From the Quote of the Week Files, July 6, 2009

Good Morning, Good Afternoon or Good Evening and Welcome to the Quote of the Week. It is time to get away from the all important details of day-to-day life, take a deep breath, relax your shoulders, kick off your shoes and enjoy reading this week's quotes!
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"The best year of our lives is not made up of days or weeks or months. It is made up of moments. Moments when we allow our separateness to melt away so we can be truly intimate with another; moments when we take a risk and express our love in an unexpected way; moments when we choose forgiveness over resentment; moments when we appreciate the perfection of where we are and who we are with. These are the moments that bring meaning to our lives and joy to our hearts."

Debbie Ford
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"One of the deep secrets of life is that all that is really worth doing is what we do for others."

Lewis Carroll
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Wishing you a most beautiful day, wherever this may find you!

From the Quote of the Week Files, June 29, 2009

Welcome All Quote of the Week Members. It is now time to get away from the all important details of day-to-day life, take a deep breath, relax your shoulders, kick off your shoes and enjoy reading this week's quote.
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"We often react as if life is attacking us. “I’m not going to be able to stand this,” we fret as life pushes us beyond our snug little ego comfort zone. But we have no evidence of not being able to handle anything life brings us. How do we know that? We’ve handled everything so far."

Cheri Huber, from When You’re Falling, Dive (Keep It Simple Books)
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A Recycled Quote of the Week Classic...

"Through the gateway of feeling your weakness lies your strength;through the gateway of feeling your pain lies your pleasure and joy;through the gateway of feeling your fear lies your security and safety;
through the gateway of feeling your loneliness lies your capacity to have fulfillment, love and companionship;
through the gateway of feeling your hate lies your capacity to love;
through the gateway of feeling your hopelessness lies true and justified hope;
through the gateway of accepting the lacks of your childhood lies your fulfillment now.

In giving ourselves permission to feel all of our feelings, we free ourselves from the tyranny of our defenses and open ourselves to our heart's desires."

Eva Pierrakos
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Wishing you a most beautiful day, wherever this may find you!

From the Quote of the Week Files, June 22, 2009

Welcome All Quote of the Week Members. It is now time to get away from the all important details of day-to-day life, take a deep breath, relax your shoulders, kick off your shoes and enjoy reading today's quote on acceptance of the way things are (something that I have been struggling with lately).
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"Today, I am reminded that life must be accepted for the way it is, and not as I may want it to be. That I must not give up my trust in God at any time. To despair truly does bring forward a dark cloud making it difficult for the light from the almighty to enter. Remembering to stay strong, and accepting the love and kindness of others, rather than isolating myself, is necessary to cope with any pain that one may be feeling. It must also be remembered that one cannot resolve all problems, and that learning how to live with unresolved problems is a wonderful lesson to embrace. From this day foreward, life, as I know it, will be a true roller coaster ride."

Barbara from California, Women on the Verge of Thinking.
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A Recycled Quote of the Week Classic...

"I have come to the frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element.
It is my personal approach that creates the climate.
It is my daily mood that makes the weather.
I possess tremendous power to make life miserable or joyous.
I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration.
I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal.
In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis is escalated or de-escalated, and a person is humanized or de-humanized.
If we treat people as they are, we make them worse.
If we treat people as they ought to be, we help them become what they are capable of becoming."

Goethe
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Wishing you a most beautiful day, wherever this may find you!

From the Quote of the Week Files, June 15, 2009

Ever wonder why people come into your life? That is the subject of today's Quote of the Week! Enjoy!
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"People come into your life for a REASON, a SEASON, or a LIFETIME. When you figure out which it is, you know exactly what to do.

When someone is in your life for a REASON, it is usually to meet a need you have expressed outwardly or inwardly. They have come to assist you through a difficulty, to provide you with guidance and support, to aid you physically, emotionally or spiritually. They may seem like a godsend, and they are. They are there for the reason you need them to be. Then, without any wrong doing on your part or an inconvenient time, this person will say or do something to bring the relationship to an end. Sometimes they die. Sometimes they walk away. Sometimes they act up or out and force you to take a stand. What we must realize is that our need has been met, our desire fulfilled; their work is done. The prayer you sent up has been answered and it is now time to move on.

