11 Inspirational Quotes from George H.W. Bush

11 Inspirational Quotes from George H.W. Bush
Life lessons from the former President of the United States.
By Lauren Hubbard
Dec 1, 2018
www.townandcountrymag.com/leisure/arts-and-culture/a20053077/best-george-hw-bush-quotes/  as of 12/7/2018

From his mild-mannered facade, few would have guessed that George H.W. Bush led such an eventful life: he served as a WWII combat pilot for the Navy, director of the CIA, and, of course, the 41st President of the United States, presiding over such momentous historical events as the fall of the Berlin wall and the end of the Cold War. Alongside Barbara, his beloved wife of 73 years, Bush dispensed words of wisdom long beyond his tenure in public service, inspiring many with his faith and hope for a better tomorrow.

Here, a few of Bush's best-loved quotes.

ON PROBLEM SOLVING:
"No problem of human making is too great to be overcome by human ingenuity, human energy, and the untiring hope of the human spirit."

ON INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
"International exchanges are not a great tide to sweep away all differences, but they will slowly wear away at the obstacles to peace as surely as water wears away a hard stone."

ON TEAMWORK
"In crucial things, unity. In important things, diversity. In all things, generosity."

ON THE FUTURE
"I do not mistrust the future; I do not fear what is ahead. For our problems are large, but our heart is larger."

ON LIFE
"Be bold in your caring, be bold in your dreaming and above all else, always do your best."

ON COOPERATION
"Don't confuse being 'soft' with seeing the other guy's point of view."

ON FREEDOM
"Freedom and the power to choose should not be the privilege of wealth. They are the birthright of every American."

ON DOING WHAT'S RIGHT
"No generation can escape history."

ON EDUCATION
"Think about every problem, every challenge, we face. The solution to each starts with education."

ON HIS LEGACY
"History will point out some of the things I did wrong and some of the things I did right."

ON AMERICA
"America is never wholly herself unless she is engaged in high moral principle. We as a people have such a purpose today. It is to make kinder the face of the nation and gentler the face of the world."

www.townandcountrymag.com/leisure/arts-and-culture/a20053077/best-george-hw-bush-quotes/  as of 12/7/2018

“Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.” —Theodore Roosevelt.

"Do what you can, with what you have, where you are."
—Theodore Roosevelt

"Grief is the terrible reminder of the depths of our love. . ."

Musician Nick Cave has shared an emotional open letter about how he still feels the presence of his son, Arthur, who died in 2015 aged 15.
"If we love, we grieve. . . . Grief and love are forever intertwined. Grief is the terrible reminder of the depths of our love and, like love, grief is non-negotiable. There is a vastness to grief that overwhelms our minuscule selves."
https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-46084553

experiencing something new, in order to be able to choose something different

e-News, Sisters of St. Joseph, Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia
Edition No. 79 — October 15, 2018

20th Anniversary Gift of Hope Gala Honors Sister Rita Woehlcke SSJ
October 5, 2018
Sister Rita Woehlcke SSJ received the Humanitarian of the Year Award at the event.
The Center is nationally recognized for cutting edge practices in breaking the cycle of homelessness, substance abuse and poor ‘starts’ for children.
Rita began her relationship with the Center for Great Expectations in 1995 and was instrumental in creating the mission statement and designing a vision for comprehensive care. In each case, the model was based on experiencing something new, in order to be able to choose something different, and then having the internal and external resources and support to maintain that new life. She views her time at CGE as one the most significant in her ministerial life. . . .
Congratulations, Rita!

Temper, temper

"Temper, temper! Don't give it away. Nobody wants it."
~ David M's grandmother

Wealth Priorities

Save 10% of your income.
Invest 10% in other people, according to God's priorities.
Live on 80% of your income.
Be blessed!

B-WAFF - Beautiful, Wonderful, Amazing, Fabulous, Fantastic

Did You B-WAFF Today?
B-WAFF is an acronym created by Rhonda Bryne. It stands for Beautiful, Wonderful, Amazing, Fabulous, Fantastic. These are POWERFUL words that change how one feels, thinks, and behaves. In other words, B-WAFF are positive affirmations that only need to be SAID to cause one to be positive in her feelings, thoughts, and behavior.
Try it. Tell the very next person you see right now: “You are __________”(use one of the B-WAFF words). What was the person’s reaction? How did YOU feel?
As related to P.E.O., they can move a chapter from being ORDINARY to being EXTRAORDINARY.
How is this done? As our State President Ellen Endslow would say, “Easy peasy,”that is, just before you walk into your next chapter meeting, say to yourself, “My chapter is ___________ “(use one of the B-WAFF words). Note what happens!
Oh, by the way, you can also use these words when angry with someone. The next time that you are angry with someone, just say, “You’re just AMAZING!” (Bet you’ll smile!)
So, don’t forget to B-WAFF today!
Alicia King Redfern
PA State Vice President

Quoted from an African missionary's newsletter

Quoted from an African missionary's newsletter, discussing seminary education for pastors:
"The African culture does not believe that men should be involved in the care of young children or even in teaching them. I am trying to convince my class of men that teaching, especially children, should be at the heart of the church. I want to get them excited about teaching Sunday School and making it a fun and enjoyable experience where children can come to know about the love of God.
Most of them look at me with stony faces revealing their aversion to the job, preaching to adults is what they consider the most important part of being a pastor. I pray that these men can become loving and caring fathers as well as pastors who understand the need to reveal the love of God the Father through their example."

The gender imagery that God has given us - C.S. Lewis

https://www.marykassian.com/re-imagining-god-in-the-shack/
quote:
The gender imagery that God has given us is highly important. It reflects critical truths about the nature of the Trinity. Calling him “she” violates his character and important imagery about the nature of our relationship to him. As C.S. Lewis observes,

Common sense, disregarding the discomfort, or even the horror, which the idea of turning all our theological language into the feminine gender arouses in most Christians, will ask “Why not? Since God is in fact not a biological being and has no sex, what can it matter whether we say He or She, Father or Mother, Son or Daughter?”
But Christians think that God Himself has taught us how to speak of Him. To say that it does not matter is to say either that all the masculine imagery is not inspired, is merely human in origin, or else that, though inspired, it is quite arbitrary and unessential. And this is surely intolerable: or, if tolerable, it is an argument …  against Christianity. It is also surely based on a shallow view of imagery. Without drawing upon religion, we know from our poetical experience that image and apprehension cleave closer together than common sense is here prepared to admit; that a child who has been taught to pray to a Mother in Heaven would have a religious life radically different from that of a Christian child. And as image and apprehension are in an organic unity, so, for a Christian, are human body and human soul.
The innovators are really implying that sex is something superficial, irrelevant to the spiritual life… [But] one of the ends for which sex was created was to symbolize to us the hidden things of God. One of the functions of human marriage is to express the nature of the union between Christ and the Church. We have no authority to take the living and semitive figures which God has painted on the canvas of our nature and shift them about as if they were mere geometrical figures… [God images himself as masculine because]…we are all, corporately and individually, feminine to Him.
…The male you could have escaped, for it exists only on the biological level. But the masculine none of us can escape. What is above and beyond all things is so masculine that we are all feminine in relation to it.
(Quotes from C.S. Lewis Essays Notes on the Way and That Hideous Strength.)

https://www.marykassian.com/re-imagining-god-in-the-shack/

Moments in Bonding - self-confident attaching

Moments in Bonding
“Bonding is a two-way street; parents and children interact.  Although we can, at present, describe only crudely the experience of bonding from the baby’s point of view, we can nevertheless see that the baby that self-confidently attaches itself to its mother is likely to behave in ways that arouse more affectionate and spontaneous maternal responses.  Conversely, a child who has suffered traumatic institutional separation from its mother will react with anger, anxious possessiveness, or self-protective detachment.  This obstructive behavior, in turn, produces negative responses from the mother that increase the child’s anger, possessive clinging, or guarded apathy.”

