"gratitude is what makes optimism sustainable"

Michael J. Fox reveals scariest moment of risky surgery in 'No Time Like the Future'

Charles Trepany, USA TODAY, Nov. 17, 2020
https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/books/2020/11/17/michael-j-fox-spinal-surgery-no-time-like-future/6191909002/  accessed Nov. 21, 2020

quotes from Trepany's interview with Michael J. Fox about his new book 'No Time Like the Future':

"I was lying on the floor in my kitchen with a shattered arm waiting for the ambulance to show up," Fox tells USA TODAY. "I kind of went, 'What an idiot. All this time you've been telling everybody to be optimistic, chin-up, and you're miserable now. There's nothing but pain and regret. There's no way to put a shine on this.'" . . .

"That was a real breakthrough moment for me, because I realized that I've been selling that optimism to people for so long," he continues. "I believe it's true to my core, but it struck me that at that point I questioned it, and I questioned it really severely. And so the rest of the book is this journey through finding my way back with gratitude. And I think gratitude is what makes optimism sustainable." . . .

Despite the dark situations in his book, Fox never loses his sense of humor, something the actor says he and his wife have used to cope with challenges throughout their marriage.

"We deal with what's funny in the situation at first," Fox says. "We laugh about it and then we deal with it. But always humor. Humor is the filter for everything."

Through his recovery, falling and then needing to recover again, Fox says he realized the importance of being realistic while still optimistic. In fact, the actor says acknowledging bleak realities is the first step to improving your state of mind.

"I think the first thing you have to do is accept if you're faced with a difficult situation," he says. "And once I do that, that doesn't mean I can't ever change it. I can change it, but I have to accept it for what it is first, before I can change it. And I have to be real about it. And once I do that, then it opens all doors." . . .

After all, as Fox learned after his fall, "life gets better the more you decide to take it easy on yourself."

"Just give yourself a break, and, by that token, give the people in your life a break," he adds. "Give your neighbor a break. Give the person who bags your groceries a break. Just give everybody a break. Give them the benefit of the doubt and move on."

That's where the fun is.

 "I try to learn from the past, but I plan for the future by focusing exclusively on the present. That's where the fun is."

~ Donald Trump

https://quotes.thefamouspeople.com/donald-trump-3378.php

it is quiet then, and words come from their hiding hearts

quote:

Here are the words of Jeeney Ray,(8) a spastic girl who is an orphan and who has had few experiences of intimacy in her life time. Then along comes an adult who cares:

I study him well and receive the kindred of one to another. . . . I reach as far into his eyes as I can to understand the fullness of what he says and the way he looks me over; puzzled back in thinking is how he is, and grinning and frowning, then going way down to pierce darkness. . . . It is when thinking is coming from the other person into yourself and touching the same thinking as the other person; it is quiet then, and words come from their hiding hearts.

8. Iris Domfield, Jeeney Ray (New York: The Viking Press, 1962), pp. 44, 50.

quoted in:

The Intimate Marriage by Howard J. and Charlotte H. Clinebell, Chapter 8: Developing Parent-Child Intimacy, https://www.religion-online.org/book-chapter/chapter-8-developing-parent-child-intimacy/ as of 11/7/2020. 

 

Fired Hillsong Church pastor Carl Lentz: "I did not do an adequate job of . . . refilling my own soul"

Fired Hillsong Church pastor Carl Lentz: I cheated on my wife

By Hannah Frishberg  November 5, 2020 

https://nypost.com/2020/11/05/fired-hillsong-pastor-carl-lentz-i-cheated-on-my-wife/

quote:

A day after it was revealed that celebrity pastor Carl Lentz was fired from star-studded Hillsong for “leadership issues and breaches of trust,” the specifics of his “moral failures” have come to light: Lentz cheated on his wife.

“I was unfaithful in my marriage, the most important relationship in my life and held accountable for that,” Lentz wrote of his affair to his 680,000 followers in an Instagram post of his family Thursday, which had already accrued over 43,000 likes as of this writing.

Instagram Post quoted, my underlines added:

carllentz

Our time at HillsongNYC has come to an end. This is a hard ending to what has been the most amazing, impacting and special chapter of our lives. Leading this church has been an honor in every sense of the word and it is impossible to articulate how much we have loved and will always love the amazing people in this church. 

When you accept the calling of being a pastor, you must live in such a way that it honors the mandate. That it honors the church, and that it honors God. When that does not happen, a change needs to be made and has been made in this case to ensure that standard is upheld. 

Laura and I and our amazing children have given all that we have to serve and build this church and over the years I did not do an adequate job of protecting my own spirit, refilling my own soul and reaching out for the readily available help that is available. When you lead out of an empty place, you make choices that have real and painful consequences. I was unfaithful in my marriage, the most important relationship in my life and held accountable for that. This failure is on me, and me alone and I take full responsibility for my actions. 