When people come into your life for a SEASON, it is because your turn has come to share, grow, or learn. They may bring you an experience of peace or make you laugh. They may teach you something you have never done. They usually give you an unbelievable amount of joy. Believe it! It is real! But...only for a season.

LIFETIME relationships teach you lifetime lessons; those things you must build upon in order to have a solid emotional foundation. Your job is to accept the lesson, love the person/people (anyway); and put what you have learned to use in all other relationships and areas of your life.

It is said that love is blind but friendship is clairvoyant."

Brian A. Chalker
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A Recycled Quote of the Week Classic...

"By the accident of fortune a man may rule the world for a time, but by virtue of love and kindness he may rule the world forever."

Lao-Tse
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Wishing you a most beautiful day, wherever this may find you!

From the Quote of the Week Files, June 8, 2009

Welcome to the Quote of the Week. Your presence, exactly as is at this very moment, is greatly appreciated. Come on in and enjoy today's quote on Gratitude.
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"Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos into order, confusion into clarity.... It turns problems into gifts, failures into success, the unexpected into perfect timing, and mistakes into important events. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow".

Melody Beattie
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A Recycled Quote of the Week Classic...

"Everything is as it is. It has no name other than the name we give it. It is we who call it something; we give it a value. We say this thing is good or it's bad, but in itself, the thing is only as it is. It's not absolute; it's just as it is. People are just as they are."

Ajahn Sumedho, "The Mind and the Way"
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Wishing you a most beautiful day, wherever this may find you!

Read to me by my father this morning

While he has been battling it for six years, Alzheimer's is now getting taking it's toll on my father. In spite of this disease, we are still blessed with some wonderful moments and memories. This morning after a difficult night, he had his favorite book of poems and decided to read this one for me. It was beautiful.


Be strong!

We are not here to play, to dream, to drift;
We have hard work to do, and loads to lift;
Shun not the struggle—face it; 'tis God's gift.

Be strong!

Say not, "The days are evil. Who's to blame?"
And fold the hands and acquiesce—oh shame!
Stand up, speak out, and bravely, in God's name.

Be strong!

It matters not how deep intrenched the wrong,
How hard the battle goes, the day how long;
Faint not—fight on! To-morrow comes the song.

Maltbie Davenport Babcock

From the Quote of the Week Files, June 1, 2009

Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, or good middle of the night to all Quote of the Week Members. Are you ready to enjoy a new inspiring or insightful quote? It's great with a fresh cup of coffee or tea as you begin your day!
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"Let me not pray to be sheltered from dangers, but to be fearless in facing them. Let me not beg for the stilling of my pain, but for the heart to conquer it."

Rabindranath Tagore
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A Recycled Quote of the Week Classic...

"You will find as you look back upon your life that the moments you truly live are the moments that you have done things in the spirit of love."

Henry Drummond
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Wishing you a most beautiful day, wherever this may find you!

From the Quote of the Week Files, May 25, 2009

Welcome to the Quote of the Week!!!

Learning to accept Uncertainty is this week's theme and a Letter to the Editor is the source of the Quote of the Week. The letter was a response to Daniel Gilbert's May 20th NY Times column, What You Don’t Know Makes You Nervous (See Link Below).
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To the Editor:

As Daniel Gilbert reminds us, uncertainty is unnerving. Unfortunately, however, uncertainty is a persistent reality of this world.

How then are we ever to relax and enjoy life?

Happily, some ancients answered that question. Establish ourselves, they say, in what does not change, what is always certain. Be centered on one’s essential, unchanging nature. In different words, live in the world, without being of the world.

And how can we ever learn do that? Engage in proper meditation, say the ancients. And as a longtime meditation teacher, I have lots of evidence they were right.

