Books: Passports to Truth

There are many little ways to enlarge your child's world. Love of books is the best of all. ~~ Jacqueline Kennedy

I can attest that Jackie's perspective is quite true. Books do enlarge a child's world. Books and travel.

In my kids' case, the books have led to travel, and the travel has led to books, and art, and music, and galleries. and people, and knowledge, and foods, and God.

Perhaps this is a taste of Heaven, these delicious aspects of life? Intellectual growth, discovery, healthy new perspectives, spiritual fillings which lead to passion and poetry and prayers and other such extraordinary happenings.

It's not enough to merely read. You must savor, digest, allow yourself to be changed for the better. Then, as the better you lives and moves and carries on its very being, you change the world around you, beginning with those closest to you, whom you love and share with the most. You model your growth. It ripples outward and God is glorified.

Through good books.

Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things. ~~ Philippians 4:8

Hesitantly Going Where I've Never Gone Before

Nag nag nag.

"You should write a book!"

"You're wasting your talent!"

"If you don't write it soon there are people who won't get to read it!"

But what would I write about? Who cares what I have to say? Who am I, anyway?

Excuses whisper. Sitting is the last thing I need to increase. It's right up there with being on the computer and snacking. I mean, I should be moving more not less. There is nothing I have to say that hasn't already been said, and better. I have so many other things I find more interesting such as my French and Italian language studies, herb gardening, recipes I want to try, friends I want to connect with, a huge stack of books to read, weight to lose, trips to take, and life to live! Who has time to write!

And yet there is this nagging nagging nagging voice in my head telling me I ought to at least try.

I tried to silence the voice, 'ignore it and it will go away.' Right? I played a bunch of tennis with my husband, then went to a Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory with my daughters. I juiced the softening leftover apples from autumn's harvest. I even cleaned off all the shelves in the laundry room combining duplicate bottles of bleach, Woolite, and Pine Sol. I weeded my twelve herb-growing flower pots which show life after winter's chill, I washed the living room curtains, and I made my very first batch of French Onion Soup using my daughter's homemade artisan bread for the croutons that float on top. I cleaned out my clothes closet, and my book shelves, and that catch-all drawer in the kitchen.

Still, it nags.

Deep in my brain.

The moment I've dreaded is here.

I have to try to write a book.

Then, it dawned on me: I've already begun a book. My blogs are full of writings, nine years worth!

A start.

Compilation has begun.

A surprising eagerness ensues, and the voice is hushed.

For now.

Remembering with Delight

 "Happy is it, indeed, for me that my heart is capable of feeling the same simple and innocent pleasure as the peasant whose table is covered with food of his own rearing, and who not only enjoys his meal, but remembers with delight the happy days and sunny mornings when he planted it, the soft evenings when he watered it, and the pleasure he experienced in watching its daily growth." ~~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther 

A Tibetan Perspective on Western Laziness

"There are different species of laziness: Eastern and Western. The Eastern style is like the one practiced to perfection in India. It consists of hanging out all day in the sun, doing nothing, avoiding any kind of work or useful activity, drinking cups of tea, listening to Hindi film music blaring on the radio, and gossiping with friends. Western laziness is quite different. It consists of cramming our lives with compulsive activity, so that there is no time at all to confront the real issues...We tell ourselves we want to spend time on the important things of life, but there never is any time...Our lives seem to live us, to possess their own bizarre momentum, to carry us away; in the end we feel we have no choice or control over them. Of course we feel bad about this sometimes, we have nightmares and wake up in a sweat, wondering; 'What am I doing with my life?' But our fears only last until breakfast time; out comes the briefcase, and back we go to where we started."

"In the modern world, we have to work and earn our living, but we should not get entangled in a nine-to-five existence, where we live without any view of the deeper meaning of life. Our task is to strike a balance, to find a middle way, to learn not to overstretch ourselves with extraneous activities and preoccupations, but to simplify our lives more and more. The key to finding a happy balance in modern lives is simplicity. Peace of mind will come from this. You will have more time to pursue the things of the spirit and the knowledge that only spiritual truth can bring, which can help you face death. Sadly, this is something that few of us do. Maybe we should ask ourselves the question now: 'What have I really achieved in my life?' By that I mean, how much have we really understood about life and death?'"

The above quotes come from The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, by Sogyal Rinpoche.

Morning Sun

"The path of the righteous is like the morning sun, shining ever brighter till the full light of day."

