A word of encouragement - secret to a good life - from the world's oldest holocaust survivor - Alice Herz-Sommer - @ 109 years old. "I look for the good." What is yoursecret to a good life?
I posed this very question to the little girl seated beside me on the floor, playfully, of course. "Be Happy," she said. "Be happy?" I re-posed, tickled by the babe's wisdom. And shesaid, "Everything is good when you are happy."
"I see beauty everywhere."
OPTIMISM GRATITUDE AWARENESS ADMIRATION I know about the bad things; I look to the good things.
Several friends and acquaintances gave birth to firstborns this week. One elated dad said of the pleasure, "This must be heaven." One joyous mom said, "I've never felt love like this before." Every child should be welcomed into our world this way, I think.
I see wisdom in the mouths of babes. Some of us see beauty everywhere. Some of us see dead people. What do you see?
We are, each, enarmored and enrapt by our own reality. The woman in the pool. The man by the pool. The girl in the tree. The baby on the train. The boy under the bus. Enamored. Enrapt. It is the ordinary nature of our being. We see what we see. We feel what we feel. One reality, though, is this: we see but a smidgen of the total reality immediately available to each of us; we feel far beyond the present, beyond the experience of any particular moment. It is the remarkable nature of our design - part of the wonder of us. We are also - each - part and parcel of a creation teeming with diversity, full of beauty and potentiality; a creation called good; a creation that is growing, evolving, expanding. This, too, is part of that reality: each of us is but a blink in it. But GOD IS ALWAYS. Our individual view is limited in a compartively limitless expanse. So, why are we here?
We are born with potential. We are born with trust - entrusted to a universe that is continually rendering itself in balance. We are born with greatness - rendered in this time. Absent the fullest expression of even one of us the universe swiftly reckons with the gap. We are NOT created to abandonment nor to abandon our call - the dream. We are necessary for this season. But why?
Here is another fascinating fact. The span of existence visible to the human eye is shown below. It is that colorful chunk of the available electromagnetic spectrum between ultraviolet and infrared. Our eyes (brain included) are remarkable. Everything we see - everything - falls within that colorful chunk. Here is a mind-blower. Should we lay out the entire electomagnetic spectrum such that it is placed within the United States (say, stretched along a line from New York on the East Coast to Los Angeles on the West Coast) then the eye-seeing spectrum (i.e., the chunk used by the human eye to behold all it is capable of seeing) - the visibile spectrum - it would be the size of a dime on a street in New York! Yes, just that litle bitty-bit avails us to the grand panorama we enjoy. Quite remarkable, I think. And yes, that's how much more there is beyond our natural sight. That's how much more is available for us to use to discover what else is there, to understand it and to awe us. (Reference this video: Earth From Space.) It is amazing how much we've learned in so short a space of time. Yet, there's so much left to be revealed, so much left for us to discover, it would seem we'd all benefit mightily from the fullness of each other. Besides, this universe will NOT be disappearing tomorrow or within the next billion tomorrows, despite whimsical reports. But what about each of us? How much will each see?
Reclaim your awesomeness. Behold THE BEAUTY. I'll show you how.
First, if God created you to crawl around like a cockroach, or hiss like a snake, or suffer for His pleasure, or become food for scavengers and hawks, or bark like a dog, well that's about the best you can do. Praise the Lord. But if God didn't create you to be any of that then DON'T! Try these.
GOD IS AWESOME - ALPHA AND OMEGA I AM AN IMAGE OF GOD
I see and it is good: optimism
I see and I am pleased: gratitude
I see and it is complex: awareness
I see and it is awesome: admiration
"If your time is past you wouldn't be here."
AWESOME
I Am Strong On Your Shoulders
You RAISED Me Up To MORE Than I Can Be Standing on the shoulders of Jesus would be awesome. Awesome! Being beside him every step of The Great Adventure, journeying a rocky road with The Rest, feeling every heartbeat, experiencing the soul of humaniy, well, that's what these were about to discover.
In the midst of rescuing minds from the ravages of recklessness, desperation and need, Jesus was now being constantly confronted, spied upon, mocked, tested and insulted by Pharisees, Scribes and Saducees.
So Jesus called his buddies aside for a private chat.
"It's going to get pretty rough," he explained to them in detail as much as it would've been possible for them to understand then. "They will pursue us to kill and destroy us. However, they'll never be able to destroy God's work."
