Tag Archives: Dr Wilda

The 12/20/13 Joy Jar

20 Dec

It is just a few days until Christmas and moi will be celebrating Christmas and reflecting upon the end of the ‘Joy Jar’ exercise. Aside from persistence, reflection and of course, gratitude – the purpose of the exercise; moi learned that life should have balance. Today’s deposit into the ‘Joy Jar’ is seeking balance in life.

“People who violate your boundaries are thieves. They steal time that doesn’t belong to them.”
Elizabeth Grace Saunders

“A ‘good job’ can be both practically attractive while still not good enough to devote your entire life to.”
Alain de Botton

Be moderate in order to taste the joys of life in abundance.
Epicurus

Fortunate, indeed, is the man who takes exactly the right measure of himself and holds a just balance between what he can acquire and what he can use.
Peter Latham

Be aware of wonder. Live a balanced life – learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.
Robert Fulgham

Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance and order and rhythm and harmony.
Thomas Merton

The best and safest thing is to keep a balance in your life, acknowledge the great powers around us and in us. If you can do that, and live that way, you are really a wise man.
Euripides

Wisdom is your perspective on life, your sense of balance, your understanding of how the various parts and principles apply and relate to each other.
Steven R. Covey

A well-developed sense of humor is the pole that adds balance to your steps as you walk the tightrope of life. William Arthur Ward

We come into this world head first and go out feet first; in between, it is all a matter of balance.
Paul Boese

So divinely is the world organized that every one of us, in our place and time, is in balance with everything else. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The key to keeping your balance is knowing when you’ve lost it.
Unknown

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The 12/19/13 Joy Jar

20 Dec

It is just a few days until Christmas and moi will be celebrating Christmas and reflecting upon the end of the ‘Joy Jar’ exercise. Aside from persistence and of course, gratitude – the purpose of the exercise; moi learned to spend time in reflection. Today’s deposit into the ‘Joy Jar’ is slowing down to reflect.

Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow.”
Melody Beattie

“It is necessary … for a man to go away by himself … to sit on a rock … and ask, ‘Who am I, where have I been, and where am I going?”
Carl Sandburg

“It is when you lose sight of yourself, that you lose your way. To keep your truth in sight you must keep yourself in sight and the world to you should be a mirror to reflect to you your image; the world should be a mirror that you reflect upon.”
C. JoyBell C.

“Even if you think you’re doing well and have it all figured out, there is a voice you will always inevitably hear at some point which nags at you and says “but wait…” Don’t ever dismiss it, listen to what it has to say. Life will never be close enough to perfect, and listening to that voice means stepping outside of yourself and considering your own wrongdoings and flaws.”
Ashly Lorenzana

“We’re so concerned with the idea of what we ought to be that we fail to take into account the things that make us who we really are.”
Nenia Campbell, Locked and Loaded

By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.
Confucius

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 the reflection of ourselves we find in them.
Thomas Merton

I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. ‘Tis the business of little minds to shrink, but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death.
Thomas Paine

Part of every misery is, so to speak, the misery’s shadow or reflection: the fact that you don’t merely suffer but have to keep on thinking about the fact that you suffer. I not only live each endless day in grief, but live each day thinking about living each day in grief.
C. S. Lewis

Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost.
John Quincy Adams

The real man smiles in trouble, gathers strength from distress, and grows brave by reflection.
Thomas Paine

Without reflection, we go blindly on our way, creating more unintended consequences, and failing to achieve anything useful.
Margaret J. Wheatley

It is not by muscle, speed, or physical dexterity that great things are achieved, but by reflection, force of character, and judgment.
Marcus Tullius Cicero

There are two distinct classes of what are called thoughts: those that we produce in ourselves by reflection and the act of thinking and those that bolt into the mind of their own accord.
Thomas Paine

Education begins the gentleman, but reading, good company and reflection must finish him.
John Locke

Follow effective action with quiet reflection. From the quiet reflection will come even more effective action.
Peter Drucker

A string of excited, fugitive, miscellaneous pleasures is not happiness; happiness resides in imaginative reflection and judgment, when the picture of one’s life, or of human life, as it truly has been or is, satisfies the will, and is gladly accepted.
George Santayana

The world is a looking glass and gives back to every man the reflection of his own face.
William Makepeace Thackeray

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The 12/18/13 Joy Jar

20 Dec

It is just a few days until Christmas and moi will be celebrating Christmas and reflecting upon the end of the ‘Joy Jar’ exercise. Aside from persistence and of course, gratitude – the purpose of the exercise; moi learned focus on a task. Today’s deposit into the ‘Joy Jar’ is focus.