I now begin a journey of rebuilding trust with my wife, Laura and my children and taking real time to work on and heal my own life and seek out the help that I need. I am deeply sorry for breaking the trust of many people who we have loved serving and understand that this news can be very hard and confusing for people to hear and process. I would have liked to say this with my voice, to you, in person because you are owed that. But that opportunity I will not have. So to those people, I pray you can forgive me and that over time I can live a life where trust is earned again. 

To our pastors Brian and Bobbie, thank you for allowing us to lead, allowing us to thrive and giving us room to have a voice that you have never stifled or tried to silence. Thank you for your grace and kindness especially in this season, as you have done so much to protect and love us through this. 

We, the Lentz family, don’t know what this next chapter will look like, but we will walk into it together very hopeful and grateful for the grace of God.

To get anywhere in life . . .

"My view is that to get anywhere in life you have to be anti-social.
 Otherwise you'll end up being devoured."

~ Sir Sean Connery, who exemplified James Bond

God's Call

"Once I gave you power,
all that you could be.
Live into that grace
and follow me."

~ Truthful Grace

Planning for Three Generations

“Rich People plan for three generations.
Poor people plan for Saturday night.” 

~ Gloria Steinem

“Start unknown, finish unforgettable.” Misty Copeland

Misty Copeland quotes

“Start unknown, finish unforgettable.”

― Misty Copeland

“[He] said don't let them take you over. Walk into the room knowing you are the best. Shoulders back, chin up. Their attitudes will totally change.”

― Misty Copeland

“It's time to write our own story.”

― Misty Copeland

“I may not be there yet, but I am closer than I was yesterday”

― Misty Copeland

“Decide what you want. Declare it to the world. See yourself winning. And remember that if you are persistent as well as patient, you can get whatever you seek.”

― Misty Copeland, Ballerina Body: Dancing and Eating Your Way to a Leaner, Stronger, and More Graceful You

“Know that you can start late, look different, be uncertain and still succeed.”

― Misty Copeland

https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/7155409.Misty_Copeland  as of 10/21/2020

God's Answers to Your Prayers

 God's Answers to Your Prayers:

• Yes
• Not Yet
• I have something better in mind

The Blessed Limp

 quote, email from Preaching Today of Christianity Today, 10/21/2020

My Dear Shepherds,

Ever since I staggered through a sermon early in my career on Jacob wrestling with the man/angel/God in Genesis 32:22-32, I’ve been drawn to this mysterious, profound story. One of the vexing puzzles was this: The whole struggle came down to Jacob weeping and begging, “I will not let you go until you bless me,” so I’d expect to hear a blessing, but it seems like we never do.

This is not a one-off story. It is archetypal, repeated in the lives of all those blessed by God. In the upside-down world of his grace, God surrenders his blessing only to those whom he defeats. . . .

God will do what he must to bring us to our knees before him. This happens to every believer, perhaps not because of sin, but always to bless us. C. S. Lewis wrote, “We are not necessarily doubting that God will do the best for us; we are wondering how painful the best will turn out to be.”

Every Christian biography, written, told, or only held silently in our hearts—every single one—has a chapter telling the story of the blessed limp. In his autobiography, Love Hunger, my friend and classmate, David Kyle Foster, wrote how after an amazing saving by Christ and a superb theological education, he could find no place to minister. He writes,

One night, I poured out my heart to God, telling Him that I could not take it anymore. Since He had placed this powerful call on my life, He needed to give it an outlet or just take me home. My heart was weighed down with heaviness, as if an elephant were sitting on it. I cried out, “Lord, I’m literally dying inside.” In His still, small voice, He gently replied, “That’s what’s supposed to be happening.” As soon as He said it, I knew that it was not only true—it was wonderfully true. As if I were looking in a mirror for the first time, I saw that I was full of myself—my ardor, my training, my need to be affirmed. Yes, I needed to die. Otherwise, my service for the Kingdom would be polluted with self rather than being a selfless overflowing of my love for Him.

. . .

Pastor Lee Eclov

Always abounding in the work of the Lord

Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Therefore, my beloved brothers and sisters, be steadfast, immovable,
always abounding in the work of the Lord,
knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain. 

~ 1 Corinthians 15:57-58 ESV/NET

This one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. 
Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded: and if in any thing ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you.

~ Philippians 3:13b-15 KJV

Affliction and Pruning

 The most generous vine, if not pruned, runs out into many superfluous stems and grows at last weak and fruitless: so doth the best man if he be not cut short in his desires, and pruned with afflictions.

—Bishop Hall

A Dictionary of Thoughts, Affliction, Rev. Dr. Tryon Edwards, p. 11.

Snowdrops, by Louise Glück

Snowdrops 

Poem by Louise Glück 

Do you know what I was, how I lived? 