~~ Proverbs 4:18

Unguarded

Satan's enticing traps are littered not only with wicked hearts, but with degraded, unguarded hearts of the defiled redeemed, those liberally splattered with the excrement of a thousand compromises, unaware of odors putrid, offenses cringing, and oblivion searing from the selling of refining sensitivity for thirty pieces of acceptance from a world gone dark.



"Do not forsake wisdom, and she will protect you: love her, and she will watch over you. The beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom. Though it cost all you have, get understanding. Cherish her, and she will exalt you; embrace her, and she will honor you. She will be a garland to grace your head and present you with a glorious crown." ~~ Proverbs 4: 6 - 10

A Bandy-Legged Hero

Photo by Cassie Klusman *

 "Socrates had a favorable opinion of men and women because he saw clearly that they were capable of the highest moral heroism. Their outward appearance was of no lasting significance. Beauty faded with age, and clothes could do little for a man or woman to enhance or detract from what nature had provided. He had no shoes and precious little in the way of garments, and God had made him an ugly man."

"Socrates was imperturbable. He exuded serenity. There were many things he deplored, but nothing left him depressed. If he was angry, he never showed it - except, in contrast to most people, who raise their voices in anger, he lowered his, and spoke quietly. To those who knew Socrates, he was impossible to dislike and difficult not to love." ~~ Paul Johnson, Socrates

In the light of today's perception of beauty equating happiness, Socrates seems a paradox. Here was a bandy-legged, ugly man with enormous lips, a flat, spreading nose, giant popping eyes, who was also bearded and hairy, yet, serene, curious, well-thought of, instructive, a seeker of personal virtue, wisdom, and understanding. He inspired and actually changed the world! A philosophical genius and a hero. His physical ugliness bothered him not. He light-heartedly joked about it. He fully grasped where lies the wealth of men and women. He was happy.

While a body can be spruced up a bit, outward beauty either is or isn't. It's a chance of birth. We can't change that no matter how much dye we use, or make-up, hair products, fashion sense, jewelry, or even Botox. Let me repeat that, outward beauty either is or isn't, we have it or we don't. It'd be helpful if we could all kindly accept that and move on. Physical beauty isn't a prize, it isn't a blessing. "She is blessed with good looks!" No, beauty just is or isn't. We have physical beauty or we don't. Beauty isn't 'good' nor homeliness or ugliness 'bad'. Bodily beauty - or lack thereof - isn't a moral condition. It just is.

Personal treasure lies in the mind, the spirit, the heart, the behavior, the levels of virtue, wisdom, knowledge, and understanding. Here is true beauty, attainable for all. Integrity and depth can be altered for better or worse all our lives long. Remarkable and encouraging. To seek truth by engaging in life in its simplest and most complicated forms is a choice.

So, why is it that we 21st Century Citizens feel the need to continually - manically - renovate our bodies - starving, punishing, waxing, plucking, shaving, dying, styling, manicuring, pedicuring, attiring, piercing, inking, perfuming, bedazzling, girdling, lifting, separating, deforming, and otherwise torturing them - in order to conform to a mysteriously ordered idea of beauty? Why, indeed, especially when the true worth of a man, woman, or child is within the attitude, the level of goodness, depth, and desire to grow in grace and knowledge?

Apparently modern man fails to understand where value lies. Tragedy this. Utter failure.

Obsessive beauty seeking seems to have created more insecurity and judgment than ever before. Unnecessarily so. Within each of us - whether outwardly ugly or beautiful or somewhere in between - lies the raw material to grow a serene, curious, relevant, helpful, inspirational, wise, understanding, caring, joyful person.

Please, don't misunderstand. I'm not opposed to bathing or presenting ourselves at our natural best. Of course not. It's a wonderful thing to brighten our homes and communities with loveliness for loveliness sake. Robust health boosts the enjoyment of life and cleanliness is still next to godliness. Fashion is fun. Tweaking what God has given us can tidy up the garden of our appearance. I don't oppose these things, I applaud them. The balance is just off, that's all. Too much time and emphasis on clothes, make-up, weight, hair, teeth, skin tone, body shape, and dress size leaves little room for absorbing the hows and whys of an integrated life.

This absorption requires solitude, a quiet mind, a contented yet curious heart, focus. With all that life requires of us there really isn't time for vanity or self-condemnation based on physical appearance. One thing is required, and it's not more waxing, excessive closet-busting shopping trips, long hours flipping through Pinterest for hair style photos and make-up secrets, or a daily, time-slurping primping in front of a bedroom mirror. Grooming, yes. Preoccupation, no.

