BEHIND A NAME IS A HISTORY - SO LEARN

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This, when I found it, pushed me to thinking........

To quote:

"You can know the name of a bird in all the languages of the world, but when you're finished, you'll know absolutely nothing whatever about the bird. So let's look at the bird and see what it's doing -- that's what counts. I learned very early the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something." -- Richard Feynman

Unquote.

Precious knowledge more often than not pass us by simply because all we know of them are their names and are content with that. Often we fail, at least, to try learning so much more about it. What's in a name? Plenty I must say. Behind a name is a history... the who, what, when, where, why, and how of its creation. That applies to both living and non-living things. How well do we know? And, if I may add, how well do we know our God, too?

Indeed, there is a ... "..difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something."

Relish today and squeeze out all learning from it.
Learn... unlearn... relearn.
God bless you!

BE FRIENDS WITH TIME

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This is one from Eleanor Roosevelt.....

 “Each of us has... all the time there is. Those years, weeks, hours, are the sands in the glass running swiftly away. To let them drift through our fingers is tragic waste. To use them to the hilt, making them count for something is the beginning of wisdom.”       

So much has been said about wasting time or precious time but how much do we really feel it. I say 'feel' because I have learned that nothing makes so much impact as when you feel the experience to the core.

Feel time passing in the moment, the day, the week, the month, the year. Feel the sunrise in the morning and the sunset that follows it at the day's end. Feel the thousand-and-one things that you do in-between the rising and the sleeping. Even the smallest task can be quite a revelation to an attentive mind and heart. Touch a leaf, feel the warmth of the sun on your skin, listen to the chirping of birds on the trees or the laughter of children, watch a golden sunset gracefully slip away with a promise to return in the morn, pass your hands around the bark of a tree....  keep all your senses alive! Be alive. Be friends with Time. Be friends with life. Be your own best friend too. Be grateful to Someone up there for this wonderful gift.

Hope today's is a blessed day for you. God blesses it with wonderful things!

(Thanks, Mr. Quote Man, for the quote.)

PEOPLE ARE THEIR THOUGHTS

 

I like this from Sudhir Krishnan. Can't always read a person's mind; sometimes I try but fail poorly. So to help out in understanding a person I watch to see how he conducts himself or behaves or does things with his day or when he is around people. And this quote from Sudhir Krishnan tells me what I now know. People are their thoughts. Good or bad, everything stems from a thought. Plans, dreams, blessing, misery, betrayal, plagiarism, adventure, fun, joy, and more. By ordinary people, presidents and kings, the rich, philanthropists, saints, thieves, dictators, tyrants, corrupt officials, murderers, cheaters.... and everything else possessing of a mind and capable of thoughts.

Be careful with our thoughts. Everything starts from there.
Be blessed and stay blessed.

YOU GET TO CHOOSE

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Saw this in my inbox....

"With everything that has happened to you, you can either feel sorry for yourself or treat what has happened as a gift. Everything is either an opportunity to grow or an obstacle to keep you from growing. You get to choose."    -- Wayne W. Dyer

But don't we always choose life or that of moving forward? Survival is the name of the game. But sometimes it doesn't always mean that growth or learning or progress would follow. Sometimes a man just turns round and round and then too go back again and again to the same place of misery where it all began. Then utterly defeated he begins to wonder why things keep happening the way they do.

This was the subject when I was with friends not so long ago. A friend called it ...'bad luck' and another called it ...'karma'. Followed up by another friend who said ... 'Sow good, reap good; sow bad, reap bad.' And a third friend quoted a law of the universe which says that ... 'nothing happens without reason'.  Then all four chimed in with .... 'Isn't life all about choice or a series of choices good and bad?'  (Yup, nice chorus you guys got there!)

I got to thinking. So, how a person chooses to live his life is all up to him. If that person sees life as one big ball of darn things... it's going to be darn things and his decisions messing up his life even more.  But on the other hand, if that same person decides to take his challenges positively and would determinedly aim for success, growth, hope, satisfaction, improvement, learning, opportunity, happiness, fulfillment .... he will soon in good time discover a better quality of life for himself. Whether he gets there in slow-mo or on a fast clip ... he will get there. He chose it, decided for it, aimed for it.

