(c) Tomo Yun ( http://www.yunphoto.net/en/Just as a plant requires both the rainfall and the sunlight to blossom and bear fruit.
So we need both the joys and pains of life to grow in strength and abundance.
Friday, July 27, 2007
Simply Loving first
Tradition suggests that the Portrait of Love given by St Paul (1Corinthians13: 4-13) is a description of Jesus himself.
I love it so much.
"Love is always patient and kind; it is never jealous; love is never boastful or conceited; it is never rude or selfish; it does not take offence, and is not resentful. Love takes no pleasure in other peoples sins but delights in the truth; it is always ready to excuse, to trust, to hope and to endure whatever comes."
How wonderful it would be if love was the prefix of all ours thoughts toward others. If we simply loved first. If we felt love before we apraised a person's appearance or demeanor.
When it comes to my children I have to check myself at times. Am I connecting with them before I critisize. Do I notice the unwashed faces, uncombed hair and jeans smeared with grass stains before I notice them. Their hearts, their thoughts, thier perspective, their intentions.
Am I loving them first.
Love is fluid, able to find it's way through the smallest gaps like sunlight through a crack in the curtain which penetrates a whole room with quivering light.
Some people have quite a harsh, austere or aloof exterior that can be hard to penetrate. But once offered kindness most people quickly discard their outer defences.
Often it is only the preconceived ideas we have about people that prevent us from loving them without restraint.
Equally, when love is the initiator of action, it can offer us so much extra strength, purpose and grace. It becomes the wind in our sails, propelling us onward towards through difficulty, trial, pain and grief. I've often realised how much more joy I get from serving others when I do it in a true spirit of love rather than duty.
If love flows through us, the spirit flows through us too. Love is like pure water, rinsing our eyes with clarity. Flowing freely, seeping into every dark corner, every tiny space.
I love it so much.
"Love is always patient and kind; it is never jealous; love is never boastful or conceited; it is never rude or selfish; it does not take offence, and is not resentful. Love takes no pleasure in other peoples sins but delights in the truth; it is always ready to excuse, to trust, to hope and to endure whatever comes."
How wonderful it would be if love was the prefix of all ours thoughts toward others. If we simply loved first. If we felt love before we apraised a person's appearance or demeanor.
When it comes to my children I have to check myself at times. Am I connecting with them before I critisize. Do I notice the unwashed faces, uncombed hair and jeans smeared with grass stains before I notice them. Their hearts, their thoughts, thier perspective, their intentions.
Am I loving them first.
Love is fluid, able to find it's way through the smallest gaps like sunlight through a crack in the curtain which penetrates a whole room with quivering light.
Some people have quite a harsh, austere or aloof exterior that can be hard to penetrate. But once offered kindness most people quickly discard their outer defences.
Often it is only the preconceived ideas we have about people that prevent us from loving them without restraint.
Equally, when love is the initiator of action, it can offer us so much extra strength, purpose and grace. It becomes the wind in our sails, propelling us onward towards through difficulty, trial, pain and grief. I've often realised how much more joy I get from serving others when I do it in a true spirit of love rather than duty.
If love flows through us, the spirit flows through us too. Love is like pure water, rinsing our eyes with clarity. Flowing freely, seeping into every dark corner, every tiny space.
Priceless Gifts
http://www.lightandland.co.uk/
I was talking with some friends over dinner recently about that ever popular question: What would you do if you won the lottery? Everybody gave similar answers: a percentage for charity, a percentage toward their children's future, a percentage for themselves, a percentage for friends and loved ones.
It seems like a dream, to win the lottory and never have to worry about your future finances ever again!
I would certainly love to give back to those who have given so geneourously in acts of service to me. In fact I have often thought about the fun I'd have sending anonymous cheques to those wonderful people in my life whom I owe so much.
However, the more I contemplated the actual truth behind the fact, the more I started to realise how much I would also want just for myself. How easy it would be to bit by bit pad out my exsisitence. A quick cab ride here, a new wardrobe there, a quick trip... anywhere...whenever, whatever, however!
Mmm... I guess God knows how to protect me from myself and loves me enough never to let me win the lottery hey!
After searching a little deeper I found that I actually come to a completly different conclusion in answer to the initial question.
Maybe, the deepest part of me dosen't actually want to attain a huge ammount of wealth.
If I suddenly came into alot of money I would never have to trust in providence again.