Single-mindedly stopping up our ears liberates us from our culture's siren call to celebrate the superficial while demanding we neglect life's purpose. In liberty is the opportunity for prolific personal growth accompanied by the hope of discovering what it means to truly be a beautiful person.

Like Socrates.


* Cassie took this photo of the bust of Socrates in Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland, 2013. All Rights Reserved

C'est Magnifique

Happy Valentine's Day to All Who Believe in Pure Love!

Before I unwrapped and re-wrapped the tiny Tiffany Blue box for photographing, the bow was tied much prettier. 

Attention to detail, the hallmark of excellence.

The way to a woman's heart is through Tiffany & Co.

I wore it all day long.

Felt extra special.

I have the Best Husband Ever!

(I could get used to this. Wink.)

Failing Better

"Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better." ~~ Samuel Beckett, Irish playwright and poet.

Beckett's notion here, about failing better, warms my heart, gives me hope.

It's a new perspective in a much too competitive world.

Somehow in my modern-day, American-trained mind, when I do fail better it doesn't seem to count since I haven't actually won. But what is winning anyway? Can't failing better be considered winning? I think it can since winning is a process, not the actual momentary climax.

When I think of failing better I feel energized rather than demoralized. I see progress. I see steps being taken, lessons being learned, accomplishment in the little objectives that lead to the larger goal. Suddenly, the goal doesn't seem quite so important because I realize that it's the consistency of trying, understanding, and getting better at a thing that really matters.

The idea of accomplishment is rather elusive for in reality it is effort that propels me to what is considered success. Success itself seems to be the only concept valued. But actual accomplishment is merely a measuring stick, a plateau, a resting point. Its attainment creates, at least for me, the incentive to tackle something new, to begin the trying and failing once again in order to fail better to the point of success once again.

In the final analysis, it seems to me that trying, failing, and failing better are more the stuff of life than succeeding. Failure isn't bad, it isn't wrong, it isn't, well, failure, if you follow my drift. It's educational for those who allow themselves to be trained by it. And it is the path one must undertake in order to achieve a desired result.

Keep trying. Recognize failure and better failure as forward momentum gained. Realize that effort, consistently performed, over time, will always lead one to some sort of understanding and perhaps the achievement of a goal.

Or even a lovely dream.

Etiquette: A Defining Mark

"In the midst of the war, some French soldiers and some non-French of the Allied forces were receiving their rations in a village back of the lines. The non-French fighters belonged to an Army that supplied rations plentifully. They grabbed their allotments and stood about while hastily eating, uninterrupted by conversation or other concern. The French soldiers took their very meager portions of food, improvised a kind of table on the top of a flat rock, and having laid out the rations, including the small quantity of wine that formed part of the repast, sat down in comfort and began their meal amid a chatter of talk. One of the non-French soldiers, all of whom had finished their large supply of food before the French had begun eating, asked sardonically: 'Why do you fellows make such a lot of fuss over the little bit of grub they give you to eat?' The Frenchman replied: 'Well, we are making war for civilization, are we not? Very well, we are. Therefore, we eat in a civilized way."' ~~ excerpted from Richard Duffy's Introduction to Emily Post's Etiquette, written in 1922

"Manners are a sensitive awareness of the feelings of others. If you have that awareness, you have good manners, no matter what fork you use." ~~ Emily Post

As society's behavior becomes increasingly crass, a sort of aching throbs in the hearts of a few. Attached to the ache is a question. "Cannot we rise above self-absorption, vulgarity, and utility?" An affirmative answer confidently sings within such pure hearts. Yes. Yes, each one can choose to recall to life within himself the ancient civilities which set humanity on its course toward refinement. 

Perhaps, more than missing courtesy, deference, and certain dignity is the idea that without a common respect, life tends to be rather dispiriting. 

For everyone.

Creative Watching

In the perfume section of Macy's on Tuesday evening, my daughter and I witnessed one of those quiet, very human moments.

Middle-aged, tall, husky and clean-shaven with bushy brown hair sticking out from underneath a billed cap, his body enveloped in a black track suit with matching shoes, a long-striding man calmly entered the department store from the lively mall. Located on the fringe, the cologne selection's enticing aromas lured nearby shoppers, including the mall guy.

Perusing scents for men, this chap chose a bottle, sniffed, uncapped, then splashed a bit of the amber contents into his beefy hands. He began to, with gentlemanly form, quickly pat the liquid onto his face and his neck, then he rubbed his hands together smoothing the remaining cologne away.