Being captain of his own ship he best can steer it to where he wants it to go. This decision lies with him and not with anyone else no matter how brilliant the course others may have mapped out for him. He creates his own destiny. Whether he fails or succeeds is his own burden or blessing. 

Everything is a choice, good or bad. We can choose to move forward or remain behind, progress or stagnate, win or lose, build or destroy, be informed or be ignorant, be kind or be mean, be strong or be weak, be compassionate or be indifferent, be good or be bad, and  who we want to be, friendships we want to keep, chances we want to take, lives we want to build, careers we want to shape, dreams to make come true ......... or paint the sky with rainbows, dance to the wind, walk barefoot in the rain, or lay down under the shade of a tree in quiet peace and tranquility, content and happy.  All is a choice.

Indeed  '...Everything is either an opportunity to grow or an obstacle to keep you from growing. You get to choose.'    Thank you, Mr. Wayne W. Dyer.

Blessings, everyone! Have a pleasant day.

THE PRIVILEGE OF PRAYER IS THE CHAT WITH GOD

 

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The homily said in mass yesterday was simple and yet drew the message straight home. It's worthy to note that it helps if the priest knows how to get the attention of his parishioners in the homily portion of the mass. Because almost always this is the part when everybody's thoughts seem to stray. Well, this one new parish priest knows how. How? Here's how I saw him do it..... Just be simple. No frills, no gimmick, just keeping it simple BUT mean it. Mean what you say and that includes also injecting humor in your piece. Stick to what you know best..... life and living. And keep it short.

He's right, you know, otherwise it will just come out hollow and boring no matter the message. The reason why, I suppose, many stay by the church door to easily skip outside when the homily comes around. Have you noticed that, too?

He asked....  'How do we pray?'  Note it's not why but HOW.

He cited reasons that were as real as my tiny pot garden. But one struck me as most interesting. He said we pray HURRIEDLY.  We breeze through the devotions, novena, rosary, intentions, and most other prayers we are wont to say for the living and the dead, singularly or collectively. Once he said he asked a group why they pray in such a rush. The replies came as ....

-- I've another prayer meeting yet to go to after this
-- This is how we have learned to pray it
-- Mother prayed this way in our family
-- It's long so we have to finish it fast before the members get bored
-- Have to finish quick before the heavy rains pour down
-- Malayo pa ang uuwian ko eh  (It's a long way back home)
-- and etc. etc.

Empty and hollow. Now do we still wonder why sometimes our prayers don't get answered.

I have always thought and was taught that Prayer is a conversation with God. As I put in everything of who I am in a conversation with a good friend, I think it isn't any different in a conversation with God. I do the same... putting in all the enthusiasm, conviction, intent, involvement and commitment ... or of joy, happiness, thrill, sadness, fear, misery, disappointment, frustration, sometimes being silly or stupid...... of honestly-what-I-feel  or of who-I-am in that conversation with God. Those things, I believe, cannot be rushed in conversation.

And, I believe, that when I do this - when we do this in prayer..... GOD LISTENS INTENTLY!

I hope today starts off your week with buckets of blessings. God bless you all!

"THE ROSE" - In Memory Of A Love

Let the song speak to your heart as it has spoken to mine.

It's my favorite song and I hope it will be yours, too.

I'm including here the lyrics just in case someone may want it.
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Some say love, it is a river,
that drowns the tender reed,
Some say love, it is a razor,
that leaves your soul to bleed
Some say love, it is a hunger,
and endless aching need.
I say love, it is a flower,
and you, its only seed.

It's the heart, afraid of breaking,
that never learns to dance,
It's the dream afraid of waking,
that never takes the chance.
It's the one, who won't be taken
who cannot seem to be,
And the soul afraid of dying,
That never learns to live!

When the night has been too lonely,
and the road has been too long,
And you think, that love is only,
for the lucky and the strong!

Just remember, in the winter,
far beneath, the bitter snow,
lies the seed, that with the sun's love,
in the spring, becomes the..........
Rose..