William F. May, "The Retarded," On Moral Medicine, 2nd ed.: #98: 738.

May’s footnote 8 for this paragraph:
8.  For further details, see John Bowlby, Attachment and Loss, Vol. I (New York: Basic Books, 1969), p. 340

Stuff you don't wanna forget

the following were copied from Desiree's Desired Creations, Desiree McCrorey
http://desiredcreations.com/misc_25Things.htm

25 things you should have learned by the time you have reached middle age

1. If you're too open-minded, your brains will fall out.
2. Don't worry about what people think, they don't do it very often.
3. Going to church doesn't make you a Christian, any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.
4. It ain't the jeans that make your butt look fat.
5. Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity.
6. My idea of housework is to sweep the room with a glance.
7. Not one shred of evidence supports the notion that life is serious.
8. It is easier to get forgiveness than permission.
9. For every action, there is an equal and opposite government program.
10. If you look like your passport picture, you probably need the trip.
11. Bills travel through the mail at twice the speed of checks.
12. A conscience is what hurts when all of your other parts feel so good.
13. Eat well, stay fit, die anyway.
14. Men are from earth. Women are from earth. Deal with it.
15. No one has ever been shot while doing the dishes.
16. A balanced diet is a cookie in each hand.
17. Middle age is when broadness of the mind and narrowness of the waist change places.
18. Opportunities always look bigger going than coming.
19. Junk is something you've kept for years and throw away three weeks before you need it.
20. There is always one more imbecile than you counted on.
21. Experience is a wonderful thing. It enables you to recognize a mistake when you make it again.
22. By the time you can make ends meet, they move the ends.
23. When baking, follow directions. When cooking, go by your own taste.
24. Someone who thinks logically provides a nice contrast to the real world.
25. If you must choose between two evils, pick the one you've never tried before.

A few more goodies...

1. Dogs have owners. Cats have staff.
2. Generally speaking, you aren't learning much when your lips are moving.
3. Don't sweat the petty things. Don't pet the sweaty things.
4. After all this is over, all that will really have mattered is how we treated each other.
5. Always remember you’re unique. Just like everyone else..
6. Don’t approve of political jokes; too many of them are already elected.
7. Age is a very high price to pay for maturity.
8. To avoid hating yourself in the morning--sleep 'till noon.

I don't know the origins of these, but whoever wrote them, thank you so very much! ;-)

Ozymandias

Ozymandias
By Percy Bysshe Shelley

I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

written 1817

Redemption

"If you have been forgiven by God
then he gives you the power to forgive others."
~ youth pastor
I Can Only Imagine movie

I Can Only Imagine is a 2018 American Christian drama film directed by the Erwin Brothers and written by Alex Cramer, Jon Erwin, and Brent McCorkle, based on the story behind the MercyMe song of the same name, the best-selling Christian single of all time.
The film stars J. Michael Finley as Bart Millard, the lead singer who wrote the song about his relationship with his father (Dennis Quaid). Madeline Carroll, Priscilla Shirer, Cloris Leachman, and Trace Adkins also star.
I Can Only Imagine was released in the United States on March 16, 2018.

Nothing is ever really lost, or can be lost . . .

Nothing is ever really lost, or can be lost,
No birth, identity, form—no object of the world.
Nor life, nor force, nor any visible thing;
Appearance must not foil, nor shifted sphere confuse thy brain.
Ample are time and space—ample the fields of Nature.
The body, sluggish, aged, cold—the embers left from earlier fires,
The light in the eye grown dim, shall duly flame again;
The sun now low in the west rises for mornings and for noons continual;
To frozen clods ever the spring's invisible law returns,
With grass and flowers and summer fruits and corn.

~ Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much

"Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much."
James 5:16 KJV

Your Bible and your newspaper

"Take your Bible and take your newspaper, and read both. But interpret newspapers from your Bible."
~ Karl Barth

Let's Keep Praying!

LET'S KEEP PRAYING!
Ephesians 6:18

Irina Ratushinskaya's childhood quest for God, even while she was hearing school lectures promoting atheism and mocking Christianity, led her to a deep and unflinching faith. Her poetry expressed that faith and brought inspiration and hope to believers all over Russia.
It also brought her to the attention of the KGB. At age 28, Irina was arrested and sentenced to 7 years hard labor in the Bareshevo labor camp. There she was subjected to relentless interrogations, chilling cold, starvation, hard labor, and months of solitary confinement.
Irina's faith did not break. During the lonely nights, huddled against the cold wall of her cell, she composed poetry in her head about God. When Irina was finally released, she credited the prayers of believers for sustaining her. In one of her poems, she wrote:

Believe me, it was often thus:
In solitary cells, on winter nights
A sudden sense of joy and warmth
And a resounding note of love.
And then, unsleeping, I would know
A-huddle by an icy wall:
Someone is thinking of me now,
Petitioning the Lord for me.

I wonder, have we been faithful in praying for people who are going through difficult situations? Our prayers can make a difference!
- David C. Egner

You can expect God to intervene if you're willing to intercede.

What’s Before Identity Politics - The Galli Report

The Galli Report
email, 8/17/2018
Mark Galli, Editor-in-Chief, Christianity Today

What’s Before Identity Politics

This next piece gave me more empathy for people who are deeply invested in identity politics. I’ve noted many times how unhealthy I think this has become, but I hadn’t considered the root of the passion so many have to understand who they are and do so by fixating on their culture, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, disability, or whatever. Nathanael Blake at Public Discourse argues that it goes back to Nietzsche’s proclamation of the death of God.

Without a transcendent worldview, all that remains is what we can see and touch—that’s the only reality left to find meaning in. But we also recognize how contingent and relative: “Consequently, tribal identity is no longer a secure psychological retreat into a stable source of meaning but a contested construct. Getting ‘woke’ and engaging in identity politics are attempts to find meaning in something that is an acknowledged social construct.”