I watched with delight! He seemed so confident I am sure he was a frequent snatcher of Macy's eau de toilette. He emitted an air of sophistication, somehow, under those baggy clothes.

Off he strolled, giraffing his neck and head as if looking for a particular someone, perhaps her.

If so, lucky lady. Her casually-dressed fellow samples only the best.

How fun to imagine many endings to the story all beginning with that one curious moment!

Creative watching.

That Flipping Attitude

Stewing on frowny thoughts saps energy and repels sweet interactions. Ugly.

What is it psychologists call the White Bear effect? You know, "Don't think about the white bear," then all you do is think about the white bear. It's a form of thought suppression and it doesn't work. The more you think about not thinking about something such as chocolate the more chocolate you'll actually eat.

Hmm. That's no good.

If thoughts lead to attitudes, and attitudes lead to choices, and choices lead to actions then does it make sense that focusing on a good attitude might turn a mindset around better than trying to suppress a bad attitude? Drink in the sweet-scented flower garden and you'll probably forget about the white bear.

This is how I snap myself out of frowny moments. I notice beauty and goodness.

I've found that when I invite loveliness into my mind, when I look for beauty, listen for it, and notice it I find myself making positive choices. And smiling more. My shoulders relax, my problems shrink to their actual sizes, my confidence rises along with a certain joy.

For example, some mornings, for reasons unknown to me, my mood upon awakening is negative, really looking-for-a-fight tense. I feel crabby, irritable, even angry. It's unpleasant. Really. Getting to the guts of this bad attitude requires a scanning of my thoughts. To what can I attribute this nastiness?

Unsurprisingly, the darkness is usually due to, well, absolutely no good reason, maybe a nightmare, maybe a violent or negative film watched before bed, or a hostile chapter consumed from a book, or, perhaps as for Scrooge, it could simply be a bit of undigested beef.

Once I realize that I'm not really angry at anyone, nor do I have a reason to be ill content, my attitude begins to flip from tense to relaxed. Just like that. This has taken some practice, you understand. A lot of practice. That flipping results not from avoiding the white bear but instead from realizing the beauty of my wiggling toes at the end of rested legs, the softness of my skin, the sun streaming in through the window or the rain pelting it, the smell of clean sheets or freshly washed hair, the touch of soft carpet under my feet, or the knowledge that the day holds promise for whatever reason.

Plentiful beauty exists around each one of us at any given moment. Sometimes beauty consists in the realization that my heart is beating, my lungs are breathing, and I have good memories of inspiring places and people I have known in the course of all this beating and breathing. Sometimes beauty is a startling foggy-shadowed twilight, sometimes the sounds of family members moving about, sometimes the voices of school children at the bus stop outside my picket fence. Sometimes it's the scent of tea and crumpets - my daughter really likes to make these British treats - sometimes it's a song lilting in my mind, or the refreshment derived from a cool drink of water. Oftentimes the beauty projects from the artwork in my home enticing me to pause and feel happiness, or the sunlight glistening off my little perfume bottles, or off of my husband's reddish golden hair. Beauty in the smile of James the local deli owner, Karen the grocery store checker, and Loren from down the street.

Sometimes this beauty is simply in realizing that I'm a child of God and forever will be. How I love him! His goodness is beautiful even when he is disciplining me because I know from experience that good will come of it. It always has. He is the one who has taught me about beauty in attitude, in transforming my mind through my thinking.

Beauty offers sweet, uplifting rest any time. Beauty takes our thoughts by the hand and leads us to life-affirming choices and actions, which ripple out to others creating a little space of hopeful connection in a world that suffers too often from frowniness.

"Love of Beauty is Taste. The creation of Beauty is Art." ~~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Tea Refinement

The spirit of the tea beverage is one of peace, comfort and refinement. ~~ Arthur Gray

November First

November just sounds like a friendly month. November.

Originally the ninth month in the Roman calendar, and deriving its name from the Latin word novem, November became the eleventh month in the Gregorian calendar in 1582.

Exciting history has occurred in this autumnal month including. . .

Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel paintings were first exhibited in 1512.

The Mayflower Compact was signed in 1620.

Captain James Cook discovered Maui in 1778.

Thanksgiving was first celebrated as a national holiday in 1789.

(Now we're talking turkey!)

1805 marked the first Pacific Ocean sighting by Lewis and Clark.

King Tut's tomb was discovered in 1922.

FDR became the first U.S. President to broadcast in a foreign language (French) in 1942.

