Chapter III
Living Life
"The road goes ever on and on, down from the door where it began. Now far ahead the road has gone, and I must follow if I can. Pursuing it with weary feet, unit it joins some larger way, where many paths and errands meet. And wither then? I cannot say."
-J.R. Tolkein-
(Received From
Dolores M. Davis
7/13/96, Cairo
Egypt)
Could I climb to the highest place in Athens, I would lift my voice
and proclaim, "Fellow citizens, why do you turn and scrape
every stone to gather wealth and take so little care of your
children to whom one day you must relinquish it all."
( Socrates )
"If I Had My Life To Live Over"
By Nadine Stair (?)*
I'd like to make more mistakes next time. I'd relax. I would limber up. I would be sillier then I have been this trip. I would take fewer things seriously. I would take more chances. I would climb more mountains and swim more rivers. I would climb more mountains and swim more rivers. I would eat more ice cream and less beans. I would perhaps have more actual troubles, but I would have fewer imaginary one's.
You see, I'm one of those people who live sensibly and sanely hour after hour, day after day. Oh, I've had my moments, and if I had to do it over again, I'd try and have nothing else. Just moments, one after another, instead of living so many years ahead of each day. I've been one of those persons who never goes anywhere without a thermometer, a hot water bottle, a raincoat, and a parachute. If I had to do it over again, I would travel lighter then I have. If I had my life to live over, I would start barefoot earlier in the spring and stay that way later in the Fall. I would go to more dances. I would ride more merry-go-rounds. I would pick more daisies.
-Nadine Stair- (85 years old)
(Note: Actual authorship in question. If it matters to you please see:
http://www.iae.nl/users/rossen/DAISIES/daisies.htm)*
Be a good son, a good brother and a good friend,
and if you have any energy left after attending to conduct, then study books.
-Confucius-
Happiness is like a butterfly.
The more you chase it, the more it will elude you.
But if you turn your attention to other things, it comes and sits softly on your shoulder.
-Viktor Frankl-
He who with little is well content is rich as a king.
And a king, in his greatness, is poor as the pedlar,
when his kingdom sufficeth him not.
-Shekel Hakodish-
(The Holy Shekel)
Garments
Upon a day Beauty and Ugliness met on the shore of a sea. And they said to one another, "Let us bathe in the sea."
Then they disrobed and swam in the waters. And after a while Ugliness came back to shore and garmented himself with the garments of Beauty and walked his way.
And Beauty too came out of the sea, and found not her raiment, and she was too shy to be naked, therefore she dressed herself with the raiment of Ugliness. And Beauty walked her way.
And to this very day men and women mistake the one for the other.
Yet some there are who have beheld the face of Beauty, and they know her notwithstanding her garments. And some there be who know the face of Ugliness, and the cloth conceals him not from their eyes.
-Kahlil Gibran (The Wanderer)-
(The following was taken from an Ann Lander's column a number of years ago....)
Treat me kindly, my beloved master, for no heart in all the world is more grateful for the kindness than the loving heart of me.
Do not break my spirit with a stick, for though I should lick your had between the blows, your patience and understanding will more quickly teach me the things you would have me do.
Speak to me often, for your voice is the world's sweetest music, as you must know by the fierce wagging of my tail when your footstep falls upon my waiting ear.
When it is cold and wet, please take me inside...for I am now a domesticated animal, no longer used to bitter elements...and I ask no greater glory than the privilege of sitting at your feet beside the hearth...though had you no home, I would rather follow you through ice and snow than rest upon the softest pillow in the warmest home in all the land...for you are my god...and I am your devoted worshiper.
Keep my pan filled with fresh water, for although I should not reproach you were it dry, I cannot tell you when I suffer thirst. Feed me clean food, that I may stay well, to romp and play and do your bidding, to walk by your side, and stand ready, willing and able to protect you with my life, should your life be in danger.
And, beloved master, should the Great Master see fit to deprive me of my health or sight, do not turn me away from you. Rather hold me gently in your arms as skilled hands grant me the merciful boon of eternal rest...and I will leave you knowing with the last breath I drew, my fate was ever safest in your hands.
(Unknown)
My mother, Dolores M. Davis, was the source of the next three items. Through her insightfullness into the ways of the world, she sent me each during particularly painful and traumatic periods of my life. Each clearly contributed to my crawling through those crisis periods if not completely successfully, at least alive and somewhat sane. - SLD
(From Dolores M. Davis, -1975?)