It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light.
Aristotle Onassis

I find hope in the darkest of days, and focus in the brightest. I do not judge the universe.
Dalai Lama

When you focus on being a blessing, God makes sure that you are always blessed in abundance.
Joel Osteen

You can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.
Mark Twain

Don’t dwell on what went wrong. Instead, focus on what to do next. Spend your energies on moving forward toward finding the answer.
Denis Waitley

That’s been one of my mantras – focus and simplicity. Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.
Steve Jobs

One reason so few of us achieve what we truly want is that we never direct our focus; we never concentrate our power. Most people dabble their way through life, never deciding to master anything in particular.
Tony Robbins

It is wise to direct your anger towards problems – not people; to focus your energies on answers – not excuses.
William Arthur Ward

Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work at hand. The sun’s rays do not burn until brought to a focus.
Alexander Graham Bell

The key to success is to focus our conscious mind on things we desire not things we fear.
Brian Tracy

Most people have no idea of the giant capacity we can immediately command when we focus all of our resources on mastering a single area of our lives.
Tony Robbins

I try to look on all the great things God’s done, and not focus on the negative. It’s a perspective.
Joel Osteen

When trouble comes, focus on God’s ability to care for you.
Charles Stanley

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The 12/17/13 Joy Jar

18 Dec

As moi winds down the ‘Joy Jar’ exercise, one of the great lessons of choosing gratitude is inner peace. Today’s deposit into the ‘Joy Jar’ is inner peace.

“The best fighter is never angry.”
Lao Tzu

“Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without.”
Buddha

“We don’t realize that, somewhere within us all, there does exist a supreme self who is eternally at peace.”
Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love

“We can never obtain peace in the outer world until we make peace with ourselves.”
Dalai Lama XIV

“Nothing external to you has any power over you.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Pleasure is always derived from something outside you, whereas joy arises from within.”
Eckhart Tolle

“Each one has to find his peace from within. And peace to be real must be unaffected by outside circumstances.”
Mahatma Gandhi

“Inner peace can be reached only when we practice forgiveness. Forgiveness is letting go of the past, and is therefore the means for correcting our misperceptions.”
Gerald G. Jampolsky, Love Is Letting Go of Fear

You were born a child of light’s wonderful secret— you return to the beauty you
“You were born a child of light’s wonderful secret— you return to the beauty you have always been.”
Aberjhani, Visions of a Skylark Dressed in Black

“Peace is the number one beautiful ornament you can wear, I really believe that. They say you should always wear a smile, but I don’t believe that you should “always” wear a smile, seriously, you’re going to look stupid! But peace, you should always carry peace within you, its the most beautifying thing you could ever have or do. Peace makes your heart beautiful and it makes you look beautiful, too. You want to have perfect physical posture when you stand, sit, and walk, and peace is the perfect posture of the soul, really. Try perfect posture outside as well as inside. Peace creates grace and grace gives peace.”
C. JoyBell C.

“Spirituality is not to be learned by flight from the world, or by running away from things, or by turning solitary and going apart from the world. Rather, we must learn an inner solitude wherever or with whomsoever we may be. We must learn to penetrate things and find God there.”
Meister Eckhart

“Happiness can only be achieved by looking inward & learning to enjoy whatever life has and this requires transforming greed into gratitude.”
John Chrysostom

“Having inner peace means committing to letting go of self-criticism and self-doubt.”
Sanaya Roman, Living with Joy: Keys to Personal Power and Spiritual Transformation

“When people speak of great men, they think of men like Napoleon – men of violence. Rarely do they think of peaceful men. But contrast the reception they will receive when they return home from their battles. Napoleon will arrive in pomp and in power, a man who’s achieved the very summit of earthly ambition. And yet his dreams will be haunted by the oppressions of war. William Wilberforce, however, will return to his family, lay his head on his pillow and remember: the slave trade is no more.”
Charles Fox

My faith helps me understand that circumstances don’t dictate my happiness, my inner peace.
Denzel Washington

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The 12/16/13 Joy Jar

16 Dec

Christmas is just over a week away and the ‘Joy Jar’ exercise officially ends on Christmas Day. The ‘Joy Jar’ exercise is really like Christmas – it is a Spirit and it will last a lifetime. Today’s deposit into the ‘Joy Jar’ is the Spirit of Christmas.

