As we grow
up, we learn that even the one person that wasn't supposed to ever let
you down probably will. You will have your heart broken more than once
and it's harder every time. You'll break hearts too, so remember
how it felt when yours was broken. You'll fight with your best
friend. You'll blame a new lover for things and old one did. You'll
cry because time is passing too fast, and you'll eventually lose
someone you love.
So take too many pictures, laugh too much, and love
like you've never been hurt because every sixty seconds you spend
upset is a minute of happiness you'll never get back.
Don't be afraid that your life will end, be afraid that it will
never begin.
Click on photo to enlarge
_____________________________________
STOP THAT FLAPPING By Amy Fulfer
The
safety presentation was finished and the captain had turned on the
“fasten seatbelts” sign. The plane sat ready on the runway.
As the rush of acceleration was felt, a man jumped to his feet and
began flapping his arms wildly. People stared and the flight attendant
hurried to ask him to sit down. His face was red and beads of
perspiration had popped out on his forehead. [
Full Story
]
_______________________________
The
beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves,
and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise we love only
their reflection of ourselves we find in them.
Thomas Merton
The Butterfly
Author: Unknown
A man found a cocoon for
a butterfly. One day a small opening appeared, he sat and watched the
butterfly for several hours as it struggled to force its body through
the little hole.
Then it seemed to stop making any progress. It appeared as if it had
gotten as far as it could and could go no farther. Then the man
decided to help the butterfly.
He took a pair of scissors and snipped the remaining bit of the
cocoon. The butterfly then emerged easily. Something was strange. The
butterfly had a swollen body and shriveled wings. The man continued to
watch the butterfly because he expected at any moment, the wings would
enlarge and expand to be able to support the body, which would
contract in time.
Neither happened. In fact, the butterfly spent the rest of its life
crawling around with a swollen body and deformed wings. It was never
able to fly.
What the man in his kindness and haste did not understand, was that
the restricting cocoon and the struggle required for the butterfly to
get through the small opening of the cocoon are God's way of forcing
fluid from the body of the butterfly into its wings so that it would
be ready for flight once it achieved its freedom from the cocoon.
Sometimes struggles are exactly what we need in our life. If God
allowed us to go through all our life without any obstacles, that
would cripple us. We would not be as strong as what we could have
been.
Not only that, we could never fly.
A Thousand
Marbles
Unknown Author
The older I get, the more
I enjoy Saturday mornings. Perhaps it's the quiet solitude that comes
with being the first to rise, or maybe it's the unbounded joy of not
having to be at work. Either way, the first few hours of a Saturday
morning are most enjoyable.
A few weeks ago, I was shuffling toward the garage with a steaming cup
of coffee in one hand and the morning paper in the other. What began
as a typical Saturday morning turned into one of those lessons that
life seems to hand you from time to time. Let me tell you about it.
I tuned the dial up into the phone portion of the band on my ham
radio in order to listen to a Saturday morning swap meet. Along the
way, I came across an older sounding chap with a tremendous signal
and a golden voice. You know the kind; he sounded like he should be in
the broadcasting business. He was telling whomever he was talking
with something about "a thousand marbles." I was intrigued and stopped
to listen to what he had to say
"Well, Tom, it sure sounds like you're busy with your job. I'm sure
they pay you well but it's a shame you have to be away from home and
your family so much. Hard to believe a young fellow should have to
work sixty or seventy hours a week to make ends meet. It's too bad you
missed your daughter's dance recital, he continued. "Let me tell you
something that has helped me keep my own priorities." And that's when
he began to explain his theory of a "thousand marbles."
"You see, I sat down one day and did a little arithmetic. The average
person lives
about seventy-five years. I know, some live more and some live less,
but on average, folks live about seventy-five years.
"Now then, I multiplied 75 times 52 and I came up with 3900, which is
the number of Saturdays that the average person has in his entire
lifetime. Now, stick with me, Tom, I'm getting to the important part.
It took me until I was fifty-five years old to think about all this in
any detail," he went on, "and by that time I had lived through over
twenty-eight hundred Saturdays. I got to thinking that if I lived to
be seventy-five, I only had about a thousand of them left to enjoy. So
I went to a toy store and bought every single marble they had. I ended
up having to visit three toy stores to round up 1,000 marbles! I took
them home and put them inside a large, clear plastic container right
here in the shack next to my gear."
"Every Saturday since then, I have taken one marble out and thrown it
away. I found that by watching the marbles diminish, I focused more on
the really important things in life.
There's nothing like watching your time here on this earth run out to
help get your priorities straight."
"Now let me tell you one last thing before I sign-off with you and
take my lovely wife out for breakfast. This morning, I took the very
last marble out of the container. I figure that if I make it until
next Saturday then I have been given a little extra time. And the one
thing we can all use is a little more time."
"It was nice to meet you Tom, I hope you spend more time with your
family, and I hope to meet you again here on the band. This is a 75
year-old man, K9NZQ, clear and going QRT, good morning!"
You could have heard a pin drop on the band when this fellow signed
off. I guess he gave us all a lot to think about. I had planned to
work on the antenna that morning, and then I was going to meet up with
a few hams to work on the next club newsletter.
Instead, I went upstairs and woke my wife up with a kiss. "C'mon
honey, I'm taking you and the kids to breakfast."
What brought this on?" she asked with a smile.
"Oh, nothing special, it's just been a long time
since we spent a Saturday together with the kids. And hey, can we stop
at a toy store while we're out? I need to buy some marbles!”
If you would like to purchase some marbles you can
find them online at:
"Great
minds have purposes, little minds have wishes."
– Washington Irving
“At that
point where your talents
meet the needs of the universe,
That is where God wants you to be.” -Albert Schweitzer
Two Wolves
By Kathryn E. Eriksen
This morning, my eight year old
daughter announced, in a voice filled with great importance, that “I
am going to feed my Good Wolf today.”
I
looked at her in shock for a moment, then asked her what she meant by
“feeding the Good Wolf.”
She looked at me with sadness and said, “You mean you don’t know the
story of the two wolves?”
I shook my head, got my cup of coffee and sat down to listen. She told
the following story:
One evening an elderly Cherokee told his grandson about a battle that
goes on inside people. He said, "My son, “The battle between two
'wolves' is inside us all.
One is Evil. It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed,
arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment Inferiority, lies, false
pride, superiority and ego.” He paused and looked up at the stars
blanketed across the sky.
”The other is Good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility,
kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and
faith." The grandfather nodded and waited patiently for the question
he knew was coming.
The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his
grandfather, "Which wolf wins?"
The old Cherokee smiled and said, "The one you feed."
Silence rained down on me as I thought about which wolf I had been
feeding. Suddenly, right there in my kitchen, with the morning sunrays
bathing the room in a soft glow, I made a decision that would change
my life.
My “Good Wolf” would be fed at every opportunity, until there was no
room in my heart for the “Bad Wolf.” Then, he would disappear from
lack of attention!
I turned and hugged my daughter with gratitude and love.
Now, whenever I hear the snarl of jealousy or the feel the pinch of
guilt, I immediately picture my “Good Wolf” placing her paw gently on
the shoulder of the “Bad Wolf,” until he has surrendered to her. And I
see my “Good Wolf” smile!
Today, have your thoughts and actions feed only your “Good Wolf.” And
may you see her smile!
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presented on this website may have been edited.
The
safety presentation was finished and the captain had turned on the
“fasten seatbelts” sign. The plane sat ready on the runway.
The Butterfly
about seventy-five years. I know, some live more and some live less,
but on average, folks live about seventy-five years.
