True or False?

"I have no money, no resources, no hopes. I am the happiest man alive." Henry Miller, a controversial author and painter, December 26, 1891 – June 7, 1980.

A Perfect New Year's Wish

Today is January 3, 2008, the beginning of a new year. This thought from Alan Watts is a perfect idea for every parent on earth. If put into practice, it would change the world.

He said, "The Book I would pass to my children would contain no sermons, no shoulds and oughts. Genuine love comes from knowledge, not from a sense of duty or guilt."
Author and philosopher - Alan Watts 1915 - 1973

Christmas Magic

Today is Monday December 24, 2007. And although my posts on this blog cover inspirational thoughts over many years, a touching story happened yesterday that is worthy of sharing.

I arrived early at Sunday’s service so I could sit on the front row a mere foot from a towering and beautifully decorated Christmas tree. There are only five seats on this row but when I arrived, two were already taken—the isle seat and the second seat next to it.

Excusing myself as I passed the two men sitting there, the young man in the second seat gestured with a slight hand movement for me to take the empty third seat. Since sitting under this massive and magic Christmas tree is personal, I nodded with a thank you opting to sit in the forth seat leaving an empty seat on both sides.

His brief gesture allowed me to observe a twenty-something angelic face that quite honestly resembled what Jesus may have looked like at his age although his clothes betrayed his personal presence. They resembling those of a homeless person more so than a spiritual power, a thought I quickly dismissed. It’s wrong to “judge a book by it’s cover.”

The first row is also first to receive the collection plate. But when the young man passed the velvet-covered collection basket to me, I couldn’t help but notice his angelic smile and the quarter he had carefully placed there. His gratitude was over-flowing and obvious, far greater than mine. It was a Christmas lesson leaving me to wonder who was he really?

Evil and Death

Just as fame, power, money, monarchy, gender, age and race are unknown to God, so is evil. When cruel, corrupt, and evil people die their secondary energy, which had accumulated around them to influence their evil acts, is sucked back into the vortex.

This adds to the repository of every disgusting, violent act and thought since the beginning of time. It is the same destructive force that temporarily comes alive in us, from somewhat benign picky self-talk to violent, demonic manifestations borrowing its, so called, power from the Law of God.

My 16,777,216 Grandparents

Pomp can easily become a smug happening when based on miniscule facts. Take ancestors for instance. Lots of people get very pomp about theirs. I wonder if they ever thought about how many direct descendants are bouncing around in their DNA? We all have two parents, which give us four sets of grandparents and eight sets of great grandparents. The math is simple and if everyone will agree that each generation is usually calculated in 20-year increments, then there are five generations in 100 years. Now if that’s so, I have 1,048,576 direct linage grandparents who were getting smitten around 1608. Drop another 100 years and I have 16,777,216 grandparents who were roaming around in 1508 when the world’s population is estimated to have been only 800 million—that’s 2 percent of the population!

Lessons in Tiny Packages

Downloading the Creator comes with big lessons in tiny, if not invisible, packages. I had a car rattle that annoyed me and everyone else for months. It sounded like a screw rattling around inside the glove department or, worse yet the dash, but no one could pinpoint the problem including the car dealer. One day the rattle suddenly stopped when I reached for my water bottle sitting in the cup holder. Surprised, I released the cap and the rattle started up. Mystery solved. It was that small band attached to the cap that breaks lose when the bottle is opened. It sits unnoticed with just enough slack to rattle becoming an imperceptible irritant. Sometimes thoughts are like that.

A Lesson In Manipulation

Mother was more than a mother; she could well have been the first life coach although the idea of a life coach was yet to emerge as a profession. Children are natural masters of manipulation. At age five, I was no exception and remember quite well how I fell in love with a beautiful doll in the Sears Christmas Catalog.

I showed the picture to mother but didn’t get the response I wanted. All she did was agree with me that the doll was indeed beautiful. I then decided pity might work better and carefully curled up in an overstuffed chair. Holding the picture close to my chest, I produced tears that softly streamed down my cheeks. And just to make sure she heard me, loudly sniffed and sighed a few times.

She not only heard me, she immediately appeared in front of the chair and gently explained she knew how much I loved the doll. It was, however, unbecoming to pout, cry and pretend to make her feel as though she had to buy that doll to make me happy. If she did buy the doll, it would because she wanted to. “You mustn’t do something like this again. It isn’t nice and it isn’t thoughtful of the other person,” she said.