Having Close Friends in Old Age Brings Well-Being

quote from Time Magazine, June 26, 2017, p. 19

IT'S HEALTHIER TO BE CLOSE WITH FRIENDS THAN FAMILY
"A report in Personal Relationships that included 270,000 people worldwide found that having close friends in old age was a stronger predictor of physical and emotional well-being than close family connections."
--J.Z.

Melania Trump tweet about Charlottesville

"Our country encourages freedom of speech, but let's communicate w/o hate in our hearts. No good comes from violence. #Charlottesville.”

(Snopes confirmed that the claim that Melania's tweet copied from a Michelle Obama speech was a bogus spoof, not true.  There is no record of Michelle saying these or similar words.)
http://www.snopes.com/melania-tweet-charlottesville/

Taylor Swift's "sharp, gutsy and satisfying" testimony

New York Times - "Today's Headlines" email
Friday, August 11, 2017

QUOTATION OF THE DAY

"I'm being blamed for the unfortunate events of his life that are a product of his decisions. Not mine."

TAYLOR SWIFT, the pop superstar who is being sued by a radio host on claims that she falsely accused him of groping her.

quotes from the trial:

On Mueller's firing Swift said “I am not going to allow your my client to make me feel like it is anyway my fault because it isn’t.”

Comment:

"Just wonderfully stated. Had you kept your hand away - you'd have a job and would not be in court right now."

Swift’s attorney, Douglas Baldridge, said that the star is asking for a $1 verdict because she’s “not trying to bankrupt this man.”
“She’s trying to tell people out there that you can say no when someone puts their hand on you,” added Swift’s counsel. “Grabbing a woman’s rear end is an assault, and it’s always wrong. Any woman — rich, poor, famous or not — is entitled to not have that happen.”

quotes from BBC News:
www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-40885437

Taylor Swift wasn't backing down in court

By Mark Savage BBC Music reporter, 11 August 2017

Taylor Swift has been praised for her "sharp, gutsy and satisfying" testimony over allegations of sexual assault.
The pop star claims former radio DJ David Mueller groped her while posing for a photo at one of her concerts in 2013 - a charge which he denies.
"Just like her expertly crafted lyrics, Taylor Swift was precise, self-assured and direct," said Billboard magazine.

Speaking in court, Swift refused to back down or give ground to the DJ's lawyer.
Asked if she was critical of her bodyguard, Swift replied: "I'm critical of your client sticking his hand under my skirt and grabbing my ass".

. . .

According to the reporter, the star bristled when she was asked why she hadn't called off the meet-and-greet following the alleged incident.
"Mueller's attorney said, 'You could have taken a break,' and Taylor Swift responded: 'And your client could have taken a normal photo with me.'"

Swift's testimony was "sharp, gutsy and satisfying," said Slate magazine's Christina Cauterucci.
"For young fans of Swift's, hearing a beloved artist speak candidly about the emotional damage of sexual assault and stand up to a courtroom of men trying to prove her wrong could be a formative moment for their developing ideas of gender, sex, and accountability."

Following Swift to the witness stand on Thursday was radio station boss Robert Call, who fired Mueller two days after the alleged incident, acting on a complaint from Swift's radio publicist.
Call said Mueller had initially denied touching Swift, but when shown the photo in question, he responded: "Well, if it did happen, it was accidental."
Call said he fired the DJ because of his shifting accounts of the incident, and because the photo showed that Mueller's hand was "not where it was supposed to be".

Greg Abbott - overcame being crushed by a tree

New York Times
Monday, June 5, 2017
NYTimes.com

Your Monday Evening Briefing  (email)
By INYOUNG KANG AND SANDRA STEVENSON
Good evening. Here’s the latest.

How conservative is conservative enough in Texas?
Greg Abbott is looking for the answer as the first new governor of the state in 14 years. He’s also the first to use a wheelchair. (A tree crushed him in 1984, while he was out for a jog.)
As he navigates battling factions of fellow Republicans, he takes their criticism in context: “When you have your life broken in half and realize that you’re going to be able to piece your life back together and overcome that, everything else in life is pretty easy to deal with.”

Self-will is choosing to Not Love

"God always chooses to love.  Self-will is choosing to Not Love."

~ Truthful Grace

Avoiding Stress

"I probably missed some opportunities to make more money.  But those opportunities generally bring more stress, which I've always tried to avoid."

"I'm sort of like a rock in the ocean.  The waves are crashing against me, but I just stand there."