This is behind the increasingly common claim that to challenge people’s sexual behavior or gender identity is to question, deny, or attack their humanity and even their existence. This seems insane to those who still reside in a Christian cosmos, for whom sexual desire or one’s feelings about gender are not at the core of one’s identity, and for whom criticizing sinful acts is a far cry from enacting a genocide of the sinful. But to those whose experiential sense of self is only that which they have created or adopted from their culture and their own desires, this makes sense. If self-creation is the fullest expression of our humanity, then critiquing someone’s self-constructed identity is to critique his humanity.

José Micard Teixeira – I NO LONGER

José Micard Teixeira – I NO LONGER

I no longer have patience for certain things, not because I’ve become arrogant, but simply because I reached a point in my life where I do not want to waste more time with what displeases me or hurts me.
 I have no patience for cynicism, excessive criticism and demands of any nature.
I lost the will to please those who do not like me, to love those who do not love me and to smile at those who do not want to smile at me.
I no longer spend a single minute on those who lie or want to manipulate.
I decided not to coexist anymore with pretense, hypocrisy, dishonesty and cheap praise.
I do not tolerate selective erudition nor academic arrogance.
I do not adjust either to popular gossiping.
I hate conflict and comparisons.
I believe in a world of opposites and that’s why I avoid people with rigid and inflexible personalities.
In friendship I dislike the lack of loyalty and betrayal.
I do not get along with those who do not know how to give a compliment or a word of encouragement.
Exaggerations bore me and I have difficulty accepting those who do not like animals.
And on top of everything I have no patience for anyone who does not deserve my patience.

~ José Micard Teixeira
Portuguese author

Brother Roger: Love your neighbor, whatever his or her religious or political outlook.

Brother Roger’s purpose in forming the ecumenical monastic community in Taizé, France was to provide safety and the love of God to those fleeing the hurts and conflicts of World War II. As he wrote in The Rule of Taizé,

Never stand still: advance with your brothers, race towards the goal in the steps of Christ. His path is a way of light – I am, but also, you are the light of the world” (John 8:12 and Matthew 5:14). In order for the light of Christ to permeate you, it is not enough to gaze on it as though you were purely spirit: you need to commit yourself resolutely, body and soul, to that path. Be a sign for others of brotherly love and of joy. . . .
Love the disadvantaged, all those who experience human injustice and are thirsting for justice. Jesus had a particular concern for them. . . .
Love your neighbor, whatever his or her religious or political outlook.

Brother Roger, The Rule of Taizé in French and English, Brewster, Mass.: Paraclete Press, 2013, 9-13.

Fearing God

WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
The remarkable thing about fearing God is that when you fear God you fear nothing else, whereas if you do not fear God you fear everything else.
"Blessed is every one that feareth the Lord"; . . .

"I get enough."

How 3 words can stop what's stealing your joy: Instead of staying stuck in comparing and competing
Ann Voskamp

"I get enough."

I get enough… because I get enough Jesus – and Jesus for me is enough.
I get enough… because I get enough God – and God in me is enough.
I get enough… because I get enough grace – and His grace to me is enough.
I get enough… because I get enough Love – and His Love all around me, for me, in me, is enough.
I get enough.
When I can’t remember that I get enough – I just have to remember to give thanks.

Eucharisteo always precedes the miracle:
Give thanks – and you get the miracle of knowing that you do get enough. You get enough God.

The disease of not-enough… is cured when you give thanks for more than enough grace.
. . .
“He who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all – how will He not also, along with Him, graciously give us all things?
If God didn’t hesitate to put everything on the line for us, embracing our condition and exposing Himself to the worst by sending His own Son  –  is there anything else He wouldn’t gladly and freely do for us?” (Romans 8:32, NIV, MSG)
If God already gave us the extraordinary extravagance of Jesus – He will give the ordinary enough of right now.

The column was originally published on Ann Voskamp’s blog, annvoskamp.com.
www.foxnews.com/opinion/2018/07/29/how-3-words-can-stop-whats-stealing-your-joy-instead-staying-stuck-in-comparing-and-competing.html

She is a friend of my mind.

"She is a friend of my mind. She gather me, man. The pieces I am, she gather them and give them back to me in all the right order. It's good, you know, when you got a woman who is a friend of your mind."
~ Toni Morrison, Beloved

Fear Not

Fear Not
Our fear is a hump we have to get over, and we have to get over it before we can go very far with Jesus. To help an alcoholic or a drug addict, we must first get him or her off the stuff. That is the first step, the first lesson (if you will): to stop drinking or using. Only then does it make sense to talk about other things.
Jesus knew that people, from the day they are born, are slaves to fear, just as much slaves as a drunkard is to his bottle or an addict to his needle. And, until we can stop being afraid, and trust God, nothing else works. We are simply too consumed by fear and worry and anxiety to think about anything else.
For that reason Jesus spent a great deal of time telling us not to be afraid -- telling us directly, and acting out God's grace by feeding people who were hungry and rescuing those in trouble on the sea. God will be there when we need him. Fear not. It the first lesson in the Christian primer, the one on which all the others build.
~ William R. Boyer, Four Miles Out

truth-telling, confronting injustice, and pursuing peace

William Sloane Coffin, Jr., who died at the age of 81, was a scholar, civil rights leader, antiwar activist, and a prophet. He summed up his faith by saying, "I believe Christianity is a worldview that undergirds all progressive thought and action."
He also said, "The Christian church is called to respond to Biblical mandates like truth-telling, confronting injustice, and pursuing peace."

Hope

"Hope is not a matter of waiting for things outside us to get better. It is about getting better inside about what is going on inside. It is about becoming open to the God of newness."

- Joan D. Chittister, Scarred by Struggle, Transformed by Hope, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co, Grand Rapids, MI, 2003, 110.

Turn your face to the sun

"Turn your face to the sun and the shadows fall always behind you."

- native New Zealand proverb

Give Light

"Give light and the darkness will disappear of itself. "

- Erasmus

Failure and Success

"Failure changes us for the better, success for the worse."

- Seneca, Roman philosopher 

Live in the Present

"When we yield to discouragement it is usually because we give too much thought to the past and to the future. " -St. Therese of Lisieux, Peacemaking, 1989 ed.

Glued to Our Faults

Glued to Our Faults
James S. Hewett once gave an apt example of people not getting the respect they deserve. Especially young people.
He tells about his son, who was using one of those super-adhesive glues on a model airplane he was building. "In less than three minutes," says James Hewett, "his right index finger was bonded to a shiny blue wing of his DC-10. He tried to free it. He tugged it, pulled it, waved it frantically, but he couldn't budge his finger free."
Soon, they located a solvent that did the job and ended their moment of crisis.
Then James Hewitt writes this: "Last night I remembered that scene when I visited a new family in our neighborhood. The father of the family introduced his children: 'This is Pete. He's the clumsy one of the lot.' 'That's Kathy coming in with mud on her shoes. She's the sloppy one.' 'As always, Mike is last. He'll be late for his own funeral, I promise you.'"
James Hewett goes on to say, "The dad did a thorough job of gluing his children to their faults and mistakes. People do it to us all the time. They remind us of our failures, our errors, our sins, and they won't let us live them down.
Like my son trying frantically to free his finger from the plane, there are people who try, sometimes desperately, to free themselves from their past. They would love a chance to begin again. When we don't let people forget their past, when we don't forgive, we glue them to their mistakes and refuse to see them as more than something they have done.
However, when we forgive, we gently pry the doer of the hurtful deed from the deed itself, and we say that the past is just that--the past--over and done with . . ."
King Duncan, Collected Sermons, www.Sermons.com

"Church would be easy if it weren't for people."

