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Volume 30, #6 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . February 2015 |
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![inspiration, motivation, Apple Seeds, [Apple]](AppleSeeds-1c.jpg)
![inspiration, motivation, Apple Seeds, [Apple]](AppleSeeds-2c.jpg)
Plant these "seeds" well and water often. Enjoy!
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On Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Anonymous
"An education should include knowledge of what to do with it."
On Commitment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Abraham Lincoln
"Commitment is what transforms a promise into reality. It is the words that speak boldly of your intentions. And the actions which speak louder than the words. It is making the time when there is none. Coming through time after time after time, year after year after year. Commitment is the stuff character is made of; the power to change the face of things. It is the daily triumph of integrity over skepticism."
Overcome Apathy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Arnold Toynbee
"Apathy can be overcome by enthusiasm, and enthusiasm can be aroused by two things: first, an idea which takes the imagination by storm; and second, a definite, intelligible plan for carrying that idea into action."
Real Tragedy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Plato
"We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy is when men are afraid of the light."
Merton on Prayer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Source Unknown
"Contemplation is a state of heightened consciousness, the highest expression of the intellectual and spiritual life, spontaneous awe of the sacredness of life, of being; gratitude of life, for awareness, and for being; a breakthrough to a new life of reality: vivid awareness of the reality of the sources of life and being; an awakening to the Real within all that is real."
Great Danger . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Adolph Monod
"Between the great things we cannot do and the little things we will not do, the danger is we shall do nothing."
Patience with Yourself . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . St. Francis de Sales
"Have patience with all things, but chiefly have patience with yourself. Do not lose courage in considering your own imperfections, but instantly set about remedying them – every day begin the task anew."
Self-Respect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Alfred Whitney Griswold,
past president of Yale University"Self-respect cannot be hunted. It cannot be purchased. It is never for sale. It cannot be fabricated out of public relations. It comes to us when we are alone, in quiet moments, in quiet places, when we suddenly realize that knowing the good, we have done it; knowing the beautiful we have served it; knowing the truth, we have spoken it."
Our Religion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . William Arthur Ward
"Our religion should make us more concerned than comforted, more involved than insulated, more inclusive than exclusive, and more mobilized than tranquilized."
Art of Forgiving . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Thomas Morgan, "The Pastor and Holiness," The Priest, 5/85
"When we forgive and accept others with their imperfections we are sparing ourselves the negative emotion of resentment. If you resent others you squander your energies. You become sour, sad and cynical. You can easily become depressed and gloomy. The unforgiving person destroys relationships and breaks hearts.
The art of forgiving can be essential to the art of living. Give up the blame and hatred you harbor for others. If their treatment of you was really horrible, then learn from it. Vow not to treat others that way. The decision is yours. Forgive them in your heart. If you cannot forgive them, then you will be choosing to be hurt; choosing to have all your energy bound up. This will only victimize you all the more.
Moreover, if you don’t forget and forgive you will be the only person to suffer. I emphasize you will be the only person to suffer. Jesus is our model. He chose not to be resentful but to be forgiving. He knew that resentments can set up a very negative value system.
By modeling ourselves on Jesus our wounds are healed; our lives can become free; our thinking can become positive."
A Goodfinder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . John Powell, SJ, A Life-Giving Vision, p. 54
"By definition, a goodfinder is one who looks for and finds what is good in him or herself, in others, and in all the situations of life. It is probably true that we usually do find whatever we are looking for. If we set ourselves to find evil, there is plenty of it to be discovered. On the other hand, if we seek to find goodness, there is also much goodness waiting for our discovery. If we look for imperfections in ourselves and in others, the search will no doubt be successful. However, if we look beyond the weak and the foolish things and seek to find the good and beautiful things that no one else had ever looked quite far enough to find, our search will be rewarded with success. It all depends upon what we are looking for."
Greatest Value . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jim Rohn
"One person caring about another represents life’s greatest value."
X-Rated . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Zig Ziglar’s Little Book of Quotes
"Most x-rated films are advertised as ‘adult entertainment,’ for ‘mature adults,’ when in reality they are juvenile entertainment for immature and insecure people."
A Good Story . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Annette Simmons, The Story Factor, p. 129
"It is scary, but a good story will manufacture memories in your listener’s mind that can become indistinct from real memories.…Repeating a story over and over or telling a powerful story that people remember over and over etches detail into the brain that the emotional mind cannot distinguish from real events.…"
Our Existence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Sr. Macrina Wiederkehr, OSB
"The truth of who you are rests between two very important moments: your first breath and your last breath. Somewhere between birth and death we work out…our existence on this earth."
Monks of Skinned Knees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . John Claypool, Connections, Sept. 12, 1993
Beyond the edge of the mountain village stood a monastery nestled into the mountainside. The monks were seldom seen in the village, but the people held them in high esteem.
One day one of the monks trekked down the mountain to the village. An excited villager honored to meet one of the monks, started a conversation:
"Father, surely yours is the best of all lives, living so close to God up in the clouds on top of the mountain. Tell me, what do you do up there?"
After a thoughtful pause, the monk replied, "Well, I’ll tell you. We fall down and we get up. We fall down and we get up. We fall down, but with God’s help, we keep getting back get up."
All God asks of us is that we forgive one another as He forgives us, to help one another back up when we stumble just as He lifts us up.
Envy’s Clutching Power . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Source Unknown
A couple, vacationing in Maine, visited the harbor to watch the boats return from fishing and lobstering. One lobster boat docked near them and unloaded buckets of freshly trapped lobsters. The wife became intrigued watching the lobsters scurrying about in the buckets. She noticed that as soon as one lobster began to climb its way out of the bucket the other lobsters would pull it back down. It seemed to her that it would have been fairly easy for each lobster to crawl out of the bucket, except that they were always being pulled back down by the others.
Lobsters certainly can teach us about the powerful effects of envy’s clutching power in human nature, too. Doesn’t it seem that as soon as one person decides to stretch and climb out of whatever "bucket" that there are so many others clutching to pull him or her back down, rather than trying to support and push him or her further along?
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Graphics used with permission from ChurchArt Online. They are not to be copied or downloaded.