Are you willing to believe that love is the strongest thing in the world – stronger than hate, stronger than evil, stronger than death – and that the blessed life which began in Bethlehem nineteen hundred years ago is the image and brightness of the Eternal Love? Then you can keep Christmas.
Henry Van Dyke

Blessed is the season which engages the whole world in a conspiracy of love.
Hamilton Wright Mabie

Christmas gift suggestions: To your enemy, forgiveness. To an opponent, tolerance. To a friend, your heart. To a customer, service. To all, charity. To every child, a good example. To yourself, respect.
Oren Arnold

Christmas is not a time nor a season, but a state of mind. To cherish peace and goodwill, to be plenteous in mercy, is to have the real spirit of Christmas.
Calvin Coolidge

Good news from heaven the angels bring,
Glad tidings to the earth they sing:
To us this day a child is given,
To crown us with the joy of heaven.
Martin Luther

I wish we could put up some of the Christmas spirit in jars and open a jar of it every month.
Harlan Miller

If I were a medical man, I should prescribe a holiday to any patient who considered his work important.
Bertrand Russell

May your walls know joy, may every room hold laughter, and every window open to great possibility
Mary Anne Radmacher

The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart. Wishing you happiness.
Helen Keller

There is no ideal Christmas; only the one Christmas you decide to make as a reflection of your values, desires, affections, traditions.
Bill McKibben

This is my wish for you: peace of mind, prosperity through the year, happiness that multiplies, health for you and yours, fun around every corner, energy to chase your dreams, joy to fill your holidays!
D.M. Dellinger

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The 12/15/13 Joy Jar

15 Dec

Advent is the perfect time for reflecting about the positive things in life and hope. One of the great American spiritual leaders was Rev. Norman Vincent Peale:

Norman Vincent Peale
(1898-1993)
Champion of Positive Thinking
Born in Bowersville, Ohio, USA, on May 31 1898, Norman Vincent Peale grew up helping support his family by delivering newspapers, working in a grocery store, and selling pots and pans door to door, but later was to become one of the most influential clergymen in the United States during the 20th-century.
He was educated at Ohio Wesleyan University and Boston University. He was a reporter on the Findlay, Ohio, Morning Republic prior to entering the ministry and went on to author some 40 books. Ordained in the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1922, Peale served as pastor at a succession of churches that included Berkeley, Rhode Island (1922–24), Brooklyn, New York (1924–27), and Syracuse, New York (1927–32) before changing his affiliation to the Dutch Reformed Church so that he could become pastor of the Marble Collegiate Church in New York City (1932–84). There he gained fame for his sermons on a positive approach to modern living, which were regularly broadcast, first on radio and later on television. The church had 600 members when he arrived to pastor in 1932; it had over 5,000 by the time he retired in 1984. In 1969 and 1970 he was president of the Reformed Church in America.
Peale confessed that as a youth he had “the worst inferiority complex of all,” and developed his positive thinking/positive confession philosophy just to help himself. In 1937, Peale established a clinic with Freudian psychiatrist Dr. Smiley Blanton in the basement of the Marble Collegiate Church. (Blanton brought with him the “extensive experience” of having undergone psychoanalysis by Freud himself in Vienna in 1929, 1935, 1936, and 1937.) The clinic was described as having “a theoretical base that was Jungian, with a strong evidence of neo- and post-Freudianism” (Carol V.R. George, God’s Salesman: Norman Vincent Peale and the Power of Positive Thinking , p. 90). It subsequently grew to an operation with more than 20 psychiatric doctors and psychologically- trained “ministers,” and in 1951 became known as the American Foundation for Religion and Psychiatry. In 1972, it merged with the Academy of Religion and Mental Health to form the Institutes of Religion and Health (IRH). To his death, Peale remained affiliated with the IRH as president of the board and chief fund raiser. Indeed, Peale pioneered the merger of theology and psychology which became known as Christian Psychology.
Peale applied Christianity to everyday problems and is the person who is most responsible for bringing psychology into the professing Church, blending its principles into a message of “positive thinking.” Peale said, “through prayer you … make use of the great factor within yourself, the deep subconscious mind … [which Jesus called] the kingdom of God within you … Positive thinking is just another term for faith.” He also wrote, “Your unconscious mind … [has a] power that turns wishes into realities when the wishes are strong enough.”
His simple, optimistic, and dynamic sermons brought increasing numbers of parishioners and increasing fame to Peale. For 54 years Peale’s weekly radio program, “The Art of Living,” was broadcast on NBC. His sermons were mailed to 750,000 people a month. His life was subject of a 1964 movie entitled One Man’s Way.
In 1945, Peale and his wife started Guideposts magazine; its circulation now tops 4.5 million, the largest of any religious magazine. Peale also published several best-selling books, including The Art of Living (1937), Confident Living (1948), The Power of Positive Thinking (1952), and This Incredible Century (1991). His most popular book, The Power of Positive Thinking, has sold more than 20 million copies in 41 languages.
With his wife, Ruth, Peale founded the Foundation for Christian Living in 1945. He died on December 24, 1993, at 95. Ruth carries on the work they began. http://normanvincentpeale.wwwhubs.com/

