For sweet Nick…may he rest safely and securely in God’s arms now.

“Remembrance is a golden chain death tries to break, but all in vain. To have, to love, and then to part is the greatest sorrow of one’s heart. The years may wipe out many things but some they wipe out never. Like memories of those happy times when we were all together.” Author Unknown

Starting with the Christmas holiday – it has been nice.   Brother #4 is here, Brother #1 and family as well – nice to have a houseful despite the stress I usually feel during the holiday season.   Brother #2 is still out in cyberland but keeping a low profile.  At least I can find him.    

In general… it has been a difficult year – work and home.  Does it ever get better?  Does the dysfunction ever cease?  When do we all grow up?  Hmmm…  too many questions with no answers.  But for now, things are ok.

Brother #4 visited in October with his significant other – she is very nice.     As mentioned before, Little Mom came out in September and we had a great time – lots of laughing.  She is scheduled to come back in April but will be travelling with her husband.  They will be staying in Chicago and sightseeing. 

Work is very challenging.  The work as well as the relationships.  I think it would improve greatly if everyone showed some respect to each other, themselves, and started acting like grown ups.     Very catty…

That is it for now.  I missed seeing my Florida friends but they did not come up this summer.  I miss my Oregon friend and keep looking for the email!   My special friend – well, I think I lost him but that was probably for the better despite the pain in my heart.

Toodles for now…

Work will be hectic for the next month but I am not giving up my vacation – Brother #4 will be coming in to town on the 2nd.

Hope everyone is doing well out there!

Canto III… he brought me within to the secret things.  Here sighs, laments, and deep wailings were resounding through the starless air; wherefore at first I wept thereat.  Strange tongues, horrible utterances, words of woe, accents of anger, voices high and faint, and sounds of hands with them, were making a tumult which  whirls always in that air forever dark, like the sand when the whirlwind breathes…

 I AM CONFUSED

I am confused

I am in a not so much fog
As a gray cloud

I cannot read
The landmarks

Let alone
The Danger signs

I do not know
Where I am

Or how I go there

I am lost

I want to find myself

In your arms

Children 

And a woman who held a babe against her bosom said, “Speak to us of Children.”

And he said:

Your children are not your children.

They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.

They come through you but not from you,

And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts.

For they have their own thoughts.

You may house their bodies but not their souls,

For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.

For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.

The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.

Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;

For even as he loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.

Hope everyone is well!

“The darkness hides the true size of fears and lies and regrets…the truth is they are more shadow than reality, so they seem bigger in the dark.  When the Light shines into the places where they live inside you, you start to see them for what they are.”

“Lies are a little fortress; inside them you try to run your life and manipulate others.  Bur the fortress needs walls, so you build some.  These are the justifications for your lies.  You know, like you are doing this to protect someone you love, to keep them from feeling pain.  Whatever works, just so you feel okay about the lies.”

“Forgiveness is first for you, the forgiver, to release you from something that will eat you alive, that will destroy your joy and your ability to love fully and openly.”

I miss my friends…  Facebook is nice but not “personal”, too many work people there.   Hopefully you will find me here again.

Hugs and happy 2010 to all!  I will do a family update soon…  me

On Work
Kahlil Gibran

You work that you may keep pace with the earth and the soul of the earth.
For to be idle is to become a stranger unto the seasons,
and to step out of life’s procession, that marches in majesty and proud submission towards the infinite.

When you work you are a flute through whose heart the whispering of the hours turns to music.
Which of you would be a reed, dumb and silent, when all else sings together in unison?

Always you have been told that work is a curse and labour a misfortune.
But I say to you that when you work you fulfil a part of earth’s furthest dream, assigned to you when that dream was born,
And in keeping yourself with labour you are in truth loving life,
And to love life through labour is to be intimate with life’s inmost secret.

But if you in your pain call birth an affliction and the support of the flesh a curse written upon your brow, then I answer that naught but the sweat of your brow shall wash away that which is written.

You have been told also that life is darkness, and in your weariness you echo what was said by the weary.
And I say that life is indeed darkness save when there is urge,
And all urge is blind save when there is knowledge,
And all knowledge is vain save when there is work,
And all work is empty save when there is love;
And when you work with love you bind yourself to yourself, and to one another, and to God.

