Theo of Golden

Sadness can make us bitter or wise. We get to choose.

There is no virtue in advertising one’s sadness. But there is no wisdom in denying it either. And there is the beautiful possibility that great love can grow out of sadness if it is well-tended.

the older I get, the more convinced I am that every hurt the world has ever known is somehow the fault of every person who ever lived. Maybe not directly and never entirely, but somehow, I fear, we own all of the world’s hurts together.

A man who loves all women loves no woman. A man who loves only one woman loves all women.’ Do you agree?

God gave us faces so we can see each other better.

do good, bestow kindness, strive for beauty, seek and find the river that leads to life everlasting, and draw from the fountain that never runs dry.

..But for anything to be good, truly good, there must be love in it. .. There must be love for the gift itself, love for the subject being depicted or the story being told, and love for the audience. Whether the art is sculpture, farming, teaching, lawmaking, medicine, music, or raising a child, if love is not in it - at the very heart of it - it might be skillful, marketable, or popular but I doubt it is truly good. Nothing is what it is supposed to be if love is not at the core.

How is it, Theo wondered, that a piece of paper - a letter, a photo, a ticket stub, a sketch, a painting - is suddenly transformed by placing it in four bits of wood beneath a pane of glass? What does it mean that we place permanent boundaries around transient moments? What does it say of humankind that we take such trouble to freeze specific memories, that we devote such energy to capturing and preserving the "minute particulars" of our lives?

But even old men have young memories.

Mr. Wordsworth, perhaps in a literature class at some point in your studies. He once wrote that the best portion of a good person’s life is ‘the little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and love.

My expertise in sadness is hard-earned. But I realize more and more that it is a gift. Living with sadness

His decision to live small made him larger than life.

There is no virtue in advertising one’s sadness. But there is no wisdom in denying it either. And there is the beautiful possibility that great love can grow out of sadness if it is well-tended. Sadness can make us bitter or wise. We get to choose.

Motion is lotion.’ Old people need to move around, so they don’t get stiff. That’s why this will be good for you. Motion is lotion for your joints.

they’s justice and they’s mercy. If you not sure what to do and you gotta choose one or the other

And I learned something from Mr. Theo. God gave us faces so we can see each other better. I used to not look at people's faces so much. But I'm learning

for his date with a ten-year-old girl whose laughter was a murmuration and whose memory was a single star

If it makes us better somehow, maybe that’s what gives it value.

Theo, I appreciate that you’re such a sensitive man. You have a tender heart.” “Not tender, Asher. Broken. My expertise in sadness is hard-earned. But I realize more and more that it is a gift. Living with sadness, accepting it, is easier than trying to pretend it isn’t there. It is another

There is another teaching about kindness,” Theo said. “ ‘Do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing.

Unmet expectations have a clever way of showing up at every stage of life.

...but he remained at the drawing of the woman, obedient to his conviction that it was better to see one thing well than many poorly.

We’re just going to ride till we get somewhere.

our hearts burned within us, our souls stood on tiptoe, our eyes recognized something good and true, and our minds could believe, if not fully, then ever so slightly, that love and heaven and forgiveness are the most real things that we can know in this world?

the best portion of a good person’s life is ‘the little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and love.

the most important (and formative and effortless) thing a parent can do for a baby is to gaze into his or her face, to hold him or her close and engage the eyes. Could anything be simpler? Is anything more profound? Does anything more

Bad mercy don’t hurt nearly like bad justice

He was obviously old but a “young old,” in a way that would almost make a younger soul look forward to seniority.

It’s hard enough to define what art is, much less ‘good art.’ I wonder if there is such a thing. Maybe there are just good responses. But I guess if a work of art makes us see something familiar in a new way or makes us feel something we ought to have felt all along or shows us our place in the world more clearly, maybe then it qualifies as ‘good.’ If it makes us better somehow, maybe that’s what gives it value.

mercy don’t hurt nearly like bad justice, and always remember, the eye of God can see.