Today’s deposit into the ‘Joy Jar’ is the wisdom of Rev. Peale.

Believe in yourself! Have faith in your abilities! Without a humble but reasonable confidence in your own powers you cannot be successful or happy.
Norman Vincent Peale

Change your thoughts and you change your world.
Norman Vincent Peale

Action is a great restorer and builder of confidence. Inaction is not only the result, but the cause, of fear. Perhaps the action you take will be successful; perhaps different action or adjustments will have to follow. But any action is better than no action at all.
Norman Vincent Peale

Christmas waves a magic wand over this world, and behold, everything is softer and more beautiful.
Norman Vincent Peale

It’s always too early to quit.
Norman Vincent Peale

Watch your manner of speech if you wish to develop a peaceful state of mind. Start each day by affirming peaceful, contented and happy attitudes and your days will tend to be pleasant and successful.
Norman Vincent Peale

Empty pockets never held anyone back. Only empty heads and empty hearts can do that.
Norman Vincent Peale

Stand up to your obstacles and do something about them. You will find that they haven’t half the strength you think they have.
Norman Vincent Peale

The trouble with most of us is that we would rather be ruined by praise than saved by criticism.
Norman Vincent Peale

Any fact facing us is not as important as our attitude toward it, for that determines our success or failure. The way you think about a fact may defeat you before you ever do anything about it. You are overcome by the fact because you think you are.
Norman Vincent Peale

Four things for success: work and pray, think and believe.
Norman Vincent Peale

If you paint in your mind a picture of bright and happy expectations, you put yourself into a condition conducive to your goal.
Norman Vincent Peale

It is of practical value to learn to like yourself. Since you must spend so much time with yourself you might as well get some satisfaction out of the relationship.
Norman Vincent Peale

Every problem has in it the seeds of its own solution. If you don’t have any problems, you don’t get any seeds.
Norman Vincent Peale

Part of the happiness of life consists not in fighting battles, but in avoiding them. A masterly retreat is in itself a victory.
Norman Vincent Peale

Drop the idea that you are Atlas carrying the world on your shoulders. The world would go on even without you. Don’t take yourself so seriously.
Norman Vincent Peale

Repetition of the same thought or physical action develops into a habit which, repeated frequently enough, becomes an automatic reflex.
Norman Vincent Peale

We tend to get what we expect.
Norman Vincent Peale

Be interesting, be enthusiastic… and don’t talk too much.
Norman Vincent Peale

The Gateway to Christianity is not through an intricate labyrinth of dogma, but by a simple belief in the person of Christ.
Norman Vincent Peale

Formulate and stamp indelibly on your mind a mental picture of yourself as succeeding. Hold this picture tenaciously. Never permit it to fade. Your mind will seek to develop the picture… Do not build up obstacles in your imagination.
Norman Vincent Peale

The more you lose yourself in something bigger than yourself, the more energy you will have.
Norman Vincent Peale

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The 12/14/13 Joy Jar

15 Dec

Today is well into the Christmas Season and as we enter the last couple of weeks before Christmas, it is good to reflect on the season. Daily Christian quotes have a great series of reflections about the Advent Season. Today’s deposit into the ‘Joy Jar’ is reflecting on Advent.