In short, it would be silly to try to eliminate uncertainty, either from economics or any other aspect of this world. That’s not in the cards. Our aim rather should be to find a healthy way to live with it. That we can do.

Merrill Harmin
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Link to the Daniel Gilbert Column...

http://happydays.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/20/what-you-dont-know-makes-you-nervous/?scp=4&sq=gilbert&st=Search
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A Recycled Quote of the Week Classic...

“Nothing will happen to me which is not conformable to the nature of the universe.”

Marcus Aurelius
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Wishing you a most beautiful day, wherever this may find you!

Memorial Day; Something to think about

The following is a weekly 60 Minutes commentary by CBS News correspondent Andy Rooney.

Tomorrow is Memorial Day, the day we have set aside to honor by remembering all the Americans who have died fighting for the thing we like the most about our America: the freedom we have to live as we please.

No official day to remember is adequate for something like that. It's too formal. It gets to be just another day on the calendar. No one would know from Memorial Day that Richie M., who was shot through the forehead coming onto Omaha Beach on June 6, 1944, wore different color socks on each foot because he thought it brought him good luck.

No one would remember on Memorial Day that Eddie G. had promised to marry Julie W. the day after he got home from the war, but didn’t marry Julie because he never came home from the war. Eddie was shot dead on an un-American desert island, Iwo Jima.

For too many Americans, Memorial Day has become just another day off. There's only so much time any of us can spend remembering those we loved who have died, but the men, boys really, who died in our wars deserve at least a few moments of reflection during which we consider what they did for us.

They died.

We use the phrase "gave their lives," but they didn’t give their lives. Their lives were taken from them. There is more bravery at war than in peace, and it seems wrong that we have so often saved this virtue to use for our least noble activity - war. The goal of war is to cause death to other people.

Because I was in the Army during World War II, I have more to remember on Memorial Day than most of you. I had good friends who were killed.

Charley Wood wrote poetry in high school. He was killed when his Piper Cub was shot down while he was flying as a spotter for the artillery.

Bob O'Connor went down in flames in his B-17. Obie Slingerland and I were best friends and co-captains of our high school football team. Obie was killed on the deck of the Saratoga when a bomb that hadn’t dropped exploded as he landed.

I won’t think of them anymore tomorrow, Memorial Day, than I think of them any other day of my life.

Remembering doesn’t do the remembered any good, of course. It's for ourselves, the living. I wish we could dedicate Memorial Day, not to the memory of those who have died at war, but to the idea of saving the lives of the young people who are going to die in the future if we don’t find some new way - some new religion maybe - that takes war out of our lives.

That would be a Memorial Day worth celebrating.

Written By Andy Rooney

From the Quote of the Week Files, May 18, 2009

Welcome to the delayed Quote of the Week, your Weekly source for nurturing your mind, body & spirit.
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“Within you, there is a stillness and sanctuary to which you can retreat at any time and be yourself" This sanctuary is a simple awareness of comfort, which can't be violated by the turmoil of events. This place feels no trauma and stores no hurt. It is the healing mental space that one seeks to find in meditation.“

Herman Hesse
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A Recycled Quote of the Week Classic...

Nothing worth doing is completed in our lifetime,
Therefore, we are saved by hope.
Nothing true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history;
Therefore, we are saved by faith.
Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone.
Therefore, we are saved by love.
No virtuous act is quite a virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as from our own;
Therefore, we are saved by the final form of love which is forgiveness.

Reinhold Niebuhr
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Wishing you a most beautiful day wherever this may find you!

From the Quote of the Week Files, May 11, 2009

Good Morning New and Old members of the Quote of the Week! It is now time to leave your world of tension, anxiety and doubt. What is your highest ambition? Thomas Merton knows. __________

"Finally I am coming to the conclusion that my highest ambition is to be what I already am. That I will never fulfill my obligation to surpass myself unless I first accept myself, and if I accept myself fully in the right way, I will already have surpassed myself.”

