The 80% Rule

http://health.msn.com/fitness/womens-fitness/articlepage.aspx?cp-documentid=100254483>1=31050

"Most guys avoid anything that even smacks of perfectionism," and that applies to dieting, too, says Prevention adviser Pamela Peeke, M.D., an assistant clinical professor of medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. "When women start a diet, they go from zero to 100—they become 'perfect' overnight, which is a hallmark of failure.
That's why I developed the 80 percent rule: Hit your weight-loss goals 80 percent every single day you can. One day, it'll be 120 percent because it happens to be a great day. Other days, you'll hit 50 percent or even 20 percent when you're dealing with PMS. Just make sure it averages out to 80 percent."

John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men, quotes

"Guys like us, that work on ranches, are the loneliest guys in the world. They got no family. They don't belong no place....With us it ain't like that. We got a future. We got somebody to talk to that gives a damn about us."
~ Chapter 1, pp. 13-14

"A guy goes nuts if he ain't got nobody. Don't make no difference who the guy is, long's he's with you. I tell ya," he cried, "I tell ya a guy gets too lonely an' he gets sick."

~ John Steinbeck (Of Mice and Men)

Einstein on Christianity and Judaism

Christianity and Judaism
If one purges the Judaism of the Prophets and Christianity as Jesus taught it of all subsequent additions, especially those of the priests, one is left with a teaching which is capable of curing all the social ills of humanity.
It is the duty of every man of good will to strive steadfastly in his own little world to make this teaching of pure humanity a living force, so far as he can. If he makes an honest attempt in this direction without being crushed and trampled under foot by his contemporaries, he may consider himself and the community to which he belongs lucky.

~ From Einstein's book The World as I See It (Philosophical Library, New York, 1949) pp. 111-112

Os Guinness, The Call

“In the decades I have followed Jesus, second only to the joy of knowing him has been a sorrow at the condition of those of us today who name ourselves his followers. If so many of us profess to live by the gospel yet are so pathetically marginal to the life of our societies and so nondescript and inconsequential in our individual lives, is there something wrong with the gospel, or does the problem lie with us?”

"Years ago that question prompted me to a search through other times and places to look for instances in which the truths of the gospel were neither platitudinous nor impotent but fresh, compelling, explosive, and consequential. Along with the truth of the cross of Christ, the truth of calling has been as influential on individuals and societies as any truth in history--and will be again, when rediscovered."

"Do you want to know a truth that in the momentous challenges of our modern world will be at once a quest to inspire you, an anchor to hold you fast, a rich fare to nourish you, and a relationship you will prize above all others? Listen to Jesus of Nazareth; answer his call."

~ Os Guinness, The Call: Finding and Fulfilling the Central Purpose of Your Life, Thomas Nelson: Nashville, TN, 1998, p. 59

Life does not have to be perfect to be wonderful

"Life does not have to be perfect to be wonderful."

~ Author unknown

Jesus Loves Me Too Much to Let Me Stay That Way

"Jesus Christ Loves Me Just The Way I Am,
But Too Much To Let Me Stay That Way."

~ Author unknown

get what you always got

"If you always do what you always did,
you'll always get what you always got!"

"One day at a time,
no guilt,
and move on."

Dotti
www.dwlz.com

a TULIP of communication

Quoted from PreachingNow email list:

In a recent interview on the website Breakfast With Fred, Steve Brown (speaker for KeyLife, a prof at Reformed Seminary, and a Preaching Magazine senior consulting editor) explained that, "In my classes at the seminary, I teach a TULIP of communication. The TULIP presupposes the authority of Scripture, understanding doctrine, knowing how to exegete a text. The principles are as follows . . .

T = Therapeutic. " The communicator must, by necessity, speak to problems with solutions. Like a surgeon, the words may heal or hurt to heal . . . but if there is no healing, then there is no real communication."

U = Unconventional. "The greatest sin for a communicator is the sin of boring the audience . . . Don't say it the way everybody else has said it. Don't say the expected. Don't fit into anybody else's mold."

L = Lucid. "I tell students that a good measurement of their communication skills is this question: If your listeners wanted to take notes, could they? . . . The content my be only one point made by a story . . . but that one point should be clear . . . clear enough so that it would be written down and put into practice."