The event of Christ is the only event in human history that promises relocation and centering, meaning and purpose. This promise and its fulfillment evoke passionate and heartfelt praise and thanks, especially for those aware of their own brokenness and the healing which Christ brings into their lives.
Robert Webber

A prison cell, in which one waits, hopes… and is completely dependent on the fact that the door of freedom has to be opened from the outside, is not a bad picture of Advent.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer

One of the essential paradoxes of Advent: that while we wait for God, we are with God all along ,that while we need to be reassured of God’s arrival, or the arrival of our homecoming, we are already at home. While we wait, we have to trust, to have faith, but it is God’s grace that gives us that faith. As with all spiritual knowledge, two things are true, and equally true, at once. The mind can’t grasp paradox; it is the knowledge of the soul.
Michelle Blake

It is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at Christmas, when its mighty founder was a child himself.

Charles Dickens

In spite of the many benefits God has blessed us with, how many times do we complain about little difficulties and trials? We lose sight of the big picture and fail to appreciate the really important things. Just as we cannot benefit from a wrapped gift under a Christmas tree until we open it, so gratitude can be seen as our way of opening the gift of God’s love intended by all the small and big positive events of our lives.
Ronda De Sola Chervin

As we prepare for our traditional celebrations, let us remember those who will not be looking forward to this festival. Let us remember too how Jesus identified with the oppressed and the homeless. Let the joy of the festival touch more of the people of our world this year than ever before. May God be glorified and may people of good will once again experience His peace.
Denzil John

For the Christ-child who comes is the Master of all; No palace too great, no cottage too small.
Phillips Brooks

Often times when we think of becoming a Christian, we think of what it is doing for us – that we are reconciling in our relationship with our creator that we are having our sins forgiven, that we are being saved… I think that the call to receive Christ is more like Gabriel’s visit to Mary where he asks us, will you carry the Christ, will you carry the salvation of the world?
Mike Wilkins

The way to Christmas lies through an ancient gate….It is a little gate, child-high, child-wide, and there is a password: “Peace on earth to men of good will.” May you, this Christmas, become as a little child again and enter into His kingdom.
Angelo Patri

The spirit of Christmas needs to superseded by the Spirit of Christ. The spirit of Christmas is annual; the Spirit of Christ is eternal. The spirit of Christmas is sentimental; the Spirit of Christ is supernatural. The spirit of Christmas is a human product; the Spirit of Christ is a divine person. That makes all the difference in the world.
Stuart Briscoe

When the song of the angels is stilled,
when the star in the sky is gone,
when the kings and princes are home,
when the shepherds are back with the flocks,
then the work of Christmas begins:
to find the lost,
to heal those broken in spirit,
to feed the hungry,
to release the oppressed,
to rebuild the nations,
to bring peace among all peoples,
to make a little music with the heart…
And to radiate the Light of Christ,
every day, in every way, in all that we do and in all that we say.
Then the work of Christmas begins.
Howard Thurman

If God had a refrigerator, your picture would be on it. If He had a wallet, your photo would be in it. He sends you flowers every spring and a sunrise every morning. Whenever you want to talk, He’ll listen. He could live anywhere in the universe, and He chose your heart. What about the Christmas gift He sent you in Bethlehem; not to mention that Friday at Calvary.
Joe Gatuslao

Immanuel will bring lasting, true peace. (Isa 7:14) Not just an end to physical war, although that is what we usually think of when we think of peace. No, this is a deeper peace. A peace between us and God. True reconciliation between the Creator and his creatures. Through Immanuel life for us and his death for us we will be at peace with God. This isn’t our doing. We didn’t make the peace. We didn’t even take the first step. God did. Because that is God’s attitude toward us: always seeking, always restoring, always saving. Immanuel comes to show us that we matter, each and every one of us, to God. Jesus Christ, our Lord, and God’s Son, is Immanuel – God with us. Jesus was born a child and lived among us, died our death on the cross, all so that we would have peace with God, from this time forth and forever more. The zeal of the Lord of Hosts has done this.
Charles P St-Onge

When Christ entered our world, he didn’t come to brighten our Decembers, but to transform our lives.
Rich Miller
http://dailychristianquote.com/dcqchristmas2.html

For more information about Advent, The Season of Advent: Anticipation and Hope http://www.cresourcei.org/cyadvent.html

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The 12/13/13 Joy Jar

13 Dec

Today is Friday the 13th and some folk believe that the day is unlucky. The ‘Joy Jar’ exercise was one of finding something to be grateful for every day. Grateful people are not superstitious because they are hopeful and no matter the circumstances, there is something to be thankful for.