Keep Alive The Dream In The Heart
As long as a man has a dream in his heart, he cannot lose the significance of living.
It is part of the pretensions of modern life to traffic in what is generally called "realism." There is much insistence upon being practical, down to earth. Such things as dreams are wont to be regarded as romantic or as a badge of immaturity, or as escape hatches for human spirit. When such a mood or attitude is carefully acrutinized, it is found to be made-up largely of pretensions, in short, of bluff. Men cannot continue long to live if the dream in the heart has perished.
It is then that they stop hoping, stop looking, and the last embers of their anticipation fade away.
The dream in the heart is the outlet. It is one with the living water welling up from the very springs of Being, nourishing and sustaining all of life. Where there is no dream, the life becomes a swamp, a dreary dead place and deep within, a man's heart begins to rot. The dream need not be some great and overwhelming plan; it need not be a dramatic picture of what might be or must be someday; it need not be a concrete outpouring of a worldshaking possibility of sure fulfillment. Such may be important for some; such may be crucial for a particular moment of human history. But it is not in these grand ways that the dream nourishes life.
The dream is the quiet persistence in the heart that enables a man to ride out the storm of his churning experiences. It is the exciting whisper moving through the aisles of his spirit answering the monotony of limitless days of dull routine. It is the ever-recurring melody in the midst of broken harmony and harsh discords of human conflict. It is the touch of significance which highlights the ordinary experience, the common event. The dream is no outward thing. It does not take its rise from the environment in which one moves or functions. It lives in the inward parts , it is deep within, where the issues of life and death are ultimately determined.
Keep alive the dream; for as long as a man has a dream in his heart, he cannot lose the significance of living.
-Howard Thurman -
(The Moods Of Christmas)
(From Dolores M. Davis, -1981)
He comes to us One unknown without a name, as of old, by the lakeside. He came to those men who knew him not. He speaks to us the same word: Follow Thou me; and sets us the tasks which has to fullfull for our time. He commands. And to those who obey him, whether they be wise or simple, he will reveal Himself in the toils, the conflicts, the sufferings which they will pass through in his fellowship, and, as an ineffable mystery, they shall learn in their own experience Who He Is.
- Albert Schweitzer
-
(From Dolores M. Davis, -1985)
The Treasure of The Wise Man
Oh, the night was dark and the night was late,
When the robbers came to rob him;
And they picked the lock of his palace-gate,
The robbers who came to rob him---
They picked the lock of the palace-gate,
Seized his jewels and gems of State,
His coffers of gold and his priceless plate, ---
The robbers that came to rob him.
But Loud laughed he in the morning red!---
For of what had the robbers robbed him?
Ho! hidden safe, as he slept in bed,
When the robbers came to rob him,---
They robbed him not a golden shred
Of the childish dreams in his wise old head---
"And they're welcome to all things else," he said,
When the robbers came to rob him.
- James Whitcomb Riley -
Still another from DMD --- have had many years....
Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart,
and try to love the questions themselves.
Do not seek that which cannot be given you
because you would not be able to live them.
And the point is to live Everything.
Live the questions now.
Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it,
live along someday into the answer.
-Ranier Maria Rilke-
The following are passages I marked as being significant to me
at the time - over thirty years ago - in 'Sand And Foam' - by Gibran. They
withstand the test of time...SLD
(Excerpts from)
Sand & Foam
Kahlil Gibran
I had a second birth when my soul and my body loved one another and were married.
Remembrance is a form of meeting.
Forgetfulness is a form of freedom.
Space is not space between the earth and the sun to one who looks down from the windows of the Milky Way.
Do not the spirits who dwell in the ether envy man his pain?
One may not reach the dawn save by the path of night.
How can I lose faith in the justice of life, when the dreams of those who sleep upon feathers are not more beautiful than the dreams of those who sleep upon the earth?
There is a space between man's imagination and man's attainment that may only be traversed by his longing.
Paradise is there, behind that door, in the next room; but I have lost the key. Perhaps I have only mislaid it.
The significance of man is not in what he attains, but rather in what he longs to attain.
You drink wine that you may be intoxicated; and I drink that it may sober me from that other wine.
