Tired Wonder Quotes

“Become something worth remembering.
Leave something worth carrying on.”
― Eric Overby, Tired Wonder: Beginnings and Endings

“Each day we carry on the legacy
Of those who came before us
And we leave our fingerprints
On those that are here.”
― Eric Overby, Tired Wonder: Beginnings and Endings

“Will I enjoy the days I walked in this Earth
And leave a trail
Of contented kindness behind me,
Like a trail of crumbs for others to follow?”
― Eric Overby, Tired Wonder: Beginnings and Endings

“We are not what we are not, but when we are still, we know what we are. In the silence, we find ourselves…”
― Eric Overby, Tired Wonder: Beginnings and Endings

“I use my old writings as a map to remember the way I want to go.”
― Eric Overby, Tired Wonder: Beginnings and Endings

“What I need is not outside,
but it’s not necessarily inside either;
it is the awareness itself
of what is happening
in both places.

What I need is what is.

That is my salvation. That is what I need.
I am saved with each moment that I am aware.”
― Eric Overby, Tired Wonder: Beginnings and Endings

“Immiscible with the Congregation

I am a drop of oil in this bucket of water.
We are immiscible
about the immutability, Infallibility,
and inerrancy of their ideas.
They live in the polarities
of good and bad, heaven and hell,
a god and a devil, Christian and not.
But life is too nuanced, history too complex;
my mind is too neutral to mix.

Are there any more drops of oil in here?
Someone that has actually looked into the water
and can’t be mixed into the multitude?

Each week, the congregation is baptized in the idea that everyone needs an outside entity.

What I need is to know myself.
To be
aware of the arising of the mind.
To notice what is appearing
and to watch it dissipate.
To know
that I am not the trail of thoughts
that I get caught in.
I need to watch thoughts arise,
To let them go,
and to pay attention
to the thread.
What I need is not outside,
but it’s not necessarily inside either;
it is the awareness itself
of what is happening
in both places.

What I need is what is.

That is my salvation. That is what I need.
I am saved with each moment that I am aware.

Amen.”
― Eric Overby, Tired Wonder: Beginnings and Endings

“There are people that you only get one chance to make an impression on…The current moments will paint a broad-brush stroke of who I am for the rest of their life. What kind of picture am I painting in their mind?”
― Eric Overby, Tired Wonder: Beginnings and Endings

“Everything

You are what perfects me. You are the roots that anchor me to the ground and bring nourishment. You are the soil, you are the rain, you are the clouds. You are the sun.”
― Eric Overby, Tired Wonder: Beginnings and Endings

“What has grown in deep darkness and water, has formed flesh and bone and lives among us.”
― Eric Overby, Tired Wonder: Beginnings and Endings

“Anyone who has gone through this process knows that every month is filled with anxiety, hope, tears, frustration, crushing disappointment, and hoards of negative tests. You learn not to hope and to expect a bad turn. Each month builds on every emotion. It can pry couples apart and drive people mentally into the ground. Luckily, we have used this season to lean into each other and become closer. We have been each other’s foundation to stand on and compass to follow when we didn’t know what to do. We have had to let go of the way we thought this would go and walk into unexpected paths.”
― Eric Overby, Tired Wonder: Beginnings and Endings

“This season won’t last forever,
Fifty-One months in the cold,
We are who we are because, together,
We faced the dark night of the soul”
― Eric Overby, Tired Wonder: Beginnings and Endings

“We have been here before,
staring at the slow slide of a stick,
waiting, waiting, waiting…

Two lines,
like the beginning and ending
of a chapter of our lives…

All the year’s fortune changes
in the end, as new life evolves.”
― Eric Overby, Tired Wonder: Beginnings and Endings

“We have been here before,
staring at the slow slide of a stick,
waiting, waiting, waiting…

Year after year,
there was no room for us in the inn,
no shepherds, no angels, no prophecies,
no hope, no coming.
But this time, two lines herald the Eve of a birth

Two lines,
like the beginning and ending
of a chapter of our lives.

Handel could not compose
something so beautiful.

Gabriel could not bring better news.

All the year’s fortune changes
in the end, as new life evolves.”
― Eric Overby, Tired Wonder: Beginnings and Endings

“Soon my role here will be a line in the horizon and then will be beyond the horizon of memory. No one, in time, will remember the time I put in here. I will be an echo which carries on in some, until it is so silent that it is unrecognizable. I am at peace with this. I am a reverberation, until I am not. There was a time when I was not here, knowing the things that I know, and there will be a time beyond the knowing of me.”
― Eric Overby, Tired Wonder: Beginnings and Endings

“Sometimes you must put down the map, give up the way you thought it was going and, like Lewis and Clarke, make a new map after you’ve blazed a new trail.”
― Eric Overby, Tired Wonder: Beginnings and Endings

“There are pivotal forks in the road that lead you down paths that you didn’t know were there and down directions that you never thought were options.”
― Eric Overby, Tired Wonder: Beginnings and Endings

“You’re my counterpart, we’ve been fused,
now one plus one equals one, not two.”
― Eric Overby, Tired Wonder: Beginnings and Endings

“Psalms 151 -
One Plus One Equals One

You are the bridge that gets me over the low places,
what holds me together between the gaps.
When I feel like I have lost myself,
you are the way and the map.
Not all who wander are lost,
but I feel like I am wandering in the dark.
Traveling blindly down a path that I can’t see,
you light my pathway with your spark.

I feel unstable, unknowing what’s ahead,
you lead me out of the shadow of death.
When I’m just holding on by a thread,
you are the one who gives me breath.

You are my life, you are my truth,
you are my wife, you are my root,
when times are hard, you help me through.
You’re my counterpart, we’ve been fused,
now one plus one equals one, not two.”
― Eric Overby, Tired Wonder: Beginnings and Endings

“What is my life worth, my time worth,
my well-being worth? What will I
give it up for, at what price?
Truly, what good is it to gain everything,
whether money and possessions,
knowledge and power,
fame and influence,
likes and followers,
or anything the outside world
has to offer you? Is it not temporal?
Is it worth losing your mind and your well-being?”
― Eric Overby, Tired Wonder: Beginnings and Endings

“Have you ever wondered
what it feels like the first time
that your heart takes a beat?
Was it something like the first time
that I saw you and suddenly knew
that the first beat was for you?”
― Eric Overby, Tired Wonder: Beginnings and Endings

“The Genesis
of everything
led to the arrival of my heart
beating for yours.”
― Eric Overby, Tired Wonder: Beginnings and Endings

“The journey continues each moment, find joy in the walking.”
― Eric Overby, Tired Wonder: Beginnings and Endings

“Life is the journey of letting go of the way that you thought the road would take you, only to find out that it’s sent you on a more beautiful path.”
― Eric Overby, Tired Wonder: Beginnings and Endings

“What is your peace worth? At what cost will you give it away?”
― Eric Overby, Tired Wonder: Beginnings and Endings

“The practice: mindful awareness of thoughts. What is the end goal: To be an Equanimous wise old man. What is the goal in this moment: To be an Equanimous young man. The journey is the goal- and the journey is lived each moment. Each moment is practice. Cyclical. Changing.”
― Eric Overby, Tired Wonder: Beginnings and Endings

“Down in the dirt,
that’s where I’ve been,
They say good news follows bad news,
I just wonder when.”
― Eric Overby, Tired Wonder: Beginnings and Endings

“Close the curtain
on the way I thought life would go,
The future’s determined
by the past and present, but who could’ve known?”
― Eric Overby, Tired Wonder: Beginnings and Endings