"Church would be easy if it weren't for people."
Allister Begg, Truth for Life radio program,
heard on radio 6-25-2018

"Know how to use the power that you have."

"Know how to use the power that you have."

~ Truthful Grace

"Preaching should break a hard heart, and heal a broken heart."

"Preaching should break a hard heart, and heal a broken heart."

~ Pastor John Newton, ex drunken slave trader, author of the hymn "Amazing Grace"

Loving well is the best revenge

"Loving well is the best revenge."

~ author unknown

the intuitive mind

"The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant.
We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift."

~ Albert Einstein

strength, courage and confidence

"You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing you think you cannot do."

~ Eleanor Roosevelt

Mindfulness

"Let us not look back in anger, nor forward in fear, but around in awareness."

~ James Thurber, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

Native American Proverbs and Wisdom

Native American Proverbs and Wisdom

When you were born, you cried and the world rejoiced. Live your life so that when you die, the world cries and you rejoice. – Cherokee

Force, no matter how concealed, begets resistance. – Lakota

Remember that your children are not your own, but are lent to you by the Creator.  – Mohawk

Treat the earth well: it was not given to you by your parents, it was loaned to you by your children. We do not inherit the Earth from our Ancestors, we borrow it from our Children. – Tribe Unknown

Walk lightly in the spring; Mother Earth is pregnant. – Kiowa

Everything the power does, it does in a circle. – Lakota

Seek wisdom, not knowledge. Knowledge is of the past, Wisdom is of the future. – Lumbee

The bird who has eaten cannot fly with the bird that is hungry. – Omaha

Do not wrong or hate your neighbor for it is not he that you wrong but yourself. – Pima

It is no longer good enough to cry peace, we must act peace, live peace and live in peace. – Shenandoah

The one who tells the stories rules the world. – Hopi

Tell me and I’ll forget. Show me, and I may not remember. Involve me, and I’ll understand. – Tribe Unknown

Wisdom comes only when you stop looking for it and start living the life the Creator intended for you. – Hopi


Lakota Instructions for Living

Friend do it this way – that is,
whatever you do in life,
do the very best you can
with both your heart and mind.

And if you do it that way,
the Power Of The Universe
will come to your assistance,
if your heart and mind are in Unity.

When one sits in the Hoop Of The People,
one must be responsible because
All of Creation is related.
And the hurt of one is the hurt of all.
And the honor of one is the honor of all.
And whatever we do affects everything in the universe.

If you do it that way – that is,
if you truly join your heart and mind
as One – whatever you ask for,
that’s the Way It’s Going To Be.

Passed down from White Buffalo Calf Woman


Native American Ten Commandments

1. Treat the Earth and all that dwell therein with respect
2. Remain close to the Great Spirit
3. Show great respect for your fellow beings
4. Work together for the benefit of all Mankind
5. Give assistance and kindness wherever needed
6. Do what you know to be right
7. Look after the well-being of Mind and Body
8. Dedicate a share of your efforts to the greater Good
9. Be truthful and honest at all times
10. Take full responsibility for your actions

https://www.legendsofamerica.com/na-proverbs/

The Surgeon's Prayer

"May we be helped to do here whatever is most right."

~ Traditional Native American Prayer

every mentally ill person you’ve ever worked with is basically lonely

Richard Rohr quote:
I once met a psychiatrist who said something to me that initially I thought was an overstatement: “Richard, at the end of your life, you’ll realize that every mentally ill person you’ve ever worked with is basically lonely.”
“Oh, come on, that’s a little glib, isn’t it?” I replied.
“Oh, I admit, there are surely physiological reasons for much mental illness, but loneliness might just be what activates it. Every case of nonphysiologically-based mental illness stems from a person who has been separated, cut off, living alone, and has forgotten how to relate in one way or another.” I still wonder if that might be true.

Richard Rohr, with Mike Morrell, The Divine Dance: The Trinity and Your Transformation (Whitaker House: 2016), 45.

Remember to FROG every relationship.

GIFTED FOR LEADERSHIP
APRIL 28, 2016
www.christianitytoday.com/gifted-for-leadership/2016/april/how-to-lead-dominating-male-leaders.html as of 4/29/2016
LINDA A. WURZBACHER
How to Lead Dominating Male Leaders
Three things I’ve learned as I’ve led dominant men
quote:

I like to say: Remember to FROG every relationship. FROG stands for “Fully Rely on God.” And that means keeping a teachable spirit before the Lord. Second John 2:27 says, “But you have received the Holy Spirit, and he lives within you, so you don’t need anyone to teach you what is true. For the Spirit teaches you everything you need to know, and what he teaches is true—it is not a lie. So just as he has taught you, remain in fellowship with Christ.”
It has taken me way too many years to realize that God will help, teach, and direct me in every relationship I have. But one requirement is that I remain open, teachable, and accountable to him. 

Linda A. Wurzbacher is Lead Pastor of Blessed Hope Community Church in Rochester, New York.

Jesus put his body where his mouth was

Jesus put his body where his mouth was.
That's one reason why I trust him.
~ Truthful Grace

when the people of God are presented with the facts . . .

“I have most often seen that, when the people of God are presented with the facts, they do the right thing.”
~ Pastor John Bisagno,
currently the retired pastor of the 22,000-member First Baptist Church of Houston, Texas

no longer in the fight

“I pray that when I die, all of hell will rejoice that I am no longer in the fight.”
~ C.T. Studd

http://www.essentialcslewis.com/2017/01/07/ccslq-31-hell-rejoices/

What C.S. Lewis said about Humility

“It is better to forget about yourself altogether.”
from Mere Christianity, book 3, chapter 8 (The Great Sin)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“If anyone would like to acquire humility, I can, I think, tell him the first step.
The first step is to realise that one is proud.”
from Mere Christianity, book 3, chapter 8 (The Great Sin)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Do not imagine that if you meet a really humble man he will be what most people call ‘humble’ nowadays: he will…not be thinking about humility: he will not be thinking about himself at all.”
from Mere Christianity, book 3, chapter 8 (The Great Sin)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“May God’s grace give you the necessary humility. Try not to think—much less, speak—of their sins. One’s own are a much more profitable theme!
And if on consideration, one can find no faults on one’s own side, then cry for mercy: for this must be a most dangerous delusion.”
from The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis, Volume 3 (to Mary Willis Shelbrune on 1/9/1961)

http://www.essentialcslewis.com/2015/10/03/humility-is-not/

“Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it’s thinking of yourself less.”