Half of what I say is meaningless; but I say it so that the other half may reach you.
When life does not find a singer to sing her heart she produces a philosopher to speak her mind.
The real in is is silent; the acquired is talkative.
Only the dumb envy the talkative.
Every seed is a longing.
It takes two of us to discover truth: one to utter it and one to understand it.
Even the most winged spirit cannot escape physical necessity.
No longing remains unfulfilled.
There is no struggle of soul and body save in the minds of those whose souls are asleep and whose bodies are out of tune.
Trickery succeeds sometimes, but it always commits suicide.
He who can put his finger upon that which divides good from evil is he who can touch the very hem of the garment of God.
If your heart is a volcano how shall you expect flowers to bloom in your hands.
When you reach the end of what you should know, you will be at the beginning of what you should sense.
What we long for and cannot attain is dearer than what we have already attained.
Even the hands that make crowns of thorns are better than idle hands.
Was the love of Judas' mother for her son less than the love of Mary for Jesus?
Every thought I have imprisoned in expression I must free by my deeds.
(Received from Fred Bann 10/99)
COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS
Lord, thank you for this sink of dirty dishes; we have plenty of food to
eat.
Thank you for this pile of dirty,
stinky laundry; we have plenty of nice clothes to wear.
And I would like to thank you, Lord, for those unmade beds; they were so warm and comfortable last night. I know that many have no bed.
My thanks to you, Lord, for this bathroom, complete with all the splattered
mess, soggy, grimy towels and dirty lavatory; they are so
convenient.
Thank you for this finger-smudged refrigerator that needs defrosting
so badly; it has served us faithfully for many years. It is full of
cold drinks and enough leftovers for two or three
meals.
Thank you, Lord, for this oven that
absolutely must be cleaned today;
it has baked so many things over the years.
The whole family is grateful for that tall grass that needs mowing,
the lawn that needs raking; we all enjoy the yard.
Thank you, Lord, even for that slamming screen door. My kids are healthy
and able to run and play.
Lord, the presence of all these chores awaiting me says You have richly blessed my family. I shall do them cheerfully and I shall do them gratefully.
Even though I clutch my blanket and growl when the alarm rings, Thank
you, Lord, that I can hear.
There are many who are deaf. Even though I keep my eyes closed
against the morning light as long as possible, Thank you, Lord, that I can
see. Many are blind.
Even though I huddle in my bed and put off rising, Thank you, Lord,
that I have the strength to rise. There are many who are bedridden.
Even though the first hour of my
day is hectic, when socks are lost, toast is burned and tempers
are short, my children are so loud, Thank you,
Lord, for my family. There are many who are lonely.
Even though our breakfast table never
looks like the pictures in
magazines and the menu is at times not balanced, Thank you, Lord, for the
food we have. There are many who are hungry. Even though the routine
of my job is often monotonous, Thank you, Lord,
for the opportunity to work. There are many who have no job.
Even though I grumble and bemoan my fate from day to day and wish my
circumstances were not so modest, Thank you, Lord, for life.
Lord, THANK YOU!!!
(Another from Fred and Neneita Bann 10/99)
RULES FOR BEING HUMAN
1. You will receive a body. You may like it or hate it, but it will be yours for the entire period this time around.
2. You will learn lessons. You are enrolled in a full time informal school called life. each day in this school you will have the opportunity to learn lessons. You may like the lessons or think them irrelevant and stupid.
3. There are no mistakes, only lessons. Growth is a process of trial and error and experimentation. The "failed" experiments are as much a part of the process as the experiment that ultimately "works".
4. A lesson is repeated until learned. A lesson will be presented to you in various forms until you have learned it. When you have learned it you can go on to the next lesson.
5. "There" is not better than "here". When your "there" has become a "here" you will simply obtain another "there" that will again look better than "here".
6. Others are merely mirrors of you. You cannot love or hate something about another person unless it reflects to you something you love or hate about yourself.
7. What you make of your life is up to you. You have all the tools and resources you need. What you do with them is up to you. The choice is yours.
8. Your answers lie inside you. The answers to life's questions lie inside
you. All you need to do is look, listen and
trust.
George Bernard Shaw
Collected from various sources - SLD.
