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Sunday Inspiration: The Real Questions
Did I offer peace today? Did I bring a smile to someone’s face? Did I say words of healing? Did I let go of my anger and resentment? Did I forgive? Did I love? These are the real questions.
—Henri Nouwen
Sunday Inspiration: Leadership
Leadership consists of nothing but taking responsibility for everything that goes wrong and giving your subordinates credit for everything that goes well.
—Dwight D. Eisenhower
Sunday Inspiration: Injustice
We are not simply to bandage the wounds of victims beneath the wheel of injustice. We are to drive a spoke into the wheel itself.
—Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Sunday Inspiration: Quiet Words
The quiet words of the wise are more effective than the ranting of a king of fools.
—Ecclesiastes 9:17 (The Message)
Sunday Inspiration: Hardness of Heart
One great reason why the rich in general have so little sympathy for the poor is because they so seldom visit them. Hence it is that one part of the world does not know what the other suffers. Many of them do not know, because they do not care to know: they keep out of the way of knowing it—and then plead their voluntary ignorance as an excuse for their hardness of heart.
—John Wesley
Native American Cuisine
I thought this article from Atlas Obscura was fascinating!
In March, a few weeks before COVID-19 shut down the country, chef Nico Albert and her longtime mentee, chef Taelor Barton, met at Duet Restaurant + Jazz to discuss plans for their upcoming Native American dinners and culinary classes.
Each November for the past two years, Albert has turned the menu at Duet Restaurant + Jazz into full Native American fare. While the seasonal, New American food that Albert serves year round has made the 140-seat eatery one of Tulsa’s most beloved fine-dineries, it is this menu of contemporary Native dishes, available only during Native American Heritage Month, that truly stands out. Locals and regulars flock to the restaurant, and Cherokee and other tribal members come from as far away as Michigan or Seattle. The offerings—which include persimmon frybread pie made with Pawnee heirloom corn and crispy, sumac-crusted snapper with roasted squash, wild greens, sweet corn hazelnut sauce, and pickled blueberries—routinely sell out.
The article goes on to describe archeological research on some of the oldest known culinary traditions of the Eastern Woodlands.
And now I’m hungry.
Sunday Inspiration: I Believe
I believe in the sun even when it is not shining.
I believe in love even when I cannot feel it.
I believe in God even when he is silent.
—Written on a cellar wall in Cologne, Germany during the Holocaust
Sunday Inspiration: Be Civilized
Anthropologist Margaret Mead said that the first sign of civilization in an ancient culture was a femur (thighbone) that had been broken and then healed. Mead explained that in the animal kingdom, if you break your leg, you die. You cannot run from danger, get to the river for a drink or hunt for food. You are meat for prowling beasts. No animal survives a broken leg long enough for the bone to heal.
“A broken femur that has healed is evidence that someone has taken time to stay with the one who fell, has bound up the wound, has carried the person to safety and has tended the person through recovery. Helping someone else through difficulty is where civilization starts,” Mead said.
We are at our best when we serve others. Be civilized.
—Ira Byock
Sunday Inspiration: Our Most Basic Common Link
In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s future. And we are all mortal.
—John F. Kennedy
Sunday Inspiration: Courage
Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear.
—Ambrose Redmoon
Darrell J. Pursiful 