And what is it to work with love?
It is to weave the cloth with threads drawn from your heart,
even as if your beloved were to wear that cloth.
It is to build a house with affection,
even as if your beloved were to dwell in that house.
It is to sow seeds with tenderness and reap the harvest with joy,
even as if your beloved were to eat the fruit.
It is to charge all things you fashion with a breath of your own spirit,
And to know that all the blessed dead
are standing about you and watching.

Often have I heard you say, as if speaking in sleep, “He who works in marble, and finds the shape of his own soul in the stone, is nobler than he who ploughs the soil.
And he who seizes the rainbow to lay it on a cloth in the likeness of man, is more than he who makes the sandals for our feet.”
But I say, not in sleep but in the overwakefulness of noontide, that the wind speaks not more sweetly to the giant oaks than to the least of all the blades of grass;
And he alone is great who turns the voice of the wind into a song made sweeter by his own loving.

Work is love made visible.
And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy.
For if you bake bread with indifference, you bake a bitter bread that feeds but half man’s hunger.
And if you grudge the crushing of the grapes, your grudge distils a poison in the wine.
And if you sing though as angels, and love not the singing, you muffle man’s ears to the voices of the day and the voices of the night.

My friend from Florida is in town – I only see her once a year and she can never find this blog page so you know we sat and gabbed gabbed gabbed for a long long time! Lots of laughing too.

Hope everyone is doing well. Sorry for the absence. Big news coming soon…well, big for me…but not time yet… 

Night!

Something inspirational for today…

One day a teacher asked her students to list the names of the other students in the room on two sheets of paper, leaving a space between each name.

Then she told them to think of the nicest thing they could say about each of their classmates and write it down.

It took the remainder of the class period to finish their assignment, and as the students left the room, each one handed in the papers.

That Saturday, the teacher wrote down the name of each student on a separate sheet of paper, and listed what everyone else had said about that individual.

On Monday she gave each student his or her list. Before long, the entire class was smiling. ‘Really?’ she heard whispered. ‘I never knew that I meant anything to anyone!’ and, ‘I didn’t know others liked me so much,’ were most of the comments.

No one ever mentioned those papers in class again. She never knew if they discussed them after class or with their parents, but it didn’t matter. The exercise had accomplished its purpose. The students were happy with themselves and one another. That group of students moved on.

Several years later, one of the students was killed in Vietnam and his teacher attended the funeral of that special student. She had never seen a serviceman in a military coffin before. He looked so handsome, so mature.

The church was packed with his friends. One by one those who loved him took a last walk by the coffin. The teacher was the last one to bless the coffin as she stood there, one of the soldiers who acted as pallbearer came up to her. ‘Were you Mark’s math teacher?’ he asked. She nodded: ‘yes.’ Then he said: ‘Mark talked about you a lot.’

After the funeral, most of Mark’s former classmates went together to a luncheon. Mark’s mother and father were there, obviously waiting to speak with his teacher.

‘We want to show you something,’ his father said, taking a wallet out of his pocket ‘They found this on Mark when he was killed. We thought you might recognize it.’

Opening the billfold, he carefully removed two worn pieces of notebook paper that had obviously been taped, folded and refolded many times.

The teacher knew without looking that the papers were the ones on which she had listed all the good things each of Mark’s classmates had said about him.

‘Thank you so much for doing that,’ Mark’s mother said. ‘As you can see, Mark treasured it.’

All of Mark’s former classmates started to gather around. Charlie smiled rather sheepishly and said, ‘I still have my list. It’s in the top drawer of my desk at home.’

Chuck’s wife said, ‘Chuck asked me to put his in our wedding album.’

‘I have mine too,’ Marilyn said. ‘It’s in my diary’

Then Vicki, another classmate, reached into her pocketbook, took out her wallet and showed her worn and frazzled list to the group. ‘I carry this with me at all times,’ Vicki said and without batting an eyelash, she continued: ‘I think we all saved our lists’.

That’s when the teacher finally sat down and cried. She cried for Mark and for all his friends who would never see him again.

The density of people in society is so thick that we forget that life will end one day. And we don’t know when that one day will be.

So please, tell the people you love and care for, that they are special and important. Tell them, before it is too late.

May Your Day Be Blessed As Special As You