If all aspects of my life were completly secured, if all my bases were covered, if I new whatever I chose to do whether it be right or wrong, everything would work out just fine in the end, I would never have to trust God to lead me every step of the way, from day to day, hour to hour, moment to moment.
If all I had to worry about was pleasing myself I could wander away all on my own.
Maybe I'd see alot of places and meet alot of people along that way but at the end of the road would I find an eternal pathway ahead of me?
We are not made to walk alone. We are not made to be isolated. God calls us to him individually so that we can be united with him. So that we may become part of something much greater and more infinate than the small fragment of our own life.
It's so natural to want security, whether it be financial, emotional or physical. But the truth is that every day is a gift, every hour is a gift and every moment is a gift.
From the moment I gave myself and my life to Christ he has called me more and more to choose a life that makes me totally reliant upon HIM. The further along the road I go, the more I realise I would be lost without him.
In the end, the things I've found along that journey are priceless and I wouldn't care to trade them.
Thursday, July 26, 2007
CONTENTMENT
I found this wonderful little story at Sarah's fantastic blog "A bend in the Road" ( look down the side bar for a link) and thought I would share it :)
Even if you sleep in a thousand mat room, you can only sleep on one mat. Japanese Proverb
A businessman bought popcorn from an old street vendor each day after lunch. He once arrived to find the peddler closing up his stand at noon.
"Is something wrong?" he asked.A smile wrinkled the seller's leathery face.
"By no means. All is well."
"Then why are closing your popcorn stand?"
"So I can go to my house, sit on my porch, and sip tea with my wife."
The man of commerce objected. "But the day is still young. You can still sell."
"No need to," the stand owner replied. "I've made enough money for today."
"Enough? Absurd. You should keep working."
The spry old man stopped and stared at his well-dressed visitor.
"And why should I keep working?"
"To sell more popcorn."
"And why sell more popcorn?"
"Because the more popcorn you sell, the more money you make. The more money you make, the richer you are. The richer you are, the more popcorn stands you can buy. The more popcorn stands you buy, the more peddlers sell your product, and the richer you become. And when you have enough, you can stop working, sell you popcorn stands, stay home, and sit on the porch with your wife and drink tea."
The popcorn man smiled. "I can do that today. I guess I have enough."
From 'Cure for the Common Life' by Max Lucado.
Even if you sleep in a thousand mat room, you can only sleep on one mat. Japanese Proverb
A businessman bought popcorn from an old street vendor each day after lunch. He once arrived to find the peddler closing up his stand at noon.
"Is something wrong?" he asked.A smile wrinkled the seller's leathery face.
"By no means. All is well."
"Then why are closing your popcorn stand?"
"So I can go to my house, sit on my porch, and sip tea with my wife."
The man of commerce objected. "But the day is still young. You can still sell."
"No need to," the stand owner replied. "I've made enough money for today."
"Enough? Absurd. You should keep working."
The spry old man stopped and stared at his well-dressed visitor.
"And why should I keep working?"
"To sell more popcorn."
"And why sell more popcorn?"
"Because the more popcorn you sell, the more money you make. The more money you make, the richer you are. The richer you are, the more popcorn stands you can buy. The more popcorn stands you buy, the more peddlers sell your product, and the richer you become. And when you have enough, you can stop working, sell you popcorn stands, stay home, and sit on the porch with your wife and drink tea."
The popcorn man smiled. "I can do that today. I guess I have enough."
From 'Cure for the Common Life' by Max Lucado.
Quotes of Thomas Merton
It is in the ordinary duties and labors of life that the Christian can and should develop his spiritual union with God.
*
Just remaining quietly in the presence of God, listening to Him, being attentive to Him, requires a lot of courage and know-how.
*
Love is our true destiny. We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone-we find it with another.
*
Peace demands the most heroic labor and the most difficult sacrifice. It demands greater heroism than war. It demands greater fidelity to the truth and a much more perfect purity of conscience.
*
Pride makes us artificial and humility makes us real.
*
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.
*
The whole idea of compassion is based on a keen awareness of the interdependence of all these living beings, which are all part of one another, and all involved in one another.
*
We are not at peace with others because we are not at peace with ourselves, and we are not at peace with ourselves because we are not at peace with God.
*
We are so obsessed with doing that we have no time and no imagination left for being. As a result, men are valued not for what they are but for what they do or what they have - for their usefulness.
*
We have what we seek, it is there all the time, and if we give it time, it will make itself known to us.