“Humility is not thinking less of yourself,
it’s thinking of yourself less.”

The Purpose Driven Life, Rick Warren, 2002 (original) edition, Day 19, “Cultivating Community”

The Privilege, or the Burden, which Christianity lays upon Men

“It is painful, being a man, to have to assert the privilege, or the burden, which Christianity lays upon my own sex. I am crushingly aware how inadequate most of us are, in our actual and historical individualities, to fill the place prepared for us.”

from "Priestesses in the Church?" (in God in the Dock, C.S. Lewis)
http://www.essentialcslewis.com/2015/11/14/ccslq-12-monkey-bars/

Love people before they deserve it

If you want to be miserable,
go through life thinking of yourself as the "innocent victim."
If you want the joy of the Lord,
love people before they deserve it.
~ Truthful Grace

Jesus: But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil.
Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.
~ Luke 6:35-36 ESV

"The Christian does not think God will love us because we are good, but that God will make us good because He loves us."
~ C.S. Lewis

The Road Is Too Rough - Olga J. Weiss

The Road Is Too Rough
(Poetry on the rejection and isolation Christ must have felt.)

The road is too rough," I said,
"Dear Lord, there are stones that hurt me so."
And He said, "Dear child, I understand,
I walked it long ago."

"But there's a cool green path," I said;
"Let me walk there for a time."
"No child," He gently answered me,
"The green path does not climb."

"My burden," I said, "Is far too great,
How can I bear it so?"
"My child," He said, "I remember the weight;
I carried My cross, you know."

But I said, "I wish there were friends with me
Who would make my way their own."
"Oh, yes," He said, "Gethsemane
Was hard to bear alone."

And so I climb the stony path,
Content at last to know
That where my Master had not gone,
I would not need to go.

And strangely then I found new friends,
The burden grew less sore;
And I remember--long ago
He went that way before.

Olga J. Weiss

What Jesus will be is a mother hen who defends her chicks

The well-known preacher Barbara Brown Taylor says,
"Jesus won’t be king of the jungle in this or any other story. What he will be is a mother hen, who stands between the chicks and those who mean to do them harm. She has no fangs, no claws, no rippling muscles. All she has is her willingness to shield her babies with her own body. If the fox wants them, he will have to kill her first."
Jesus came to be a suffering servant and live a life of self-sacrifice. And he calls us to that life as well.
Mickey Anders, The Fox and the Hen

"Do not corner something you know is meaner than you."

"I learned some invaluable lessons in Nashville that apply to both farming and show business:
Do not corner something you know is meaner than you;
keep skunks of all kinds at a distance;
if you forgive your enemies, it messes up their heads."
~ Willie Nelson

Willie Nelson, Turk Pipkin (2006). “The Tao of Willie: A Guide to the Happiness in Your Heart”, p.53, Penguin
http://www.azquotes.com/author/10736-Willie_Nelson

"Show 'em what you can do."

"I suppose I could have sat back and pitied myself. For a time I wondered if I'd ever be able to go on to a stage and perform again. After a couple of weeks I began to feel I could fight my way back to health if I put my mind to it. I thought to myself: 'Pity never did anybody any good. Go on. Patsy, show 'em what you can do.'"
~ Patsy Cline
http://www.azquotes.com/author/2994-Patsy_Cline

"I'm not going to limit myself just because . . ."

"I'm not going to limit myself just because people won't accept the fact that I can do something else."
~ Dolly Parton
http://www.azquotes.com/author/11357-Dolly_Parton

"if you're feeling low, don't despair."

"If you're feeling low, don't despair. The sun has a sinking spell every night, but it comes back up every morning."
~ Dolly Parton
http://www.azquotes.com/author/11357-Dolly_Parton

"I look at their eyes and their smile and seek out the good first"

"When I meet someone, I look at their eyes and their smile and seek out the good first - it's easy to find when you're looking for it. You let a person shine with their own light and try to connect it to yours. As soon as I say hello, I go right to that light and I don't care who you are! I know we're all pieces of the same thing - I go for that common light because I know it's in all of us."
~ Dolly Parton
http://www.azquotes.com/author/11357-Dolly_Parton

Nelson Mandela, “with freedom comes responsibilities”

Nelson Mandela ended his extraordinary autobiography, entitled “Long Walk to Freedom,” with these words:

“I have walked that long road to freedom. I have tried not to falter; I have made missteps along the way. But I have discovered the secret that after climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb.
I have taken a moment here to rest, to steal a view of the glorious vista that surrounds me, to look back on the distance I have come. But I can rest only for a moment, for with freedom comes responsibilities, and I dare not linger, for my long walk is not yet ended.”

so long as you show up

Steel Magnolias was not a great movie, but it had one magnificent line.
"God don't care which church you go to, so long as you show up."

www.facebook.com/E.C.M.churchhumor/

Did Jesus really have to die on the Cross?

Anselm's answer to someone wondering if Jesus really had to die on the Cross:

"You have not yet fully reflected on what a heavy weight your sin is."

"My iniquities have gone over my head"; they surround me,
"and like a heavy burden" weigh me down (Ps 38:5).
Free me, unburden me, and do not let "the abyss" of them "close its mouth over me" (Ps 69:16).

another translation:
Anselm: "You have not as yet estimated the great burden of sin."
https://www.ewtn.com/library/CHRIST/CURDEUS.HTM
CHAPTER XXI

Howard Thurman quotes

from https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Howard_Thurman  as of 3/1/2018

"Jesus rejected hatred because he saw that hatred meant death to the mind, death to the spirit, and death to communion with his Father. He affirmed life; and hatred was the great denial."
Jesus and the Disinherited (1949), p. 88

"The movement of the Spirit of God in the hearts of men and women often calls them to act against the spirit of their times or causes them to anticipate a spirit which is yet in the making. In a moment of dedication they are given wisdom and courage to dare a deed that challenges and to kindle a hope that inspires."
Footprints of a Dream : The Story of the Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples (1959), p. 7

"Prayer is a form of communication between God and man and man and God….
I am always impressed by the fact that it is recorded that the only thing that the disciples asked Jesus to teach them how to do was to pray."
Disciplines of the Spirit (1977)

The Work of Christmas, Howard Thurman

"The Work of Christmas"
Howard Thurman

When the song of the angels is stilled,
When the star in the sky is gone,
When the kings and princes are home,
When the shepherds are back with their flock,
The work of Christmas begins:
To find the lost,
To heal the broken,
To feed the hungry,
To release the prisoner,
To rebuild the nations,
To bring peace among people,
To make music in the heart.