Howard Hughes' flying boat the "Spruce Goose' made its one and only flight in 1947.

JFK was assassinated in 1963.

Carl B. Stokes was elected the first black mayor of a major city (Cleveland, Ohio) in 1967.

In 1976 "Gone with the Wind" was first televised.

And in 1998 Vincent van Gogh's Portrait of the Artist Without Beard sold at auction for $71.5 million USD.

Red, yellow, orange, and some remaining green leaves dot November's sky and soil. Soon they'll be piled up, burned, composted, scooped up into big trucks, or left to fertilize their mother trees. All in season, in order, life as it should be.

The Big Holidays tend to overwhelm November and December, but if we play our cards right we can find simplicity quietly pushes back any unwelcome pressure. Thoughtful choices create space for contemplation, observation, and deeply felt expressions of love which can't be bought or wrapped or plugged into a socket. Yes, the beauty of November awaits those with eyes to see and hearts that instinctively sense the slower drum beat of a more natural life, a spiritual attitude, a mindful connection to the beauty of a slower season, if we but choose to turn ourselves attentively toward its call.

November First. An offering to participate in a sweet-tempered melding of sorts. An invitation to relax, to replace energy happily spent in spring and summer, to take determinative steps toward refining and improving who we are as Children of God.

Sounds fabulous to me.

Socialism: The Inca Affect

Before you read the excerpts below please realize that, no, I'm not trashing the Incas, nor am I praising Pizarro and the Spanish conquistadors. I am not promoting whip-cracking missionaries. I'm simply sharing historical facts, the details of which are hauntingly familiar. My hope is that the lessons of history might jolt us modern-day citizens of the United States out of our current stupor in order to awaken us to the realization that socialism in not some far-off fantastical threat. It is here. It is real. We as a nation and as individuals have been influenced and dramatically changed by socialism's workings, to our peril.

A little background before we begin. Pizarro, the Spanish conquistador, had two things going for him in his goal of conquering the Incas. First, a civil war between two brothers and their followers was underway during the time he set out to fulfill Spain's royal decree to conquer Peru in 1532. Second, socialism had, for 200 years, sapped the entire Incan culture of its ability to organize an adaptable means of defending itself. Pizarro set out, with 200 men, to force 12 million people, scattered over Ecuador, Bolivia, Peru, and northern parts of Chile and Argentina, to capitulate to Spain's military authority.

The Inca civilization had made outstanding achievements. Cuzco, the capital city and heart of the empire, rivaled any major city in Europe at the time, and this with only bronze age technology. It had excellent roads, suspension bridges, fortresses, temples, palaces, aqueducts, and more. This prize deemed Pizarro's ridiculously remote undertaking worth the challenge.

Now, let's get to the point of this post. The following excerpts - which recently jumped off the pages at me - are from the book, The Naked Socialist, by Paul B. Skousen, emphasis mine.

"The Inca system of socialism weakened the people terribly. It took away their drive to achieve and initiate anything from their own creativity. They became indifferent, apathetic, and stopped thinking for themselves. They lost the connective tissue and the emotional bond in their family circles. They apparently didn't care about elderly parents who were no longer able to care for themselves. They didn't care about the suffering by those closest to them. They didn't care about the Inca state. They had become accustomed to being told by someone what to do, when to do it, and when to do it over if things didn't measure up.

"It is little wonder then why a small group of 200 Spaniards could come among them and dispatch the Inca leadership and take over with relative ease. The Spaniards used faction against faction to gain complete control, and waged battles and wars. But in the end, the final tally showed that the Inca's thousands always lost against Pizarro's hundreds."

Now, fast forward more than one hundred years.

"It is interesting to note that more than a century after the Inca empire fell, Jesuit Priests in Paraguay attempted to salvage the local culture from extinction under the spread of European settlements.

"The priests tried to force large groups of people into socialistic society at remotely scattered missions. From the start, the missionaries were frustrated with the native's doleful lack of initiative - a problem they tried to resolve with the whip. Unknown to the priests, the native workers had a long-nurtured proclivity to simply take orders, to do as they were told, or to do nothing if they were not told. This was not a change in biological human nature, it was the outcome of the all-powerful Inca ruler meeting all their needs without demanding personal responsibility.

"The Jesuits attributed the Paraguayan's despondency to the lingering impact of the Inca's socialistic control. They called it the 'Inca Affect.'"

The Inca Affect is alive and well and living in the United States of America. (It lives all over the globe, but that's another post.) The parallels are astonishing.