Security, the chief pretence
of civilization, cannot exist where the worst of dangers, the danger of poverty,
hangs over everyone's head, and where the alleged protection of our persons
from violence is only an accidental result of the existence of a police force
whose real business is to force the poor man to see his children starve whilst
idle people overfeed pet dogs with the money that might feed and clothe
them.
If any religion has a chance of conquering
England, nay Europe, within the next 100 years, that Religion is
Islam.
If you must hold yourself
up to your children as an object lesson, hold yourself up as a warning &
not as an example.
Chess is a foolish expedient
for making idle people believe they are doing something very clever when
they are only wasting their time.
Do not waste your time
on Social Questions. What is the matter with poor is poverty; what is the
matter with the rich is Uselessness.
Do not try to live
for ever. You will not succeed.
Every man is a
revolutionist concerning the thing he understands. For example, every person
who has mastered a profession is a skeptic concerning it, & consequently
a revolutionist.
If you can not get
rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it dance.
Vitality in a woman
is a blind fury of creation. She sacrifices herself to it.
Patriotism is a
pernicious, psychotic form of idiocy.
What Englishman will
give his mind to politics as long as he can afford to keep a motor car?
Patriotism
is your conviction that this country is superior to all others because you
were born it.
When a stupid man
is doing something he is ashamed of, he always declares that it is his
duty.
Reading made Don
Quixote a gentleman, but believing what he read made him mad.
Peace is not
only better than war, but infinitely more arduous.
Reviewing has one
advantage over suicide; in suicide you take it out on yourself; in reviewing
you take it out on other people.
What we call education
& culture is for the most part nothing but the substitution of reading
for experience, of literature for life, of the obsolete for the contemporary
real.
We must make the
world honest before we can honestly say to our children that honesty is the
best policy.
Sherlock Holmes was
a drug addict without a single amiable trait.
Life does not cease
to be funny when people die; any more than it ceases to be serious when people
laugh.
A lifetime
of happiness! No man alive could bear it: it would be hell on
earth.
Alcohol is a very
necessary article. It makes life bearable to millions of people who could
not endure their existence if they were quite sober. It enables Parliament
to do things at eleven at night that no sane person would do at eleven in
the morning.
"A miracle, my friend,
is an event which creates faith. That is the purpose & nature of miracles.
Frauds deceive. An event which creates faith does not deceive: therefore,
it is not a fraud, but a miracle.
The reasonable man
adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt
the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable
man.
Anarchism
is game at which the police can beat you.
Liberty means
responsibility. That is why most men dread it.
Do not do unto
others as you would they should not do unto you. Their tastes may not be
the same.
The worst sin towards
our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them;
that's the essence of humanity.
BERNARD SHAW 1856-1950
Playwright George Bernard Shaw was born in Dublin 26th July 1856, the son of aristocrat Lucinda Elizabeth Gurly & George Carr Shaw (poor & an alcoholic). Shaw's Sister's, Elinour Agnes (single & childless) died aged 20 & Lucinda Frances died through self starvation aged 40, ( Lucinda had married but divorced & remained childless). Not a close family, mother & father more or less left their children in the care of nannies. Love & affection was not thriving in the Shaw household. Each held a passion for the arts & the Dublin theatre & art museums became second home to the young Bernard. Shaw hated the name 'George' & he would later become known as 'Bernard Shaw' to his friends & 'GBS' to his public. In 1876, mother, daughters & son left their father behind when they moved to London to seek a more cultured way of life. Home was 13 Victoria Grove & Shaw found work with Edisons Telephone Company at a gross of two shillings & sixpence. After a while he was promoted to head of the department with a wage of £80. As time passed, Shaw admitted he was not suited to work and could not tolerate the confinements of being employed. He wanted to be a writer. December 23rd 1880, the family moved to Fitzroy Street enabling him to frequent the Round Reading Room at the British Museum where he said; 'he learnt his education'. These visits brought Shaw into contact with the great people of the day such as, William Morris, Ruskin, and the Bloomsbury gang. Now he could enter the cultural side of London and expand his creativity. In 1881 Shaw became a vegetarian. Now willingly unemployed, he could only afford the cheap but filling food at the local vegetarian eatery, but it left it's mark & for the rest of his life believed that all living creatures should be treated with equal respect. A keen boxer ,in 1883 he joined the Queensburry Amateur Boxing championships, weighing in at 10st and taking part in the Middle & Heavyweight matches. This was Shaw's way of improving mind & body. With his good looks and refined personality, women fell at his feet. Jenny Patterson, Alice Locket, May Morris, Edith Bland, Eleanor Marx and Annie Besant, each fell in love with him. But Shaw was not interested in marriage, he was