Amazingly, these very people who were berating and belittling Jesus, the messiah, were in those very moments looking for the messiah to exalt him. They were acquainted with the scriptures and claimed knowledge of the mind of God and the ways of God and the wrath of God. So what was it that Peter saw in Jesus that they could not see?
Leader. Provider. Deliverer. Counselor. Healer. Lover. Prince Of Peace. The Christ. Mighty God. Awesome Brother.
So Jesus took Peter, James and John to the mountain top.
There, atop the mountain, a most incredible thing happened. Peter, having rested, opened his eyes and saw Jesus transfigured. Jesus' head was as bright as the sun. His clothes dazzled. Then Moses, who had been long dead, appeared, and the prophet Elias, whose passing is an incredible story in and of itself, as will come to light along this very journey, also appeared.
This so excited Peter he offered, in their honor, to build three tablets, but Jesus stopped him, directing Peter, James and John not to reveal their witness of the transfiguration until his mission is complete. What happened next frightened Peter, James and John. They heard the Voice Of God, declaring, "This is my son. He pleases me well."
So, there they were. The woman in the pool. The man by the pool. The girl in the tree. The baby on the train. The boy under the bus. The lad, from his vantage, pausing on his way to Eagle, could see each of them. But what did each of them see? In fact, what do you see? Knock-Knock!
YOU ARE NOT ALONE
"Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these." ~ Jesus
"Be guided to where you belong." This is your life; only YOU can live it.
DON'T MESS WITH
MR. IN BETWEEN
Pause. Let me dwell for a while on this humbling question.
But one testified in a certain place saying:
What is man that You
are mindful of him
or the Son of Man
that You take care of him?
Hmm? Perhaps, as I always encourage, it is time for each of us to search out and discover with our own eyes and ears and heart and mind the who, what, where, when, why and how of this intriguing question . . . then thinkon it, lest it be unwittingly misinterpreted for us and we miss the remarkable strength of humility.
We strive continually to uplift, encourage, inspire and challenge each other to achieve our best in mind, body and spirit. We live, laugh, love, look, listen & learn.
PERSONAL STORIES
Here, I normally, share a life story that has served as a valuble lesson or has shed light on a path. This week, we've invited Poet Ric Couchman to share his recent blog post - a thought-provoking poem by his teenage daughter.
Thank you Ric and Kara.
POET, RIC COUCHMAN
about HIS DAUGHTER'S POEM
Didn't know she wrote poetry. She is a talented musician (just a few months away from graduating high school) - plays several musical instrument. But poetry!? I had absolutely no clue. Well, I used to see her writing in her diary when she was younger, but I thought that she was simply recording the highlights of her day - her disappointments, her challenges, her triumphs. You know, the usual stuff. But poetry!? And then out of the blue she emails me a few of her poems saying, "Daddy, I wrote these about four years ago. Idk if I ever showed them to you LOL. This is just the stuff I write. Let me know what you think." I was so excited, I had to read them right away. Permit me to share one of her poems with you. (Of course I got her permission!)
Places Worse Than Earth By
Kara Couchman
Photograph by Ric Couchman
what kind of inspiration does it take for me
to write something magnificent?
searching for a masterpiece within my head
and all I can find are sketches.
what could have been _
what should have been _
what never was_
and I begin to wonder what my life is worth…
if my life is like a dream, I’m living a beautiful nightmare.
disgust and grotesque combined in one,
to make this putrid life of mine
a dumpster of a life—
garbage.
step into my world and face the stench of depression;
broken hearts on the ground – some trampled, some sliced up.
starvation shapes the slender trees – dying and wilting away slowly.
razors create the streets – across the way and down the valleys.
rivers made of silent tears – take a swim, the tears mean nothing,
and the darkest sky one could ever imagine.
created in me was a heart of stone;
and now that I reconsider, it makes sense
why people are unable to love me.
even I could not imagine myself loving a rock.
God loves everything He created, or so He says—
and when He picks up the rock and realizes it is not straight, but crooked,
He secludes it and throws it down beneath his foot, beneath the earth,
and leaves it there to rot…
this is where my heart will be,
rotting with Hell and its slaves,
rotting next to the serpent with the magical fruit,
decaying, yet still living.
if this is what He wants, why not do it now?
why not do it myself?
what kind of idea does it take for me
to write something magnificent?
perhaps some music for sedation—
perhaps my lack of inspiration—.
LOVED NO QUESTIONS ASKED
I cherish the moments
Every Moment Is Precious
- A weekly INSPIRATIONAL PRESENTATION, with gem-sparkling Personal & other TRUE STORIES -