"They lost the connective tissue and the emotional bond in their family circles." I don't think I need to list the various aspects that constitute the breakdown of the American family, for this disintegration and its causes are all too apparent.

"The Spaniards used faction against faction to gain complete control, and waged battles and wars." Current factions in our country include abortion, immigration, religion, and race. The list goes on and on.

"This was not a change in biological human nature, it was the outcome of the all-powerful Inca ruler meeting all their needs without demanding personal responsibility." Welfare. Public schools. Entitlement programs.

And now, forced universal health care for which we gripe and grouch and suffer but can't seem to find a productive way to battle takes center stage. Why can't we find a way to resist? Could it be that our government uses the same tactics as ancient conquerors? Fear? What keeps us in line? The threat of penalties, the threat of withholding tax refunds, the fear of exorbitant medical costs rendering us bankrupt and homeless, and ultimately, the actual fear of death.

In the duping of America we've become anesthetized. We are vulnerable due to our addiction to the easy life and to fear. Personal responsibility is seen as a quaint notion. We take the path of least resistance for there are no longer noble fires in our bellies; they were extinguished by fear which has since morphed into ignorance, laziness, selfishness, and even violence. We'll put up with our government shoving its hand further and further into our pockets just so long as we can keep some semblance of that status quo. Don't upset the status quo, people might be hurt.

We are being hurt!

Observe the slow dying of a once thriving liberty, handed over to socialists who do not care about you.

"It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters." ~~ Edmond Burke, 18th century Irish statesman

Anniversary Meditations

Sometimes love looks not like gushy, starry-eyed gestures of affection, stereotypically romantic gift showers, and sugary utterances spoken under the moon but the trust, respect, fidelity, companionship, steadfastness, and comfort of a sixty-five year marriage. Quiet. Beneath the surface. Granite solid yet feather soft. Time-forged love, gently born, true growing out of a long, shared life-journey. Beautiful.

She, in rehab, he goes to bed alone each night under his daughter's roof, missing his constant companion - his wife-friend - who has been at his side nearly every single night for years three score and five. He feels intense loneliness.

Aches of genuine love.

Ohana

Circumstances beyond my control force me to confront and re-evaluate my views on family. My family. My extended family, to be precise.

You don't know how much you love something - or someone - until you lose it, until it is snatched away from you, leaving a torn wound, an empty hole that whispers loudly of tiny voices, smiling faces, cherished people, memories that may never be made.

Beyond ache.

And yet, I trust God. I know He works in mysterious ways. And I know He allows horrible things to happen to me - to all of us - for our good, for us to slam against a wall of reality, a wall we would normally, stupidly not even see. It's good to slam into those walls. Hurts like the dickens. But those painful lesson-moments allow us to discover our character, our growth. We get to witness first-hand the growth God nurtures in us over time.

Tested. Tried and True. "Hey, look, God! I responded correctly this time. Thank you for working a miracle in me."

Belief that joy follows sadness keeps bitterness at bay, creates laughter in a heart that cries for hugs from little ones, the sounds of giggling voices, the sight of tiny faces, the delight of making family-children happy. While the future appears stolen, my heart lies safely in its Master's hands. I am fine.

I have lived long enough to know that when we hurt others, that hurt always - always - follows us and stings us back sooner or later. So, I pity these people for whom correct understanding and wisdom evades. I pray for them. I know they will undergo a nasty reckoning just as do we all when prideful missteps get the best of us. Lord knows it's happened to me enough times, and will no doubt again.

Today, I choose gratitude for what I do have rather than tears for what I don't. I trust God to reunite and reconcile whom He chooses. I count on Him to lend justice to an unjust situation.

Whatever He decides, I accept. For He really is good at this Supreme Being thing.

"Most men pursue pleasure with such breathless haste that they hurry past it". ~~ Soren Kierkegaard

Perspective on Disabilities

"Part of the problem with the word disabilities is that it immediately suggests an inability to see or hear or walk or do other things that many of us take for granted. But what of people who can't feel? Or talk about their feelings? Or manage their feelings in constructive ways? What of people who aren't able to form close and strong relationships? And people who cannot find fulfillment in their lives, or those who have lost hope, who live in disappointment and bitterness and find in life no joy, no love? These, it seems to me, are the real disabilities." ~~ Fred Rogers

Welcome

Another niece added to my family.

A tiny girl.

She joins four siblings and  lovely parents.

Welcome, little one! Can't wait to meet you someday.