I = Illustrated. "Stories are very, very important in modern communication. Learn where to find them, how to use them and then use them often . . . "

P = Passionate. "If you don't care, nobody else will. If you aren't excited about what you are going to say, nobody else will be excited. So, if your "hot buttons" are not pushed, don't try to communicate it to anybody else." (To read the entire interview, click here.)

Preaching

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

Pastor John Newton,
ex drunken slave trader,
author of "AMAZING GRACE."

self-discipline and awareness of consequences are critical

The Dalai Lama had not heard of Tiger Woods before. After hearing the facts, he agreed that a return to Buddhism would be helpful, saying that self-discipline and awareness of consequences were critical.

Os Guinness on the Civility of William Wilberforce

Os Guinness on William Wilberforce
Posted by Tim Challies
In Author Interviews

There are scores of lessons we can learn from Wilberforce, but take just one: his civility. As a follower of the way of Jesus, he loved his enemies and always refused to demonize them. At one time he was the most vilified man in the world, but while he never minced words in speaking about the evils of slavery, he was always gracious, generous, modest, funny, witty, and genuinely loving toward his enemies. When one of his worst enemies died, he at once saw to it anonymously that his widow was cared for adequately. Compare this with the religious right's demonizing of its foes. The latter is not so much uncivil as unChristian.

http://www.discerningreader.com/blog/2008/02/
author-interview-os-guinness

book review of The Call, Os Guinness

The Call: Finding and Fulfilling the Central Purpose of Your Life
Os Guinness

Amazon book review
By Michael Taylor (Indian Trail NC)

I personally thought some of Guinness' better points were:

1. Be devoted to Jesus instead of your service to Jesus.


2. Be inner-directed by God rather than other-directed by the opinions of
   others (what God thinks matters most!).


3. God calls us to a life of faith.


4. Deliberately spend time in solitude with God.


5. Glorify God in the ordinary things of life.


6. A sense of calling keeps us focused when modern-day life threatens to tear us apart.


7. Taking God's call seriously means we will pay the price of being abused and
   treated as fools by those who do not understand.

All in all, an excellent read!

http://www.amazon.com/Call-Finding-Fulfilling-Central-Purpose/
dp/0849944376/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1267217114&sr=8-1

Know where you are going

"If you don't know where you are going, every road will get you nowhere."

~ Henry Kissinger

Joy exist in us

"Joy doesn't exist in the world, it exists in us."

~ Benjamin Franklin

geniuses learn from other people's mistakes

“Most people never learn anything at all,
very smart people learn from their own mistakes,
and the geniuses learn from other people's mistakes.”

~ Brazilian adage

The eternal human needs

The eternal human needs:
love, safety, meaning, health, forgiveness, inspiration, liberation, renewal, etc.

~ Rabbi Brad Hirschfield

To get something you never had ...

"To get something you never had,
you have to do something you never did."

~ Author Unknown

Prayer - Mary Oliver

Praying
Mary Oliver

It doesn’t have to be
the blue iris, it could be
weeds in a vacant lot, or a few
small stones; just
pay attention, then patch

a few words together and don’t try
to make them elaborate, this isn’t
a contest but the doorway

into thanks, and a silence in which
another voice may speak.



The Summer Day
Mary Oliver

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

Quiet Angels

"I believe that friends are quiet angels
who lift us to our feet
when our wings
have trouble remembering how to fly."

~ Author Unknown

"Forgotten is Forgiven"

The News From Lake Woebegone, Garrison Keillor
"Forgotten is Forgiven"
Prairie Home Companion Feb. 13, 2010

(paraphrase)

After I heard that 1 Cor. 13 love chapter in the Lutheran church, I was moved by it to visit my cousin Barbara. We had not spoken for five years. I brought a peace offering with me -- a couple of loaves of home-baked banana bread, and a quart of Bailey's Irish Creme.

I knocked on her door. I had the banana bread in my hand.
You've gotta bake a peace offering yourself.

She said "This is good."
And so peace was made.
This is how we do this in Lake Woebegon, you see.

This goes against psychology, which tells you that you should talk through these things.
But we believe that if you talk through your problems, you find new ones, and you dig the hole deeper, and you open up a whole fresh can of worms.

And so the way we solve problems is just to look at them and deny that they ever existed. This is how you do it in Lake Woebegon.

The secret of a good marriage is the same as being in a lifeboat for a month.
No sudden moves, allow the other person a lot of room, keep all disastrous thoughts to yourself, and don't try to talk through your problems.
Just try to have more fun -- that's the way you rescue a marriage.