Howard Thurman. "The Work of Christmas" in The Mood of Christmas & Other Celebrations. 1985
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Howard_Thurman

Same Kind of Different as Me - movie

Same Kind of Different as Me - movie, 2018
quote:
Mr. Ron, I was captive in the devil's prison. That was easy for Miss Debbie to see. But I got to tell you: Many folks had seen me behind the bars in that prison for more than thirty years, and they just walked on by. Kept their keys in their pocket and left me locked up.
Now I ain't tryin to run them other folks down, 'cause I was not a nice fella-dangerous-and prob'ly just as happy to stay in prison.
But Miss Debbie was different--she seen me behind them bars and reached way down in her pocket and pulled out the keys God gave her and used one to unlock the prison door and set me free.
Denver Moore, Same Kind of Different as Me

Encouragement from Jane Seymour's Mother: Keep an Open Heart

In 1972, Seymour revealed a bigshot producer, who asked her to visit his home to watch a screen test for a role, allegedly assaulted her. Seymour claimed he put his hand on her leg “in the wrong place,” prompting her to do “the British cross the leg, move down the couch routine,” all while convincing herself he would stop. However, the producer allegedly pressed on. The star, who described herself as being terrified and shaken, asked him to call her a cab.
“He put me in a car and said, ‘If anyone knows you ever came here, if you ever tell anyone, ever, I’ll guarantee you never work again anywhere on the planet,’” she recalled. “And he had that power. I got in the cab and cried, terrified…
The only reason I’ve ever told that story is that women should have a choice… I was put in a situation where I couldn’t show what I could do. And I’m a person who, when something bad happens, I get over it and move forward.”
However, Seymour did have a tough time coping with the incident. The actress said she quit acting and went back to England. “I got fat,” she explained. “I baked bread and ate a whole loaf every morning and did needlepoint. I decided I wasn’t going to do this anymore. I wasn’t prepared to do what had to be done.”
However, when Seymour was given the chance to appear on stage for “A Doll’s House,” she took the chance – and the rest is history.
“People say, ‘You’re like a phoenix.’ No, I just had a strong role model in my mother,” she said. “Everyone will have challenges. Your natural instinct is to close up your heart and let it eat you up. Do something to help someone else. It will heal you. You’ll be like a magnet when you do that. Light to firefly.”
http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2018/02/21/jane-seymour-poses-for-playboy-recalls-how-almost-quit-acting-after-being-sexually-harassed.html

“My one purpose in life . . . "

“My one purpose in life is to help people find a personal relationship with God, which I believe comes from knowing Christ.”
~ Rev. Billy Graham (1918-2018)

Rev. Billy Graham's Ability to Inspire People to Follow Jesus

Rev. Billy Graham's Ability to Inspire People to Follow Jesus
quote (my emphasis added):
[Graham biographer] William Martin observed that the forces gathered and unleashed at the Berlin, Lausanne, and Amsterdam meetings [international meetings initiated by Graham] constitute a third worldwide ecumenical movement, every bit as important as the World Council of Churches and the Roman Catholic Church. The amazing thing about the evangelical movement is that it is sustained not by a single organizational entity, but by multiple parachurch organizations, independent of each other but dreaming a common dream. Graham’s genius was his ability to inspire people not to follow him, but to strike out on their own, following Jesus by proclaiming the gospel in their own way; and then to call them together, to inspire and equip thousands more to do the same thing. We may never see his like again.

quoted from:
How a Humble Evangelist Changed Christianity As We Know It
Churches were divided. Leadership was concentrated in the denominations. Believers eschewed cultural influence. Liberal modernism was on the move. Then God made Billy Graham.
Michael S. Hamilton
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2018/billy-graham/how-humble-evangelist-billy-graham-changed-christianity.html

Good, better, best. Never let it rest. . . .

Good, better, best.
Never let it rest.
'Til your good is better
and your better is best.

~ St. Jerome
www.brainyquote.com/quotes/st_jerome_389605

Inside every cynical person, there is a disappointed idealist

"Inside every cynical person, there is a disappointed idealist."
~ George Carlin
www.brainyquote.com/quotes/george_carlin_383122

Synesthesia

quote from a book review:
"Red Sparrow's unique ability to discern the nature of people by seeing their emotions in colors (through synesthesia).[2]"

[2] "'Red Sparrow', a fantastic new spy thriller by former CIA operative Jason Matthews". The Washington Post. October 14, 2013. Retrieved February 27, 2017.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Sparrow_(book)


Synesthesia is a perceptual phenomenon in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway.[3][4][5][6] People who report a lifelong history of such experiences are known as synesthetes. In one common form of synesthesia, known as grapheme-color synesthesia or color-graphemic synesthesia, letters or numbers are perceived as inherently colored.[7][8] In spatial-sequence, or number form synesthesia, numbers, months of the year, or days of the week elicit precise locations in space (for example, 1980 may be "farther away" than 1990), or may appear as a three-dimensional map (clockwise or counterclockwise).[9][10] Synesthetic associations can occur in any combination and any number of senses or cognitive pathways.[11]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synesthesia


‘Red Sparrow,’ a fantastic new spy thriller by former CIA operative Jason Matthews
quote from a book review:
Unbeknown to most, Dominika is gifted with a form of synesthesia that enables her to see emotions as colors — a condition that aids her immensely as she assesses the motives of both friend and foe. Several of her own comrades in the service, for example, are suffused with “the familiar yellow of treachery and betrayal.” One character’s evil manifests itself as “parabolas of black . . . like bat wings.”
Dominika is ultimately targeted against Nate, of course, as a means of discovering the identity of the mole within her own ranks. His aura is deep purple, “warm and honest and safe,” but he has his own designs on this comely young agent.
“Red Sparrow” may sound like some hodgepodge of the fantastic (seeing emotions?) and the prurient (“an Upper Volga Kama Sutra”) amid a series of spy vs. spy shenanigans. But the novel is far more grounded. . . .

https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/red-sparrow-a-fantastic-new-spy-thriller-by-former-cia-operative-jason-matthews/2013/10/15/3f7f9672-cc50-11e2-8845-d970ccb04497_story.html

Bill Gates Memorized the Sermon on the Mount

Bill Gates in Confirmation Class
The Gates family attended the University Congregational Church, where the Reverend Dale Turner was pastor. Each year Turner promised to buy dinner at Seattle’s 606-foot-tall Space Needle restaurant for all those in the confirmation class who memorized the Sermon on the Mount.
Although 31 others stuttered and stammered their way through chapters 5, 6, and 7 of the Book of Matthew, Turner was astounded when Bill learned the passages on a family car trip to the coast and then delivered a flawless recitation.

“I needed only to go to his home that day to know that he was something special. I couldn’t imagine how an 11-year-old boy could have a mind like that. And my subsequent questioning of him revealed a deep understanding of the passage,” Turner said.

Turner conceded that Gates probably didn’t learn the verses for their spiritual value, but because he loved a challenge.
p. 3-4, Bill Gates Speaks, by Janet Lowe, 1998

Bill Gates in High School
Like all teenagers, Gates and his friends looked for ways to seize power from their teachers:

“The greatest scam we discovered was that by getting the job doing high school scheduling, we could decide exactly what boys and girls were in our classes, and that was an incredible reward. It really motivated us to learn how to write interesting software.”