far too busy writing. In 1888 The Star Newspaper employed him as a Music Critic and he used the pen name "Corno de Bassetto". Shaw was starting to gain recognition in the London circuit providing him with a wealth of information for his work. Between 1873 & 1883 Shaw wrote five novels, all of which were rejected by every publisher in London. Instead he decided to write plays for which success soon came. The first performance of "Widower's House" in London 1892 and Arm's & The Man performed in London & New York in 1894. Shaw had now discovered Karl Marx & devoured Das Kapital, during which grew an interest in history & civilization. After reading "Why are the Many Poor?", he joined the Fabian Society on 16th May 1884, later becoming it's executive. It was here the up & coming writer met his life long friends, Sydney & Beatrice Webb. Before long Shaw was taking to the platform and his career as an orator had begun. The Pall Mall Gazette hired him between 1885-88, to review books. Edwin Palmer, founder of the "Magazine of Music", employed Shaw as music critic & during 1886 he was art critic with "The World". After a brief spell in a flat at 36 Osnaburgh Street, the landlord went bankrupt & once again the Shaw's had to move. It was now 1888,writing started to earn him some wealth & he was able to hire the 3rd & 4th floors of 29 Fitzroy Square. Later, buying the property for his mother, whom he relied upon for his keep during those early years. For the following eleven years, Bernard Shaw produced play after play and the Character "GBS" was born.
In 1898 the Irish heiress, Miss Charlotte Payne Townsend decided she would marry Bernard Shaw. Whilst he set about his writing it was she who made the wedding arrangements at the London Registry Office, and bought her own wedding ring. Shaw had agreed to marry Charlotte on the condition that they make a public but lawful agreement ensuring that should she die before him, he did not wish to be the beneficiary of her wealth. This was purposely to shut up any gloater's wishing to shout out that the not so rich writer was marrying the heiress for her money. On Charlottes side, she horrified her husband on their honeymoon night, by making him sign an agreement that they would never consummate the marriage. The thought of childbirth terrified Charlotte & in those days birth control was unheard of. Shaw said that his lovely fiery red hair went white overnight. After the marriage, picture's of Shaw show this. But, after Charlotte died at the age of 83 in September 1943, Shaw said that although it was an unusual marriage, Charlotte was the perfect wife. A very private women, it was her wish to remain out of the limelight & she would ring up any newspaper who dared to print any photographs of her which she had not given permission. She hated being noticed. By 1906 both moved into an old Rectory, in the Hertfordshire village of Ayot St Lawrence. Later Mrs Shaw bought the property for £6000. The villagers named the house, "Shaw's Corner" as it also known today. Also in 1906 Mrs Shaw commissioned the sculptor Rodin to make her a bust of her husband, for which GBS sat for a whole month in Rodin's Paris apartment. This was her pride & joy & is one of the loveliest bronzes of GBS. The Shaw's bought a flat at London's Whitehall Court because Mrs Shaw found the country village boring. This was a compromise as GBS actually preferred the peace & quiet of Ayot. So it was that the 65 plays & thousands of pamphlets etc. were written between the busy city of London & the quiet village of Ayot. In the year 1926 & at the age of 70, GBS received the Nobel Prize for Literature. But donated the prize money to charity. He was now the established writer even he never dreamed would be possible & was well known throughout the world, but felt like he was a fish in a gold fish bowl. The Shaw's could not go anywhere without being recognised & followed by streams of press & photographers. By noe the play Pygmalion was made into a film & he won an Oscar for "Best Film" in 1938. He cursed anyone who dared to make the film into a flimsy romantic musical ‘Over my dead body!' was the responce to the Hollywood filmmakers. After his death, My Fair Lady was made, but has very little to do with Shaw's intentions or original play & film. The great writer absolutely refused to allow any of his plays to be rewritten or changed in anyway whilst he was living. Nobody dared to challenge him. Now that he was a wealthy man in his own right, GBS gave thousands of Pounds to many Charities & to those individuals who had the nerve to write to him begging for a few pounds. He believed wealth was for sharing & was a kind & generous person. Women not only wrote asking for a few shillings for their children's shoes & clothing, but also to ask the man to give her advice on problems she was having with her husband. Today he would be the modern woman's dream. He believed in full equality & was totally against women being forced into situations which they did not want. At the age of 94, Bernard Shaw died in his bed at Shaw's Corner at 2 am on All Souls Day, 2nd November 1950. For the first time in history, the lights on Broadway went out in respect. Shaw's death is a great loss to the whole world, but his writings live on & the image of GBS is still as powerful as ever it was. In his will GBS requested the majority of his money should go towards the Bernard Shaw Phonetic Alphabet, which he wanted to use to change the spelling reform of the English Language. Lady Astor contested the will, even taking it to the House of Lords, & Shaw's final wish never came to light.
