mark scandrette has written to his twenty-something self. probably because i am in my forties, i strongly related to it. there's some real nuggets of wisdom in there. i loved this thomas mertom quote in the mix…

Many poets are not poets for the same reason that many religious people are not saints: they never succeed in being themselves. They never get around to being the particular poet or the particular monk they are intended to be by God. They never become the person or the artist who is called for by all the circumstances of their lives