During the summer Gates and Allen earned approximately $5,000 in computer time by programming class schedules.
p. 12, Bill Gates Speaks, by Janet Lowe, 1998

"they come . . . to learn about themselves not me"

In Shirley MacLaine's New Movie, She Has 'The Last Word'
March 3, 20174:30 PM ET
Heard on All Things Considered
www.npr.org/2017/03/03/518391642/in-shirley-maclaines-new-movie-she-has-the-last-word
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST

Shirley MacLaine agrees that she's played a lot of sharp-tongued, difficult-to-be-around women, and that's true of her latest role in the movie, The Last Word. In her latest role, she's a woman obsessed with designing her own obituary. MacLaine talks about how she approaches acting and dodges what she wants written in her own obituary.

SHAPIRO: Shirley MacLaine told me when she does live question and answer events at theaters around the country, people almost never want to know about her Hollywood roles.
MACLAINE: No. They ask about reincarnation and UFOs and how to find one's center and how to meditate. It's all about the stuff in my books.
SHAPIRO: How could they not ask about - I don't know - "Terms Of Endearment," "Steel Magnolias," your years with the Rat Pack or on and on and on - "Sweet Charity," going all the way back to Broadway.
MACLAINE: Ari, can I call you that?
SHAPIRO: Please.
MACLAINE: They're interested in themselves. And they come to the different places that I speak to learn about themselves not me. I consider that a great compliment.

"Getting to Know 'the Other' Doesn't Work"

The Galli Report email
Feb. 9, 2018
Mark Galli
Editor-in-Chief, Christianity Today

Getting to Know 'the Other' Doesn't Work
There is a very common solution regarding people who harbor prejudice or resentment against those of another race, class, religion, or ethnicity. The solution hinges on the idea that we suspect others if we don’t really know them. If we could view them less as an “other” and more as a neighbor, as part and parcel of our common life together—then we’d all be able to get along with one another.
The only problem is that it doesn’t work. This is shown in some detail in Anatomy of a Genocide: The Life and Death of a Town Called Buczacz by Omer Bartov. A book review on Smithsonian.com begins,

There’s a common misconception about genocide that’s bothered Omer Bartov for a long time. “We tend to talk about genocide as something that calls for dehumanization,” says the Brown University professor of European history. “We think of it as a process where you have to detach yourself from the victims, to distance yourself from them as much as you can, and to create a system of detachment.” The reality of mass murder, he says, is far more intimate. …
“You can take a society in which people had lived together for centuries, and that very proximity, that very relationship between neighbors can have a dynamic of violence and self-justification,” Bartov says.

On a lighter note, it reminds me of a line in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. The line comes after one of the characters describes the Babel fish, which when placed in the ear could translate any language in the universe for the listener: “Meanwhile, the poor Babel fish, by effectively removing all barriers to communication between different races and cultures, has caused more and bloodier wars than anything.”

This brings to mind another pungent line. Ruth Graham was asked if she ever considered divorcing Billy. “I’ve never considered divorce,” she replied. “Murder, yes. But not divorce.”

Such are the humorous ways of dispelling our sometimes-naïve bromides about solving conflict. Intimacy is not the answer; sometimes it’s the problem. It’s just hard, really hard, figuring out how to get people to stop killing each other. I’m tempted offer the out-of-fashion answer, naïve in its simplicity and improbable in its execution this side of history: the transformation of the human heart by Jesus Christ.

"I like my way of doing it better than your way of not doing it"

A critic didn’t care much for Moody’s preaching style; he thought his evangelistic manner was thoughtless and insensitive.
Moody responded, “I don’t much like it either.” He then asked his critic, “How do you do it?”
When the man said he didn’t do it at all, Moody replied, “I like my way of doing it better than your way of not doing it.”

Dwight L. Moody was one of the most effective evangelists of his time.

"I’ve never considered divorce"

Ruth Graham was asked if she ever considered divorcing Billy.
“I’ve never considered divorce,” she replied. “Murder, yes. But not divorce.”

(Ruth was famous for her sense of humor)

Robert Redford's mother: "She came from Texas, and she carried that kind of robust, jocular goodwill."

Fox News 2/8/2018
https://www.msn.com/en-us/movies/celebrity/robert-redford-names-his-biggest-regret/ar-BBISjHo

Before Robert Redford was a celebrated Hollywood actor, he was just a restless kid in Los Angeles who allegedly stole beer for all-night drinking parties and was a member of a high school gang. However, the “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” star said it was his mother, Martha Hart, who encouraged him to change his life for the better.
“[I] had a lot of criticism, but I didn’t have a lot of support,” Redford told audiences at the Sundance Film Festival Utah Women’s Leadership Celebration, as reported by Closer Weekly Thursday.
“Why do I feel this strong connection to women?” said the 81-year-old. “I think it probably has to do with my mom… The one person who stood behind me was my mother. She believed that all things considered, she just had faith that I had something in me that was going to turn out OK.”
The actor described his mother as “the strong member of the family” who “always had a smile [and] was very, very adventurous."
“She came from Texas, and she carried that kind of robust, jocular goodwill," he said. "She saw things in a positive light.”
However, the magazine added Hart wouldn't live to see her son achieve international success as a movie star, filmmaker and philanthropist. Hart died in 1955 at age 40. Redford was only 18 at the time.
“She had a hemorrhage tied to a blood disorder she got after losing twin girls at birth 10 years after I was born,” explained Redford. He went on to reveal that while his mother was warned by doctors about the dangers of another pregnancy after his own difficult birth, she was determined to pursue her own dreams.
“She wanted a family so badly, she got pregnant again,” said Redford, adding his mother's death “seemed so unfair.”
“I took [her] for granted because that’s the way kids were at that age,” Redford admitted. “My regret is that she passed away before I could thank her.”

"I have forgiven you for what you did to me and my kids, and you have no control over me anymore."

Amy's abusive ex-husband was continuing to call her cell phone:
quotes:
At some point, Amy said she'd simply had enough. . . .
"I was so angry and filled with hate, but I actually felt sorry for him, because I knew him as a person, and there is a legitimately good side of him, and he's had a horrible life as a child, which is not an excuse, but he doesn't know anything different.  So I said, 'I have forgiven you for what you did to me and my kids, and you have no control over me anymore.'  There was dead silence, and it felt like an eternity, and he hung up.  And I have never heard from him since then. When they know that they don't have control, they don't want you anymore."

Hoda Kotb with Jane Lorenzini. Ten Years Later: Six People Who Faced Adversity and Transformed Their Lives, Chapter 1 - the life of Amy Barnes. New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2013, page 18.

