It does not seem inappropriate at the beginning of the year to offer some aphorisms, the fruits of reflection and the day-to-day wisdom present in the cultural environment. Let's list a few that are easy to understand.

More important than knowing is to never lose the capacity for learning.

If everything in the universe is in genesis, then the longed-for paradise is not at the beginning, but at the end.

We are whole, but not complete. We begin to be born and slowly keep on being born until we complete our birth. That is when we die.

Only that which is can die. The possible, that which is not yet, remains to be realized beyond death.

We do not live to die. We die to be resurrected.

If you feel that you are a common person, rejoice. God must have loved dearly the common people to have created so many of them, among them you and I.

Do not take the paths already travelled. Otherwise you will never leave your footprints on the earth.

If you want to go a great distance, walk slowly. Never stop, or go back.

Give thanks to God that you only stumbled, otherwise you would have fallen.

Where there is no fear, neither will there be courage, which is necessary to live.

If you want to forget the many rocks that slow your progress, think of the foundation of the house that you can build with those rocks.

In the struggle between the stone and the drop of water, the drop will always win, not for its strength but for its perseverance.

If you hold firm to the perspective of the end, there will be no obstacle that you cannot overcome.

The new only appears on condition that something has been left behind.

For the one who seeks, there will always a Star, such as the Star of Bethlehem, to illuminate the path.

A ship is secure in port, but it was not built for that.

From a single candle thousands of others can be lit, without diminishing its light.

If you want to climb a tall ladder, do not look at it, instead, look at each rung.

For those who want to sing, there will always be a melody in the air.

Only he who puts himself in the other's place can truly understand the other.

Even a broken clock shows the correct time twice a day.

Be like the cicada, that to renew itself has to loose all its external appearance.

Only those will rejoice with the sunrise who knew how to wait through the darkest night.

No one will enter heaven who did not begin to build it here on earth.

Every little boy wants to be a man. Every man wants to be king. Every king wants to be God. Only God wanted to be a little boy.

Since Christians announced a God without the world, there came to be a world without God.

Human like Jesus, only God himself.

At the beginning of everything there is not the solitude of One but the communion of The Three: of the Origin without beginning, of the supreme Word, and of the sacred Union of all with all. They are so entwined in love that they unite, this is to say, they become One.

- Free translation from the Spanish provided by contacto@servicioskoinonia.org, sent by Melina Alfaro, done at Refugio del Rio Grande, Texas.