Bill Gates
In his book, Bill Gates talks about how feel-good, politically correct teachings created a full generation of kids with no concept of reality and how this concept set them up for failure in the real world. You may want to share this list with some you know. - SLD
RULE 1
Life is not fair; get used to it.
RULE 2
The world won't care about your self-esteem. The world will
expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.
RULE 3
You will NOT make 40 thousand dollars a year right out of high
school. You won't be a vice president with a car phone, until you earn both.
RULE 4
If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.
He doesn't have tenure.
RULE 5
Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your
grandparents had a different word for burger flipping; they called it opportunity.
RULE 6
If you mess up, it's not your parents' fault, so don't whine
about your mistakes, learn from them.
RULE 7
Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are
now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and
listening to you talk about how cool you are. So before you save the rain
forest from the parasites of your parents' generation, try 'delousing" the
closet in your own room.
RULE 8
Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but
life has not. In some schools they have abolished failing grades; they'll give
you as many times as you want to get the right answer. This doesn't bear
the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.
RULE 9
Life is not divided into semesters. You don't get summers off
and very few employers are interested in helping you find yourself. Do that
on your own time.
RULE 10
Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually
have to leave the coffee shop and go to
jobs.
(From Christian Science Monitor - 06/2000)
To be really rich
After just a few minutes with Elena, you sensed that she was really rich.
You could see it in the way she treasured the world's great literary works.
Or the way she got carried away with Beethoven symphonies. Or the way she
had learned to paint, for the sheer joy of it. Or the way she sliced to the
heart of an issue with razor-keen intellect. And you could see how liberally
she shared her wealth - her exuberance, her love for literature and music,
her paintings, her ideas, her wonderful East European brown bread.
Ironically, though, Elena was anything but wealthy in terms of money. When I
knew her in graduate school, she and her husband had just come to the United
States, refugees from an oppressive regime in their country. They'd had to
leave everything behind when they walked across the border - their family,
their possessions, their clothing. Even their wedding rings.
So, without ever saying a word about it, Elena and her husband taught our
family a lot about real wealth. Wealth that goes WAY beyond bank accounts or
real estate or net worth. It was incredible to us that Elena and her husband
never grieved over their losses. They never complained about their tiny
campus apartment or tiny budget. And gradually we realized why.
The fact is, Elena and her husband hadn't lost everything. They still had
all that truly mattered. They had their love for each other, their values,
their reverence for beauty, their passion for freedom, their burning
conviction that the forces for good must win out in the world. These were
things no one could ever take away from them. And they knew it.
Elena's wealth was secure because it was fundamentally spiritual. She and
her husband had the strongest faith in freedom, wisdom, integrity, beauty,
goodness. These are values that actually come from God - from what the Bible
calls "durable riches" (Prov. 8:18).
On the other hand, they had experienced firsthand how unreliable material
wealth is. They had learned that, as the Bible says, "Riches certainly make
themselves wings; they fly away as an eagle toward heaven" (Prov. 23:5).
Of course, a person doesn't have to lose everything to acquire spiritual
wealth. But one does need to understand that material possessions and status
don't constitute real well-being. They don't constitute real security,
either. These come from God alone.
The more we realize this, the richer we become - spiritually. Conversely,
the more we look to cash, credit, and material possessions for satisfaction,
the more deprived and frustrated we tend to feel. Why? Because we're looking
for something we'll never find: genuine value in matter.