 

EVERYONE IS BORN WITH A GUARDIAN ANGEL

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I chanced upon this music video and couldn't take my eyes and ears and heart off it. I thought what beautiful lines. This I want for my mother... my dearest Guardian Angel in life and beyond...  I am who I am today because she taught me well by the way she lived her life.  And to honor all the mothers in the world regardless of color, race, or creed. This too is meant most especially to those who suddenly find themselves taking on the dual role of being both mother-father to their children. As I am.

May the Blessed Mother in Heaven shine down upon you with love far more than your gentle hearts can hold. Be blessed, mothers. Stay blessed. Remember to pay it forward.

EVEN THE SMALLEST ACT OF CARING CAN TURN A LIFE AROUND

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Somebody said this....  'The opposite of love is not hate;  it's indifference.'

Let's not fool ourselves with the thought that we know much about that word... indifference. Well, maybe or maybe not. Because in truth we don't or else we won't be doing these freaking habits of uncaring. Somewhere there in our day to day lives we do teeny weeny habits of having our noses up in the air or looking the other way or telling ourselves to simply just 'ignore'.

You know what, that isn't achieving anything at all except perhaps keep us safe or more entrenched in our perceived respective comfort zones. A friend asked me.... 'why bother with other stuff, it's our lives we should be worrying about..'  Why bother?  Oh my, that's the stuff wars, misunderstandings, cruelty, misery, division, isolation are made of.... and that too is a very good reason why civilizations stagnate or may disintegrate one day soon.

You know what else, life is such that we work at it yes BUT it doesn't stop there. Life also includes that obnoxious human being standing next to you, or an old man walking out on the streets in tattered clothes, or emaciated children looking up to your eyes with outstretched hands, or that woman on TV sobbing as she heartrendingly pleads for justice for her child raped and murdered, or recurring holdups - bag snatchings - senseless killings, or the death of a poor puppy in the hands of bad bad VERY bad humans, and even so much more. Include too our Mother Nature who cries every time we irresponsibly cut down her trees, dirty her rivers and streams with garbage, kill her animals for profit, or bulldoze down her majestic mountains to build buildings in the name of progress. We see them all and then look the other way. That's a lot of indifference going around, don't you think?

What can we do? Somebody said that evil thrives in a society when, to quote -- 'good people do nothing about it.'  Unquote. We're good people, right? So whoever wrote those lines must be referring to us.

So what can we do?? Simple. BEGIN TO CARE. Act on saving people, the community, the children and the elderly, the poor, the four-legged creatures in our midst. Act against injustice, thieves and murderers, crooked men and women in government and even those in our small day-to-day lives, act against the senseless destruction of our dear Mother Earth, act to protect our environment, and more. Act to save our world and its people ........  and in the process we are saving ourselves too.

Another friend asked ... 'I'd like to do something but WHAT?'  Here's a few I know.....  concertedly and vigorously talk about it, write about it, sing about it, work on it, network with it ...... be seen, be heard, be read. Be passionate about caring for all of creation, living and non-living.

If I may boldly say, I believe that God didn't create us just to stay in our respective comfortable tiny corners of the world separate from the rest. I think His intent was to create a humanity of men and women with big hearts of gold reaching out to one another with the power and love of God. We are created in His image, right?  Sadly, it got derailed somewhere there, not His fault but mainly ours. BUT we can get ourselves back on track again. And how? If we once again learn to put back CARING into our lives.

Indifference is an ugly word. Don't you think that it's time to cut it down to pieces, strike it off our vocabulary, end its rule over our lives??  That sure is going to put a tremendous smile on our Heavenly Father's face! We are His children.... therefore, like Father - like children.

Blessings, everyone.

BUT WORDS ARE A BIG DEAL

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The new parish priest of our community was celebrating his first mass and with a homily on the subject of 'the power of words'.  To sum up, it was truly a good homily delivered in a uniquely light hearted sincere manner yet made such a huge dent on everybody's thoughts if you could gauge it from the attentive responses of the people present there. 

Made me think................

Words. What do we know about it except to speak it, to communicate with, or to express our sentiments with. We often take it for granted. Like it's part of our physical body of eyes, ears, nose, extremities, and mouth. So no big deal.

BUT it IS a big deal!

Do we know what words can do? It can make or break, build or destroy, make happy or cause someone to be miserable. 'Make' 'Build' 'Happy' would be easy to understand. Its effect is almost always visible. It's a no-brainer.