Philippians 4:11
New International Version
I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances.

Today’s deposit into the ‘Joy Jar’ is overcoming superstition with hope.

“If a black cat crosses your path, it signifies that the animal is going somewhere.”
Groucho Marx

“Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.”
Bertrand Russell, Unpopular Essays

“What the mind doesn’t understand, it worships or fears.”
Alice Walker

“The root of all superstition is that men observe when a thing hits, but not when it misses.”
Francis Bacon

“Superstition [is] cowardice in the face of the Divine.”
Theophrastus

“Superstition has been defined as the use of a form whose significance has been forgotten.”
Dion Fortune, Esoteric Orders and Their Work and The Training and Work of the Initiate

“Mankind accepts good fortune as his due, but when bad occurs, he thinks it was aimed at him, done to him, a hex, a curse, a punishment by his deity for some transgression, as though his god were a petty storekeeper, counting up the day’s receipts.”
Sheri S. Tepper, The Visitor

“It will seem to many persons very inconsistent with their ideas of the dignity of a spirit that they should appear and act in the manner I have described, and shall describe further; and I have heard it objected that we cannot suppose God would permit the dead to return merely to frighten the living, and that it is showing Him little reverence to imagine He would suffer them to come on such trifling errands, or demean themselves in so undignified a fashion. But God permits men of all degrees of wickedness, and of every kind of absurdity, to exist, and to harass and disturb the earth, whilst they expose themselves to its obloquy or its ridicule.”
Catherine Crowe, The Night Side of Nature

“There is a faculty in man that will acknowledge the unseen. He may scout and scare religion from him; but if he does, superstition perches near.”
Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, The Haunted Baronet And Others: Ghost Stories 1861-70

“You may substitute knowledge for superstition without satisfying the needs that drive people into superstition’s arms.”
Susan Neiman, Moral Clarity: A Guide for Grown-up Idealists

“We live in a world where unfortunately the distinction between true and false appears to become increasingly blurred by manipulation of facts, by exploitation of uncritical minds, and by the pollution of the language.”
Arne Tiselius

“When even the brightest mind in our world has been trained up from childhood in a superstition of any kind, it will never be possible for that mind, in its maturity, to examine sincerely, dispassionately, and conscientiously any evidence or any circumstance which shall seem to cast a doubt upon the validity of that superstition. I doubt if I could do it myself.”
Mark Twain, The Autobiography of Mark Twain

In the end, people are left with empty superstition or acknowledging that there is a higher POWER:

“My concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God’s side, for God is always right.”
Abraham Lincoln

I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.
C. S. Lewis

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The 12/12/ 13 Joy Jar

12 Dec

As the year of the ‘Joy Jar’ ends on Christmas and the year of aspiration and accomplishment begins, it is time to reflect on the past year.

1 Thessalonians 5:18
New Living Translation
Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus.

One lesson from the ‘Joy Jar’ exercise is to be thankful. Kelly Clarkson wrote an anthem for all who have gone through and EMERGED from a period of TRANSITION:

What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger
Stand a little taller
Doesn’t mean I’m lonely when I’m alone

What doesn’t kill you makes a fighter
Footsteps even lighter
Doesn’t mean I’m over ’cause you’re gone

What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, stronger
Just me, myself and I…
http://www.metrolyrics.com/what-doesnt-kill-you-lyrics-kelly-clarkson.html

Actually what the ‘Joy Jar’ year has taught moi that it is God and moi. Today’s deposit into the ‘Joy Jar’ is the truth that ‘What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Stronger.’