You know 

what despair is; then 

winter should have meaning for you. 

I did not expect to survive, 

earth suppressing me. I didn't expect 

to waken again, to feel 

in damp earth my body 

able to respond again, remembering 

after so long how to open again 

in the cold light 

of earliest spring-- 

afraid, yes, but among you again 

crying yes risk joy 

in the raw wind of the new world. 

from The Wild Iris by Louise Glück 

Ecco, 1993

take care of the people around us by nourishing them — Ina Garten

quote:

Pandemic living 

Garten also spends time taking care of herself with yoga via Zoom, walking, working in the garden and taking long drives to the beach with her husband, Jeffrey, in their Mini Cooper. They also have socially distanced cocktail parties in their yard with friends, who bring their own snacks and drinks. 

"That was the thing I missed the most, seeing my friends," she says. "And being able to see them from 6 feet apart—it didn't really matter that it's 6 feet away. It's not that far." 

Garten wants everyone to remember that during these stressful times many people are facing additional serious issues, such as illness, loss of their jobs or struggling to feed their families. 

"I think if we can take care of ourselves and the people around us by feeding them well, and giving them things that feel comforting, I think we'll all be so much better off. Just nourishing people—not just feeding them dinner, but kind of nourishing them psychologically—I think it's a really wonderful thing," Garten says.  "And I've always said, cooking for people is the best gift you can give them. And it just shows that you love them and you care about them. And so, I think it's particularly important. It's always important, but it's particularly important now."

"Modern Contessa" by Christina Guerrero, Costco Connection, October 2020, p. 40-41

“In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock.”

 “In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock.”

“If you would have a happy family life, remember two things – in matters of principle, stand like a rock; in matters of taste, swim with the current.”

"In matters of principle, stand like a rock; in matters of taste, swim with the current. Give up money, give up fame, give up science, give up earth itself and all it contains, rather than do an immoral act. And never suppose that in any situation, or under any circumstances, it is best for you to do a dishonorable thing. Whenever you are to do a thing, though it can never be known but to yourself, ask yourself how you would act were all the world looking at you, and act accordingly."

~ attributed to President Thomas Jefferson (April 13, 1743 - July 4, 1826)

https://www.monticello.org/site/research-and-collections/matters-style-swim-currentspurious-quotation

Comments: It is clear that the quotation came into use at least as early as the 19th century, although when it was used, it was not attributed to a particular author and was often referred to as an “old adage.” It is not clear where the phrase originated from, but there is no proof that Jefferson ever uttered these words. It appears that the phrase became connected to Jefferson around 1973, and from then on, it is almost always attributed to him when quoted - usually in the context of homemaking or education.

~ Elizabeth Huff, June 8, 2011

https://www.monticello.org/site/research-and-collections/matters-style-swim-currentspurious-quotation

“In his will is our peace.”

 “In his will is our peace.”

― Dante, The Divine Comedy

Durante degli Alighieri (c. 30 May 1265 – 13 September 1321) better known as Dante, was an Italian Florentine poet. His greatest work, The Divine Comedy (Divina Commedia), is considered as one of the greatest literary statements produced in Europe in the medieval period, and is the basis of the modern Italian language.

"Happy leaders don’t leave friendship up to chance. . ."

 "Happy leaders don’t leave friendship up to chance," writes Arthur C. Brooks in The Atlantic.
"It can indeed be lonely at the top. But loneliness is not a necessary condition of success, any more than unpaid taxes are a condition of making a lot of money. It is just a cost one must face honestly, and manage."

https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2020/08/how-make-friends-lonely-boss-workaholic/615709/

ARTHUR C. BROOKS is a contributing writer at The Atlantic, a professor of the practice of public leadership at the Harvard Kennedy School, a senior fellow at the Harvard Business School, and host of the podcast The Art of Happiness With Arthur Brooks.

Happy Grandparent's Day

 "The old are the precious gem in the center of the household."
~ Chinese Proverb 

"If nothing is going well, call your grandmother."
~ Italian Proverb 

"Grandchildren are the crown of the aged,
and the glory of children is their fathers."
~ Proverbs 17:6 

"Grandchildren are a grandparent's link to the future.
Grandparents are the child's link to the past."
~ Unknown 

God still exercises a sovereign choice

 “Some men cannot endure to hear the doctrine of election — I suppose they like to choose their own wives; but they are not willing that Christ should select his bride, the Church. Everybody is to have a free will except God. But let them know that God still exercises a sovereign choice among the sons of men. Jesus said to his disciples, ‘Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you.’ Blessed be his name, the truth still stands.”

~ Charles Spurgeon, Complete Works, vol.44, Sermon No.2590, “Hearing, Seeking, Finding.”

hell on earth

 Hell on earth is when God lets us have our own way.

~ Truthful Grace