On the other hand, 'break' 'destroy' 'miserable' hits very deep. That's a place nobody can see. Can be very hard to understand.

When someone says to us... 'I love you', I am sure that would quickly transport us up to the skies rocketing even higher. Everything to our minds come out rosy and every living creature lovable. Oh I know because just like you I've been there too.

Now when somebody else says... 'I don't like you', I am sure that we would according to our personality type respond to that accordingly. Strong types would deliver a straight punch on that person's (very ugly) nose while weaker souls would simply walk away and yes wither away with all that hurt and pain sinking lower deep inside. And if some still don't know it, bullying makes that happen.

Words maybe simply a tool, one of many, of our existence but it is such a powerful one. We should care for it as a handyman usually cares for his pack of tools with love and careful attention. We should use it with care. Unlike a fool who lets loose a barrage of anger, hate, meanness  through a language which belittles, disparages, depreciates and totally cuts down to size its object deliberately down to the ground. Sadly, we do that often to our... families, spouses, children, parents, friends, the elderly, and even to strangers.

We have hurt a lot of people with those ugly words and also at many times have been hurt a lot by those same words.

So then why don't we be extra careful in our choice of words, in how we speak them. We should not try in any way be cause, for any kind of reason thought of as just, of someone else's misery or heartbreak. If we must say something, choose how to say it. There's enough misery going around in our world to think of adding more to it. Mother Earth is hurting from all the negativity forced upon her.

Let us try to help ease that pain or better to whack off the negative vibes to pieces with a good concentrated dose of positivity. We can do that with WORDS! Words have the power to restore joy, good, well-being, hope, courage, inspiration, strength, love, faith, and trust. These can help create a better place for us. That by the way, is also by God's design.

Be blessed, everyone. God pours out bushels of blessings right there into your day.
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Note: A friend remarked that the pictures selected in the posts are lovely. To that I have to thank the wonderful world of the internet. Big thanks to those who put up such wonderful images of inspiration for everyone to enjoy. Bless you all!

BE THE HOPE YOU WANT TO SEE IN THE WORLD

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"You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; 

if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty."   

-- Mahatma Gandhi

Unquote.

I keep telling/reminding myself that  'Hope springs eternal'  --- No other way to see all of life.... all of bad that is happening.  And if we think of wanting or having a better neighborhood, community, city, country, people and world.....  well, the buck stops here --- it all begins with self. Somebody once said .... 'Be the change you want to see in the world'. The task therefore is all laid down before us .... change. Transformation. Start with who you are, what you are, where you are, and what you have. In that sense, hope will spring eternal. Because nothing can be better than becoming the best improved version of your self..... and then redirect this precious caring unto the world.

Pay the goodness forward. Blessings from the Heavenly Father, everyone.

OUR HIGHEST POTENTIAL

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"Wellness isn't about deprivation and it's not about perfection. It is about pointing yourself in the direction of growth, training yourself to get comfortable with your highest potential, and then taking small steps to support that shift.  It's about showing up for yourself, day by day, and then one day finding that you've undergone a transformation."    -- Kathy Freston

I guess that speaks out not only for those in pursuit of health but it works just as well with the other pursuits which fill up our plates in life. It always begins with that tiny-little-small-bit of .. 'the first step'. That first step begins the journey, the project, the writing, the story, the relationship, the dream, the adventure, the memories ..... and on the other end of the spectrum the misery, the frustration, the disappointment, the failure, and more. It's what we do or do not do for the first step.

In our journey the aim should always be towards our highest potential. Oh yes, it's wired into our system from birth. Big thanks to a very wise God. So the quicker we begin to understand that the quicker become our growth towards our better selves.

Do not belittle nor limit yourself with the idea that only the rich, highly educated, and famous are privileged with talent or brilliance. It's not their monopoly.

Our highest potential is in doing what we do best in our everyday lives. Neither do we need an audience to do that. All we need is the desire and passion to be the best that we can be in whatever our God-given talents lead us. It's what we do with our lives with the highest care and attention which truly matters to God's eyes and heart. That, incidentally, is also by God's design.

Blessings, everyone! Remember to pay kindness forward.