That which does not kill us makes us stronger.
Friedrich Nietzsche

Greatness lies, not in being strong, but in the right using of strength; and strength is not used rightly when it serves only to carry a man above his fellows for his own solitary glory. He is the greatest whose strength carries up the most hearts by the attraction of his own.
Henry Ward Beecher

The depth and strength of a human character are defined by its moral reserves. People reveal themselves completely only when they are thrown out of the customary conditions of their life, for only then do they have to fall back on their reserves.
Leonardo da Vinci

Promise me you’ll always remember: You’re braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.
A.A. Milne

The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.
Mahatma Gandhi

He who believes is strong; he who doubts is weak. Strong convictions precede great actions.
Louisa May Alcott

Permanence, perseverance and persistence in spite of all obstacles, discouragements, and impossibilities: It is this, that in all things distinguishes the strong soul from the weak.
Thomas Carlyle

You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, “I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along”.
Eleanor Roosevelt

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The 12/11/13 Joy Jar

12 Dec

Moi will end the “Joy Jar’ exercise on December 25, when we celebrate the birth of Emmanuel, God among us. It is a Season of hope and beginning. During the course of the past year, moi has seen the Healing Power of God. Today’s deposit into the ‘Joy Jar’ is the Healing Power of God.

The wish for healing has always been half of health.
Lucius Annaeus Seneca

RPM Ministries shared The Top Three Dozen Quotes on God’s Healing for Life’s Losses:

Quotes of Note for Finding Hope When You’re Hurting

“When tragedy strikes, we enter a crisis of faith. We either move toward God or away from God.”

“There is no human experience which cannot be put on the anvil of a lively relationship with God and man, and battered into a meaningful shape.”

“Christianity doesn’t in any way lessen suffering. It enables you to take it, to face it, to work through it, and eventually convert it.”

“God’s Word empowers us not to evade suffering, but to face suffering face-to-face with God.”

“In suffering, God is not getting back at you; He is getting you back to Himself.”

“Shared sorrow is endurable sorrow.”

“No grieving; no healing. Know grieving; know healing.”

“We live in a fallen world and it often falls on us.”

“The world is a mess and it messes with our minds.”

“Spiritual friendship with God results in 20/20 spiritual vision from God.”

“To deny or diminish suffering is to arrogantly refuse to be humbled. It is to reject dependence upon God.”

“Crying out to God empties us so there is more room in us for God.”

“Faith does not demand the removal of suffering; faith desires endurance in suffering.”

“Faith understands that what can’t be cured, can be endured.”

“Comfort experiences the presence of God in the presence of suffering—a presence that empowers me to survive scars and plants the seed of hope that I will yet thrive.”

“In this life, your scar may not go away, but neither will His. He understands. He cares. He’s there.”

“Spiritual emergencies can produce spiritual emergence.”

“Faith looks back to the past recalling God’s mighty works. Hope looks ahead remembering God’s coming reward.”

“In Christ, loss is never final. Christ’s resurrection is the first-fruit of every resurrection.”

“When we wait on God, we cling to God’s rope of hope, even when we can’t see it.”

“Hope waits. Hope is the refusal to demand heaven now.”

“Waiting is refusing to take over while refusing to give up. Waiting refuses self-rescue.”

“In Christ, we move from victims to victors.”

“God is a ‘time God.’ He does not come before time. He does not come after time. He comes at just the right time.”

“Faith is entrusting myself to God’s larger purposes, good plans, and eternal perspective.”

“Faith is seeing life with spiritual eyes instead of eyeballs only.”

“Through faith, I look at suffering, not with rose colored glasses, but with faith eyes, with Cross-eyes, with 20/20 spiritual vision.”

“Instead of our perspective shrinking, suffering is the exact time when we must listen most closely, when we must lean over to hear the whisper of God.”

“True, God shouts to us in our pain, but His answers, as with Elijah, often come to us in whispered still small voices amid the thunders of the world.”

“God’s eternal, heavenly story doesn’t obliterate my earthly, painful story; it gives it meaning.”

“Grace math teaches us that present suffering plus God’s character equals future glory. The equation we use is the Divine perspective.”

“Worship is wanting God more than wanting relief.”

“Worship is finding God even when you don’t find answers.”

“Worship is walking with God in the dark and having Him as the light of your soul.”

“Every problem is an opportunity to know God better, and our primary battle is to know God well.”

“Problems can either shove us far from God or drag us kicking and screaming closer to Him.”
http://www.rpmministries.org/2010/06/the-top-three-dozen-quotes-on-god%E2%80%99s-healing/

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. says it best:

“As my sufferings mounted I soon realized that there were two ways in which I could respond to my situation — either to react with bitterness or seek to transform the suffering into a creative force. I decided to follow the latter course.”
Martin Luther King Jr.

It the end of it all, we are left with God is good.

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