~ Jens Voigt, German Professional Road Racing Cyclist, author of Shut Up Legs: My Wild Ride On and Off the Bike (with James Startt, published by Rodale, 2016)

"root for the pilot of the plane you are on"

Kasich finds it hard to rule out 2020
Ben Kamisar - The Hill - Sunday, April 30, 2017
https://a.msn.com/r/2/BBAyMao?m=en-us
quotes:
Ohio Gov. John Kasich returned to the national spotlight this week with criticism for the GOP and President Trump, raising questions about the former Republican presidential candidate's political future. . . .
John Weaver, a longtime aide to the governor and an outspoken GOP critic of Trump, told The Hill that Kasich is not looking toward 2020 or having internal meetings to discuss the prospect. . . .
"The governor has said you root for the pilot of the plane you are on," Weaver said. "That doesn't mean you want the same pilot for the next leg."
"You want this pilot to land the plane safely and get the hell out of there."

Expectant Faith

(bold emphasis added by me)

The Heart of Healing, George Bennett, 1972

Chapter X   Three Healing Qualities
Looking back on interviews that brought great blessing, and trying to analyze the inner dispositions of the sufferers at the time, I can see three qualities whose presence appears to be vital to the power of the ministration. They are acceptance, expectant faith and surrender. They do not come all at once.
(p. 84)
It is clear from the Gospels that expectant faith is important if any healing work is to be done. (p. 85)
This quality, when present, provides the necessary environment for an incoming of creative energy. All life is the outward manifestation of God’s creative energies continuously flowing into and sustaining our created order. Where expectant faith is present the creative energies of God have free flow.
There is a significant phrase in the eleventh chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews—“faith is the substance of things hoped for.” It suggests that faith produces an energy which can be transmuted into material form. (p. 86-87)
I believe that . . . a new act of creation enters into our human life where the quality of the environment is dominated by the presence of expectant faith. If it is present in an interview then the Lord Christ is able to supply a divine energy which He makes available for the release and healing of the sick one. (p. 87)
Where faith is present, there is an outpouring of creative power that can change everything. . . .
The whole onus of faith in an interview is on the minister or helper. It is he, because of his own knowledge of what the Christ can do and because of that other unseen conversation in which he is engaged, who should unconsciously invoke this quality. Yet, when faith comes into the interview, it comes not only to the sufferer. The minister also shares in it and both are affected by it. On the human level it is the encounter between Christian helper and suffer which has brought it into being. On the level of the divine, it is a gift poured in by the Holy Spirit for the needs of that occasion.
A spiritual triangle has been created. The minister and the sufferer form the base and the Holy Spirit is the apex. When the triangle is made complete the atmosphere becomes vibrant with expectant faith. In such circumstances anything can happen. (p. 88)

~ George Bennett, The Heart of Healing. Valley Forge, PA: Judson Press, 1972.
(First edition 1971 published by Arthur James Limited of Evesham, Worcs., England.)

Rev. George Bennett, President of the Divine Healing Mission, Warden of Crowhurst Christian Healing Centre, Crowhurst, Battle, East Sussex, England  (associated with the Anglican Church)

God is all Love and wills to do all

Julian of Norwich
Two sins & Love

It is proper for us to have three kinds of knowledge: the first is that we know our Lord God; the second is that we know ourselves, what we are by Him in nature and grace; the third that we know humbly what we ourselves are as regards our sin and our weakness. And the whole showing was given for these three, as I understand it.
All this blessed teaching of our Lord God was shown in three parts: that is to say, by bodily sight, and by word formed in my understanding, and by spiritual insight....
God showed two kinds of sickness of soul that we have: the one is impatience or sloth (for we bear our labor and our pains gloomily); the other is despair or doubtful fear (as I shall say later)....And these two are those which most trouble and tempt us (according to what our Lord showed me), from which He wills that we be put right....
And the cause why we are troubled with these sins is because of our ignorance of Love, for though the three Persons of the Trinity are all equal in themselves, the soul received most understanding in Love; yes, and He wills that in everything we have our contemplation and our enjoyment in Love.
To this knowledge we are most blind; for some of us believe that God is all Power and is able to do all, and that He is all Wisdom and knows how to do all, but that He is all Love and wills to do all, there we stop.
This ignorance is that which most hinders God's lovers, as I see it, for when we begin to hate sin and amend ourselves by the command of Holy Church, still there persists a fear that hinders us....And we do not know to despise it as we do another sin which we recognize (which comes through lack of true judgement) and it is against truth, for of all the properties of the blessed Trinity, it is God's will that we have most confidence and delight in Love.

from Chapters 72 and 73, Revelations of Divine Love
https://www.orderofjulian.org/Two_sins_and_Love

Julian of Norwich (c. 8 November 1342 – c. 1416) was an English anchoress who is regarded as an important Christian mystic. She is venerated in the Anglican and Lutheran churches. Written around 1395, her work, Revelations of Divine Love, is the first book in the English language known to have been written by a woman.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_of_Norwich

Use me, God, in Thy great harvest field. . .