*
We must make the choices that enable us to fulfill the deepest capacities of our real selves. When ambition ends, happiness begins.
*
Yet it is in this loneliness that the deepest activities begin. It is here that you discover act without motion, labor that is profound repose, vision in obscurity, and, beyond all desire, a fulfillment whose limits extend to infinity.
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Endurance
www.theperfectstick.comDirty water filtered through sand still remains soiled
*
But dirty water filtered through dense rock flows out clensed, purified, refreshed and full of life.
Straining toward the light
www.gardenmob.comLike a flower that opens it's petals toward the sun.
Let me always set my sights towards God's light.
Monday, July 23, 2007
I Ask
www. newmanumass.orgI ask not to see
*
I ask not to know
*
I ask simply to be used.
Cardinal Newman
Saturday, July 21, 2007
Just a thin dark curtain between us and God
I heard a quote somewhere saying how the night sky is just a dark curtain between us and God and how the stars are pinpricks that the angels have pierced through so that we may always see God's light in the darkness.
When I look up at the endless stars in the night sky I am reminded of God's infinite reach.
I know that I may lay down to sleep within the gravity of his love.
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Quotes of Mother Theresa
The success of love is in the loving - it is not in the result of loving. Of course it is natural in love to want the best for the other person, but whether it turns out that way or not does not determine the valueof what we have done
~
It is not how much we do, but how much love we put in the doing. It is not how much we give, but how much love we put in the giving.
~
If we really want to love we must learn how to forgive.
*
We can do no great things; only small things with great love.
There is a terrible hunger for love. We all experience that in our lives - the pain, the loneliness. We must have the courage to recognize it. The poor you may have right in your own family. Find them. Love them.
You and I, we are the Church, no? We have to share with our people. Suffering today is because people are hoarding, not giving, not sharing.Jesus made it very clear. Whatever you do to the least of my brethren, you do it to me.Give a glass of water, you give it to me. Receive a littlechild, you receive me...
Love cannot remain by itself -- it has no meaning. Love has to be put into action, and that action is service- *
The dying, the cripple, the mental, the unwanted, the unloved they are Jesus in disguise
**
Before you speak, it is necessary for you to listen, for God speaks in the silence of the heart.
***
There is only one God and He is God to all; therefore it is important that everyone is seen as equal before God.
I've always said we should help a Hindu become a better Hindu, a Muslim become a better Muslim, a Catholic become a better Catholic.
Saturday, July 14, 2007
What do you think the angels will say?
I do believe I've posted about my 3 year old daughter before.
She is a cupcake!
The other day she was being such a good girl helping sweep up some crumbs with a dustpan and brush that had fallen from the table onto the kitchen floor.
"Oh" I exclaimed pleasingly, thinking quickly of some encouraging words "I think the angels will be watching you help your Mummy and they'll tell God all about what a nice girl you are" :)
Not 10 seconds later her 1 year old sister toddles over to the bin, fishes out an apple peel nochalantly discarding it from her chubby little fingers onto the newly swept floor.
Daughter no 2 looks toward me wearily, places her hands upon her hips indignantly and shakes her head in solemn disapproval.
" Well mummy, what do you think the angels will be telling God about (name) then!
What could I say?
She is a cupcake!
She is a cupcake!
The other day she was being such a good girl helping sweep up some crumbs with a dustpan and brush that had fallen from the table onto the kitchen floor.
"Oh" I exclaimed pleasingly, thinking quickly of some encouraging words "I think the angels will be watching you help your Mummy and they'll tell God all about what a nice girl you are" :)
Not 10 seconds later her 1 year old sister toddles over to the bin, fishes out an apple peel nochalantly discarding it from her chubby little fingers onto the newly swept floor.
Daughter no 2 looks toward me wearily, places her hands upon her hips indignantly and shakes her head in solemn disapproval.
" Well mummy, what do you think the angels will be telling God about (name) then!
What could I say?
She is a cupcake!
Friday, July 13, 2007
BABY LOVE
BABY LOVE
Our new baby is 8 weeks old already. How time flys...
I found this sweet poem and it made me smile :)
In a baby's smile,
we discover the joy
of each moment.
In a baby's eyes,
we see the promise
of tomorrow...
In a baby's touch
we feel the miricle
of Gods love.
