Featured Image: Scene from July, 2017, when we were experiencing the best of both worlds in St. John.
Organizing this “regularly scheduled” blog post on March 31, I sought out some inspiration from my bookshelf. I am somewhat familiar with the practice of bibliomancy, which Dictionary.com defines like so: “Divination by means of a book, especially the Bible, opened at random to some verse or passage, which is then interpreted.”
I won’t venture an interpretation here, but I selected “The Pursuit of Excellence” from author Ted W. Engstrom, opened it up, and found this passage from Theodore Roosevelt’s Speech at the Sarbonne, Paris, 110 years ago.
“It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, and comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; who does actually try to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, and spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.
“Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.”
Wishing each of you all the best throughout the difficult days to come, and looking forward to better days for us all.