Thomas Merton
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A Recycled Quote of the Week Classic...

"The golden opportunity you are seeking is in yourself. It is not in your environment; it is not in luck or chance or the help of others; it is in yourself alone."

Orison Swett Marden
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Wishing you a most beautiful day, wherever this may find you!

From the Quote of the Week Files, May 4, 2009

Welcome to the Quote of the Week. Do you sometimes (in my case most of the time) have trouble letting go? Perhaps this Quote may help. Enjoy!
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“To let go isn’t to forget, not to think about, or ignore. It doesn’t leave feelings of anger, jealousy, or regret. Letting go isn’t about winning or losing. It’s not about pride and it’s not about how you appear, and it’s not obsessing or dwelling on the past. Letting go isn’t blocking memories or thinking sad thoughts, and doesn’t leave emptiness, hurt, or sadness. It’s not about giving in or giving up. Letting go isn’t about loss and it’s not about defeat.

To let go is to cherish the memories, but to overcome and move on. It is having an open mind confidence in the future. Letting go is learning and experiencing and growing. To let go is to be thankful for the experiences that made you laugh, made you cry, and made you grow. It’s about all that you have, all that you had, and all that you will soon gain. Letting go is having the courage to accept change, and the strength to keep moving.”

Author Unknown
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A Recycled Quote of the Week Classic...

"When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive - to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love."

Marcus Aurelius
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A poem revisited...

Flower in the crannied wall,
I pluck you out of the crannies,
I hold you here, root and all, in my hand,
Little flower -but if I could understand
What you are, root and all, and all in all,
I should know what God and man is.

Lord Alfred Tennyson
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I had some great comments and intrepretations about Tennyson’s poem of 2 weeks ago. They ranged from...

“Too deep for me!” / “I must be dense or not too deep....I still don't understand it!”
That is about how I still feel.

To...

“I feel like the meaning is about the beauty of God's creation, combined with Mother Theresa's "grow where you're planted" idea. The poet should have simply admired the flower and its life, rather than plucking it out for selfish reasons, thereby killing it. He didn't understand that, or he wouldn't have plucked it out.”

“Very thought-provoking! For me, it's a study of PURPOSE. The secret to life is understanding PURPOSE. How odd to find this little flower growing here. What could possibly be its PURPOSE in growing in such an odd place. As for me I can ask "What is my PURPOSE? Why am I growing here?"

"The simplest of creation can be found in the most unlikely place and teach us all about the Creator if we embrace it completely."

“If we could understand any tiny portion of nature completely, we would gain a glimpse of the meaning of it all.”

Reminds me of Blake’s words in his poem, Auguries of Innocence...

To see the world in a grain of sand
and heaven in a wild flower
hold infinity in the palm of your hand
and eternity in an hour.

Thanks for your comments everybody!
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Wishing you a most beautiful day, wherever this may find you!

From the Quote of the Week Files, April 27, 2009

Welcome the to Quote of the Week. As we have mentioned, because April is National Poetry Month we have been featuring poems as the Quote of the Week. Below is a story of how this week's poem came to be.
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A couple of week's ago, my father and I were having a bite to eat and the TV was on to a rerun the 2005 Ford Ironman Contest in Hawaii. We weren't really paying much attention to it until they featured 3 contestants who were just starting the running part of the contest even though many had already finished the race. One contestant was 80 years old, the other was a women competing on one leg and the last was battling ALS. All were running well into the night. My father, watched intently and suddenly he was inspired to say,

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
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As some of you my know, my father is battling Alzheimer's Disease and it was a very moving and humbling experience for me as I listened to him recite this stanza of William Ernest Henley's poem, Invictus. And it was another reminder to me that while Alzheimer's may be stealing his brain cells, it isn't stealing his soul. So, this poem's for you Dad!
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Invictus

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate;
I am the captain of my soul.
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Wishing you a most beautiful day, wherever this may find you!