Some people find satisfaction in spiritual values they wouldn't necessarily
connect with God, or divine Soul. Others are ready to acknowledge God as the
One who gives them spiritual resources. For them, real security, real value,
real happiness, clearly reside in the things of Soul. And they sense that,
as the writings of Mary Baker Eddy explain, there is nothing closefisted
about the way Soul gives to us. "Soul has infinite resources with which to
bless mankind," she writes, "and happiness would be more readily attained
and would be more secure in our keeping, if sought in Soul" ("Science and
Health with Key to the Scriptures," pg. 60.)
Yet people who enlarge their spiritual treasury find that their lives become
tangibly happier and more secure. Some, like Elena and her husband, find
that their overall standard of living improves. Others, like a new Nigerian
reader of "The Herald of Christian Science" who wrote recently, find that
they're healed of serious illness. Still others find serenity they've never
known before.
One thing is inevitable. People who invest their faith in the resources of
Soul won't be disappointed. They'll receive spiritual dividends beyond
anything money could ever buy. They'll find something that will make them
truly rich - forever.
A BEAUTIFUL PRAYER
(From Aunt Pat Norton - 11 NOV 2000)
I asked God to take away my pain. God said, No. It
is
THIS DAY IS
YOURS DON'T THROW
IT
AWAY
To the world you might be one person; but to
one
person you just might be the
world.
(Author Unknown -
(Another from
Fred
and Neneita Bann 07/02)
DREAMS
The
first day of school our professor introduced himself and challenged us to get to
know someone we didn't already know. I stood up to look around when a gentle
hand touched my shoulder. I turned around to find a wrinkled, little old lady
beaming up at me with a smile that lit up her entire being.
She
said, "Hi handsome. My name is Rose. I'm eighty-seven years old. Can I give
you a hug?"
I
laughed and enthusiastically responded, "Of course you may!" and she
gave me a giant squeeze. "Why are you in college at such a young, innocent
age?" I asked.
She
jokingly replied, "I'm here to meet a rich husband, get married, have a
couple of kids..."
"No seriously," I asked. I was
curious what may have motivated her to be taking on this challenge at her age.
"I
always dreamed of having a college education and now I'm getting one!" she
told me.
After
class we walked to the student union building and shared a chocolate milkshake.
We became instant friends. Every day for the next three months we would leave
class together and talk nonstop. I was always mesmerized listening to this
"time machine" a
Over
the course of the year, Rose became a campus icon and she easily made friends
wherever she went. She loved to dress up and she reveled in the attention
bestowed upon her from the other students. She was living it up. At the end of
the semester we invited Rose to speak at our football banquet. I'll never forget
what she taught us.
She was introduced and stepped up to the
podium. A
As
we laughed she cleared her throat and began, "We do not stop playing
because we are old; we grow old because we stop playing. There are only four
secrets to staying young, being happy, and achieving success.
You have to laugh and find humor every day.
You've
got to have a dream.
When
you lose your dreams, you die.
We
have so many people walking around who are dead and don't even know it! There is
a huge difference between growing older and growing up. If you are nineteen
years old and lie in bed for one full year and don't do one productive thing,
you will turn twenty years old. If I am eighty-seven years old and stay in bed
for a year and never do anything I will turn eighty-eight. Anybody can grow
older. That doesn't take any talent or ability. The idea is to grow up by always
finding the opportunity in change.
Have no regrets. The elderly usually don't
have regrets for what we did, but rather for things we did not do. The only
people who fear death are those with regrets."
She concluded her speech by courageously
singing "The Rose." She challenged each of us to study the lyrics and
live them out in our daily lives. At the year's end Rose finished the college
degree she had begun all those years ago.
One week after graduation Rose died
peacefully in her sleep. Over two thousand college students attended her funeral
in tribute to the wonderful woman who taught by example that it's never too late
to be all you can possibly be. When you finish reading this, please send this
peaceful word of advice to your friends and family, they'll really enjoy it!
These words have been passed along in
loving memory of ROSE.
REMEMBER,
GROWING OLDER IS MANDATORY. GROWING UP IS OPTIONAL.
We make a Living by what we get, We make a
Life by what we give. God promises a safe landing, not a calm passage.
Look about you, O pupil, observe this infinite, boundless Creation -- and now -- look into yourself: "You arre it."
(To Be Continued...)
End of Chapter III
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