                              Send Me

Use me, God, in Thy great harvest field,
Which stretcheth far and wide like a wide sea;
The gatherers are so few; I fear the precious yield
Will suffer loss. O, find a place for me!

A place where best the strength I have will tell:
It may be one the older toilers shun;
Be it a wide or narrow place, ‘tis well
So that the work it holds be only done.

                                ~ Christina G. Rossetti

Superhuman vitality and magnetism as a teacher

"Western mystics have rarely shed much light on the subject of sexuality.
Eastern mystics, on the other hand, talk openly about sexual desire as a force in consciousness. It is not good or evil in itself, they insist, any more than an electric storm is. Rather, it is energy, raw power, and our task as human beings is to come to terms with that power—not to try and destroy it or suppress it, but to claim it and draw upon it for the good of all life.
The Eastern tradition maintains that the individual who succeeds in tapping into that force will have superhuman vitality, on the one hand, and tremendous magnetism as a teacher, on the other. It is interesting to reflect that Catherine of Siena was notable in both regards."

~ Carol L. Flinders, Enduring Grace: Living Portraits of Seven Women Mystics (p. 235). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

Pray first before doing anything worthwhile

"Listen, Child of God, to your teacher’s wisdom. Pay attention to what your heart hears. Make sure you freely accept and live out the loving Father’s directions.
Working at obedience is the way to return to Christ when the carelessness of disobedience has taken you off-path. Follow Christ by wearing the strong, sacred shield of submission.
Pray first before doing anything worthwhile. Then persist and never falter in prayer. God loves us as his own children, and forgives us, so we must not grieve him by rejecting that love and doing evil.
We must always make the best use of the good things God gives us."

~ St. Benedict, c. 480-550 AD in Italy, a patron saint of Europe and students

The strengthening dialogue of community

"St. Basil stresses in his Rule that the dialogue of community nurtures the individual: 'In this communal conversation, whatever is twisted in us will be straightened and whatever is good will be strengthened, and it will help us avoid being condemned with those who are only wise in their own eyes.'"

~ Carmen Acevedo Butcher, Man of Blessing: A Life of Saint Benedict
(Kindle Locations 589-591). Paraclete Press. Kindle Edition.

Questions

"Questions are not scary.
What is scary is when people don't have any.
What is tragic is faith that has no room for them."

~ Rob Bell, one of the most controversial figures in contemporary Christianity

comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God

"He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep
pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the
heart, and in our own despair, against our will, comes
wisdom to us by the aweful grace of God."

~ Aeschylus
Greek tragic dramatist and poet (525 BC - 456 BC)

the pain of discipline and the pain of regret

“There are two types of pain you will go through in life, the pain of discipline and the pain of regret. Discipline weighs ounces while regret weights tonnes.”
~ Jim Rohn

The News - Companion Fear

           THE NEWS

Companion Fear is at my side,
   I cannot make him leave,
He whispers horror in my ear,
   He twitches at my sleeve.

He presses down upon my heart,
   He catches at my breath,
He does not need to put in words
   The hovering of death.

Companion Fear is at my side,
   I cannot make him go,
For we are bound in common dread
   Of what we do not know.

~ Sec

Sparing the Fire

Sparing the Fire

Each night I spare the fire,
my last act before retiring.
I bury two fresh lumps of peat
Deep within the embers.
Then tomorrow when I wake
I can poke the fire to life.

At death may God spare me.
When they bury my body
Deep within the boggy peat,
May my soul continue to glow.
So when the last trumpet sounds
I can rise with Christ to life.

~ Celtic Poem

Heaven Now

Heaven Now

If I were in heaven
I would play my harp,
     and sing songs of praise
     with the angels.
If I were in heaven,
I would dance with joy,
     and fill the air with laughter.

Let earth be like heaven,
     and people like angels;
Let all sing songs of praise.
Don’t wait to die,
     enjoy heaven now;
Don’t argue or cavil –
     just dance.

~ Celtic Poem

"It's always better to talk with each other than about each other"

Merkel in US for talks with Trump

German Chancellor Angela Merkel is due to meet President Donald Trump in Washington, with transatlantic trade and Nato ties high on the agenda. . . .
Ahead of Friday's talks, Mrs Merkel told a German newspaper she was looking forward to her first meeting with President Trump.
"It's always better to talk with each other than about each other," she told Saarbruecker Zeitung.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-39300452