Quotes by Edward Abbey, Environmental Advocate

“Better a cruel truth than a comfortable delusion.”
― Edward Abbey

“May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view.”
― Edward Abbey

“One final paragraph of advice: do not burn yourselves out. Be as I am - a reluctant enthusiast....a part-time crusader, a half-hearted fanatic. Save the other half of yourselves and your lives for pleasure and adventure.
It is not enough to fight for the land; it is even more important to enjoy it. While you can. While it’s still here.
So get out there and hunt and fish and mess around with your friends, ramble out yonder and explore the forests, climb the mountains, bag the peaks, run the rivers, breathe deep of that yet sweet and lucid air, sit quietly for a while and contemplate the precious stillness, the lovely, mysterious, and awesome space.
Enjoy yourselves, keep your brain in your head and your head firmly attached to the body, the body active and alive, and I promise you this much; I promise you this one sweet victory over our enemies, over those desk-bound men and women with their hearts in a safe deposit box, and their eyes hypnotized by desk calculators. I promise you this; You will outlive the bastards.”
― Edward Abbey

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/37218.Edward_Abbey
"Edward Paul Abbey (1927–1989) was an American author and essayist noted for his advocacy of environmental issues, criticism of public land policies, and anarchist political views."

Teamwork!

“One man alone can be pretty dumb sometimes, but for real bona fide stupidity there ain’t nothing can beat teamwork.”
~ Author Mark Twain

she was meant to fly

Philippians 1:6 NIV
being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

"If the caterpillar just chose to stay a caterpillar, if she decided that the chaos of metamorphosis would be too much for her to handle, she would never know what she could become. Do you think that changing her entire being isn’t painful? Do you think it’s not scary and hard and overwhelming?

"Of course it is, but if she didn’t fight against the fear, if she didn’t allow the change to turn her into her true self, we would never know how beautiful she is. She would never know that she was meant to fly."

from Girl, Wash Your Face by Rachel Hollis

Money Lessons Rich Parents Teach Their Kids

"If you want to be rich, solve a problem," writes Siebold. "If you want to be very wealthy, solve a bigger problem."
While "the masses solve small problems for their employers," he says, "the rich solve significant problems and get compensated accordingly."

"It's difficult to invest the necessary time and energy into a profession that bores you or has little meaning beyond money," says Siebold. "Waking up everyday with excitement for going to work is a formula for financial abundance, emotional fulfillment, and life satisfaction."

"If earning money is based on solving problems, and the number of problems is infinite, then your ability to earn money is infinite."

"Spend your time basking in entertainment, and you will struggle your entire life financially.  Invest your time creating solutions to people's problems, and you'll never lose a minutes sleep worrying about how to pay the mortgage."

"Match your talents and interests with a problem people will pay you to solve and go to work until you succeed.  This formula offers you the fulfillments of doing work you love while profiting from solving other people's problems."

Steve Siebold, Secrets Self-Made Millionaires Teach Their Kids

www.msn.com/en-us/money/savingandinvesting/14-money-lessons-rich-parents-teach-their-kids/ar-AAvdtbH

Love reflected back . . .

“It is an absolute human certainty that no one can know his own beauty or perceive a sense of his own worth until it has been reflected back to him in the mirror of another loving, caring human being.”
from The Secret of Staying in Love
by John Joseph Powell

Children's Bedtime Prayer - Rebecca Weston - 1890

Father, we thank thee for the night,
and for the pleasant morning light;
for rest and food and loving care,
and all that makes the day so fair.

Help us to do the things we should,
to be to others kind and good;
in all we do, in work or play,
to grow more loving every day.

Children's Bedtime Prayer - Rebecca Weston - 1890

http://www.worldprayers.org/archive/prayers/celebrations/father_we_thank_the_for.html

Psalm 23 : The North American Plains Indian Version

Psalm 23 : The North American Plains Indian Version
August 19, 2012

From their first encounters with Christian missionaries, the North American Plains Indians used universal sign language to communicate  Psalm 23  among tribes who spoke different oral languages.

In 1894, Isabel Crawford, a Baptist missionary to the Kiowa Indians in Oklahoma, translated the Sign Version into literal English. Here is the  Psalm 23 translation:

The Great Father above is a shepherd Chief.
I am His and with Him I want not. 
He throws out to me a rope and
the name of the rope is love and
He draws me to where the grass is green
and the water not dangerous,
and I eat and lie down and am satisfied. 

Sometimes my heart is very weak and falls down but 
He lifts me up again and draws me into a good road. 
His name is WONDERFUL. 

Sometime, it may be very soon,
it may be a long, long time. 
He will draw me into a valley. 
It is dark there, but I’ll be afraid not,
for it is in between those mountains
that the Shepherd Christ will meet me
and the hunger that I have in my heart
all through this life will be satisfied.

He gives me a staff to lean upon.  
He spreads a table before me
with all kinds of foods. 
He puts His hand upon my head
and all the “tired” is gone. 
My cup He fills till it runs over. 

What I tell is true.
I lie not. 
These roads that are “away ahead”
will stay with me through this life and after;
and afterwards I will go to live
in the great house and sit down
with the Shepherd Chief forever.

~ Isabel Crawford (Missionary to the Indians of the plains)

www.davidpaulkirkpatrick.com/2012/08/19/psalm-23-the-north-american-plains-indian-version/

"What am I?"

First grader’s somber response to a class puzzle has the Internet questioning life

USA TODAY   as of 1/4/2018
Ashley May
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/first-grader’s-somber-response-to-a-class-puzzle-has-the-internet-questioning-life/ar-BBHRR07

“I am the beginning of everything, the end of everywhere. I’m the beginning of eternity, the end of time and space. What am I?”

“The first guess from one of my 1st graders was ‘death’ and such an awed, somber, reflective hush fell over the class that I didn’t want to tell them that actually the answer is the letter e, which just seemed so banal in the moment,” Turner said in a tweet Tuesday that has since gone viral.

Twitter users had their own thoughts. One reply questioned how death is the beginning of everything (receiving more than 145 replies), another said entelechy (connected with Aristotle's distinction between matter and form) seems relevant, and a few said the obvious answer is God.

Turner said other student guesses included: Not everything, all stuff, the end, and "nothingthing."
Maybe these kids are ready for more challenging puzzles.

"Fear does not make lasting peace."

quote from email:
The New York Times   NYTimes.com
Evening Briefing
Tuesday, January 2, 2018
Your Tuesday Evening Briefing
By KAREN ZRAICK AND DAVID SCULL

Dave Chappelle released the first comedy special focusing on the #MeToo movement, and our critic says it was a misfire, with bits that feel tired or callous. One example: Mr. Chappelle said that some of the sexual assault victims speaking out were now experiencing “buyer’s remorse.”

But Mr. Chappelle also offers sober political analysis during the show, which is streaming on Netflix. And he makes a passionate argument for focusing on structural issues.
“You got all the bad guys scared, and that’s good,” he says. “But the minute they’re not scared anymore, it will get worse than it was before. Fear does not make lasting peace.”