There’s a lot happening in the world this week! Here are some quotes for:
• Father’s Day, June 20
• Juneteenth, June 19
• Summer Solstice, June 20
Father’s Day
Quotes:
“In the early years, I found a voice that was my voice; it was also my father’s voice. It’s only right. When I was five years old, I’d go into the closet and put his shoes on.” – Bruce Springsteen
“Most people around you don’t need you to be a good friend or even a kind brother. We need you to be a father who can claim for himself or herself the authority of true compassion.” -Henri Nouwen, The Return of the Prodigal Son
Humor:
One night, a farmer’s outhouse is knocked over. In the morning, the farmer approaches his son and asks, “Son, did you knock over the outhouse last night?” “No Dad, I didn’t.” “Son, let me tell you a story. When George Washington was a little boy, he chopped down his father’s favorite cherry tree.
When his father asked him whether or not he was the one that chopped it down, he responded, ‘Father, I cannot tell a lie. I chopped down the cherry tree.’ George Washington’s father was so proud of him, he didn’t punish him for cutting down the tree. In fact, he rewarded him for being honest.
“Now, I’ll ask again. Did you knock over the outhouse last night?” The farmer’s son is moved by this story, and he says, “Okay Dad, I cannot tell a lie. I knocked over the outhouse.” The farmer proceeds to give his son a spanking.
When it’s over, the son gasps out between cries, “But George Washington’s father didn’t give him a spanking!” “George Washington’s father wasn’t in the cherry tree at the time.”
Juneteenth
Quotes:
Juneteenth, known as Emancipation Day, symbolizes the end of slavery and commemorates the reading of Republican Party president Abraham Lincoln’s General Order on June 19, 1865 in Texas, which announced the freeing of slaves.
“Juneteenth has never been a celebration of victory or an acceptance of the way things are. It’s a celebration of progress. It’s an affirmation that despite the most painful parts of our history, change is possible , and there is still so much work to do.” -Barack Obama
“I am no longer accepting the things I cannot change. I am changing the things I cannot accept. You have to act as if it were possible, to radically transform the world. And you have to so it all of the time. Radical simply means ‘grasping things at the root.’” -Angela Davis
Summer Solstice
Quotes:
“This is the solstice, the still point of the sun, its cusp and midnight, the year’s threshold and unlocking, where the past lets go of and becomes the future; the place of caught breath.” -Margaret Atwood. Canadian poet, teacher, environmental activist
“At the Summer Solstice, all is green and growing, potential coming into being, the miracle of manifestation painted large on the canvas of awareness.” – Gary Zukav
“One way of celebrating the Solstice is to consider it a sacred time of reflection, release, restoration, and renewal.” – Sarah Ban Breathnach. author, philanthropist
—Scott Awbrey, spiritualpassages.org