From the inside out
www.pbase.com/merriwolf/image/66414798It always amazes me how God can work on us from the inside out. Every time we choose Jesus first, everytime we turn to gaze at the light of Jesus' face God illuminates the path ahead just a little more and clears the dust from our eyes so we may see it a little better.
I had my first daughter when I was just 18.
I was a very different person then. I had lived on my own since I was 16 and had become a bit of a survivalist. Some parts of my life were destructive and everything around me felt transient and fragmented, there were no solid foundations to my world. I felt consistantly empty inside. However, God new how he could call me so I would listen. His voice was steady and true amid the chaos.
My daughter was born one beautiful Springtime morning. The crisp sunlight washed over her face for the first time and I as I stared into her eyes I new there was a new life for me somewhere behind them.
That day I surrendered my life out of love for another to Jesus.
I chose Jesus :)
Slowly but surely I have felt a continuing sense of transformation from within since that moment.
And since that precious moment I have endeavoured to always choose Jesus first. To follow him first.
And as he transforms me on the inside, I find, he transforms my life on the outside too.
I had my first daughter when I was just 18.
I was a very different person then. I had lived on my own since I was 16 and had become a bit of a survivalist. Some parts of my life were destructive and everything around me felt transient and fragmented, there were no solid foundations to my world. I felt consistantly empty inside. However, God new how he could call me so I would listen. His voice was steady and true amid the chaos.
My daughter was born one beautiful Springtime morning. The crisp sunlight washed over her face for the first time and I as I stared into her eyes I new there was a new life for me somewhere behind them.
That day I surrendered my life out of love for another to Jesus.
I chose Jesus :)
Slowly but surely I have felt a continuing sense of transformation from within since that moment.
And since that precious moment I have endeavoured to always choose Jesus first. To follow him first.
And as he transforms me on the inside, I find, he transforms my life on the outside too.
Thursday, July 12, 2007
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Kindness
This is a quote from Roald Dahl and I quite agree with him.....
From an interview with Brian Sibley broadcast by the BBC world service, November 1988
I think probably kindness is my number one attribute in a human being. I'll put it before any of the things like courage or bravery or generosity or anything else.
B.S. or brians even?
oh,gosh,yes,brians are one of the least.you can be a lovely person without brians, absolutely lovely.kindness-that simple word. to be kind-it covers everything in my mind.
If you're kind that's it.
From an interview with Brian Sibley broadcast by the BBC world service, November 1988
I think probably kindness is my number one attribute in a human being. I'll put it before any of the things like courage or bravery or generosity or anything else.
B.S. or brians even?
oh,gosh,yes,brians are one of the least.you can be a lovely person without brians, absolutely lovely.kindness-that simple word. to be kind-it covers everything in my mind.
If you're kind that's it.
Monday, July 09, 2007
Angelwings
We have had housemartins nesting in our roof this year. I has been exciting to hear the rustle of feathers in the attic and we have eagarly awaited their fledging.
Sadly, my little girl just raced upstairs, her eyes stung by tears with the sad news that she found one of the little birds, fallen from the nest in our garden.
" Oh Mummy" she said in her sweet trembling voice " I'm so sad the little birdy died but I know that the angels have brought some new wings for it so that it can fly up to heaven."
Sadly, my little girl just raced upstairs, her eyes stung by tears with the sad news that she found one of the little birds, fallen from the nest in our garden.
" Oh Mummy" she said in her sweet trembling voice " I'm so sad the little birdy died but I know that the angels have brought some new wings for it so that it can fly up to heaven."
"Jesus is in my heart".
I love making crafts with my girls. I put the baby in her rocking seat and sit at the play table cutting, sticking, gluing and painting. ( A big tub of wet wipes close at hand!)
Over the weekend we studied the story of creation and made two collages. One was of the sky, dividing the nightime from the daytime with the moon, stars and sun bordered by feathers and the other was of the earth as a beautiful and unspoiled garden.
My three year old is starting to understand much better the bible stories I read her now.
" I have jesus in my heart"
She said before her prayers the other night.
She is such a loing little girl and I am so happy that she knows Jesus is in her heart already.
Over the weekend we studied the story of creation and made two collages. One was of the sky, dividing the nightime from the daytime with the moon, stars and sun bordered by feathers and the other was of the earth as a beautiful and unspoiled garden.
My three year old is starting to understand much better the bible stories I read her now.
" I have jesus in my heart"
She said before her prayers the other night.
She is such a loing little girl and I am so happy that she knows Jesus is in her heart already.
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