rachel Carson (1907-1964)

March 4-10

Patience is the companion of wisdom.
—Saint Augustine (354-430)

Feb. 26-March 3

Our creator is the same and never changes despite the names given Him by people here and in all parts of the world. Even if we gave Him no name at all, He would still be there, within us, waiting to give us good on this earth.
—George Washington Carver

Feb. 19-25

Courage is the most important of all the virtues, because without courage you can't practice any other virtue consistently. You can practice any virtue erratically, but nothing consistently without courage.
—Maya Angelou

Feb. 12-18

Sunday marked the 154th anniversary of the founding of Baker University. In honor of our birthday, I share this quote from Bishop William A. Quayle:

"I tell you there is nothing in poetry or music more beautiful than this little band of Methodists calmly sitting at the edge of this desert [Baldwin City] where the buffalo could scarcely make a living in good times, and deciding to found a college."

Bishop Quayle graduated from Baker in 1884 and served as president of the University from 1890 to 1894. The quote is from a sermon delivered in 1909 in celebration of Baker's 50th anniversary.

Feb. 5-11

Learn to do common things uncommonly well; we must always keep in mind that anything that helps fill the dinner pail is valuable.
—George Washington Carver

Jan. 29-Feb. 4

I could not, at any age, be content to take my place by the fireside and simply look on. Life was meant to be lived. Curiosity must be kept alive. One must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life.
—Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962)

Jan. 22-28

Once the game is over, the king and the pawn go back in the same box.
—Italian Proverb

Jan. 15-21

History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.

Please make sure that M L King Day is more than a day of being silent!

Jan. 8-14

Don’t pray when it rains if you don’t pray when the sun shines.
—Satchel Paige

Jan. 1-7

This is a day for new beginnings,
Time to remember and move on,
Time to believe what love is bringing,
Laying to rest the pain that’s gone.

Then let us, with the Spirit’s daring,
Step from the past and leave behind
Our disappointment, guilt and grieving,
Seeking new paths and sure to find.
—Brian Wren

Blessings for the week of new beginnings!

Dec. 11-17

You give but little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.
—Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931)

Have a wonderful season of giving!

Dec. 4-10

Greatness is not found in possessions, power, position or prestige. It is discovered in goodness, humility, service and character.
—William Arthur Ward

Approach the end of the semester with greatness!

Nov. 27-Dec.3

God is the friend of silence.
See how nature-trees, flowers, grass-grows in silence;
see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence . . .
We need silence to be able to touch souls.
—Mother Teresa (1910-1997)

As we enter a time of year that we have made quite noisy, Mother Teresa has a good reminder for us.

Nov. 20-26

Gratitude . . . goes beyond the "mine" and "yours" and claims the truth that all of life is a pure gift. In the past I always thought of gratitude as a spontaneous response to the awareness of gifts received, but now I realize that gratitude can also be lived as a discipline. The discipline of gratitude is the explicit effort to acknowledge that all I am and have is given to me as a gift of love, a gift to be celebrated with joy.
—Henri J. M. Nouwen

Nov. 13-19

Do all the good you can,
By all the means you can,
In all the ways you can,
In all the places you can,
At all the times you can,
To all the people you can,
As long as ever you can.
―John Wesley

Nov. 6-12

When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us.
—Helen Keller (1880-1968)

Have a good week, and remember always to pay attention to what is next.

Oct. 30-Nov. 5

Today is, of course, Halloween, which means tomorrow is All Saints Day in the Christian calendar. It is a day set aside to remember and be thankful for all people who have been an influence in your life, who have died. Please take a moment tomorrow to remember and to be thankful.

Oct. 23-29

Intuition will tell the thinking mind where to look next.
—Jonas Salk (1914-1995)

It was Dr. Salk’s intuition that led him to discover a successful polio vaccine. Where do you need to be looking next?

Oct. 16-22

From John Wesley’s sermon on the use of money:

Gain all you can.
Save all you can.
Give away all you can. 

It is believed by some that Wesley lived on 2 percent of his income and gave the rest away.

Oct. 9-15

Learn to do common things uncommonly well; we must always keep in mind that anything that helps fill the dinner pail is valuable.
—George Washington Carver

This thought reminds me of another, perhaps closer to home: Baker University is committed to assuring student learning, and developing confident, competent and responsible contributors to society. The Mission Statement of Baker University.

 If what you do contributes, then it is valuable.

Oct. 2-8

Friendship . . . is not something you learn in school. But if you haven't learned the meaning of friendship, you really haven't l learned anything.
—Muhammad Ali

Perhaps it IS possible to learn friendship inside and outside the classroom. Or perhaps the "classroom" is larger than the rooms we are in 12 to 20 hours per week.

Sept. 25-Oct. 1

Most great people have attained their greatest success just one step beyond their greatest failure.
—Napoleon Hill, American Author (1883-1970)

Sept.18-24

There is a harmony in autumn,
And a luster in its sky,
Which through the summer is not heard or seen
As if it could not be, as if it had not been.
—Percy Bysshe Shelley

Autumn begins this week, so I thought I’d search for a verse appropriate to the season. Enjoy the miracles of changing seasons.

Sept. 11-17

Family life is too intimate to be preserved by the spirit of justice. It can be sustained by a spirit of love which goes beyond justice.
—Reinhold Niebuhr

My prayer is that love will prevail in all of the families of our lives.

Sept. 4-10

I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish small tasks as if they were great and noble.
—Helen Keller (1880-1968)

As we approach the 10th anniversary of 9-11-01, the quote above is a good reminder. Legends of heroes were made that day by people who simply went to work and did their jobs as if they were great and noble.

Aug. 28-Sept. 3

For those with faith, no explanation is necessary. For those without faith, no explanation is possible.
—St. Thomas Aquinas

Aug. 21-27

The whole of life, from the moment you are born to the moment you die, is a process of learning.
—Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895-1986)