Volume 36, #7
March 2021

Plant these "seeds" well and water often. Enjoy!

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Be On A Mission . . . . . . . . . . . . Jon Gordon, Daily Positive, 02/9/2021

     "I ask you [young people] who are just setting out on your journey through life: have you thought about the talents that God has given you? Have you thought of how you can put them at the service of others? Do not bury your talents! Set your stakes on great ideals, the ideals that enlarge the heart, the ideals of service that make your talents fruitful. Life is not given to us to be jealously guarded for ourselves, but is given to us so that we may give it in turn. Dear young people, have a deep spirit! Do not be afraid to dream of great things!"

Acts of Kindness . . . . . . . . . . . Jack Kornfield

     "While the news often features the worst of humanity, there are a billion acts of human kindness every hour of every day! Take another breath and sense this truth."

     "Vainglory is particularly dangerous in that it renders presumptuous and too self-confident, and presumption blinds us to the need to seek counsel from others. That is why vainglory begets disobedience, boastfulness, hypocrisy, contention, obstinacy, discord, and interestingly enough, the love of novelties. The vain strive to make known their excellence by showing that they are not inferior to others."

Say ‘Thank You’ . . . . . . . . . . . William Arthur Ward

"God gave you 86,400 seconds today. Have you used one to say, ‘thank you.’"

     "Freedom presupposes that in fundamental decisions, every person and every generation is a new beginning. Naturally, new generations can build on the knowledge and experience of those who went before, and they can draw upon the moral treasury of the whole of humanity. But they can also reject it, because it can never be self-evident in the same way as material inventions. The moral treasury of humanity is not readily at hand like tools that we use; it is present as an appeal to freedom and a possibility for it."

Irish Blessing . . . . . . . . . . . Fr. Andrew M. Greeley, The Irish, p. 5

"May the morning sun stir you out of bed,
May the winter winds move you on the road,
May the rains of March renew your strength,
May the flowers of spring captivate your sight,
May summer heat inflame your zeal,
May autumn color stimulate your dreams,
May the silver moon make you wiser yet,
May you never be with yourself content,
May Jesus and Mary keep you young,
Full of life and laughter and love.
And may the God of challenge and adventure
Bless you and keep you always,
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit."

Thinking of You? . . . . . . . . . . . Elizabeth Gilbert

     "We all spend our twenties and thirties trying so hard to be perfect, because we’re so worried about what people will think of us. Then we get into our forties and fifties, and we finally start to be free, because we decide that we don’t give a hoot what anyone thinks of us. But you won’t be completely free until you reach your sixties and seventies, when you finally realize this liberating truth — nobody was ever thinking about you, anyhow."

On Civilization . . . . . . . . . . . G.K. Chesterton

     "Civilization has run on ahead of the soul of man and is producing faster than he can think and give thanks."

Forgive & Forget . . . . . . . . . . . Lewis B. Smedes, p. xi

     "Somebody hurt you, maybe yesterday, maybe a lifetime ago, and you cannot forget it. You did not deserve the hurt. It went deep, deep enough to lodge itself in your memory. And it keeps on hurting you now.…

     Forgiveness is God’s invention for coming to terms with a world in which, despite their best intentions, people are unfair to each other and hurt each other deeply. He began by forgiving us. And he invites us all to forgive each other.

     Forgiving is love’s toughest work, and love’s biggest risk.…"

Stab of Conscience . . . . . . . . . . . John Ellis Large

"The most painful wound in the world is a stab of conscience."

Change the World . . . . . . . . . . . Fr. James Keller,
                                                         You Can Change the World, The Christophers, p. xx

The Old Truths . . . . . . . . . . . Earl Nightingale

     "It may be true that there’s nothing new under the sun; but we’d sure be a lot better off if we could just remember some of the old truths that we all really know but tend to forget."

The Seasons of Life . . . . . . . . . . . Jim Rohn, p. 68

     "Each day is given to us as a new season of spring. The thoughts, deeds, dreams and efforts of today will provide tomorrow’s harvest. To neglect the opportunity given to us this day is to delay our better future. Do not use today to mentally re-live yesterday or to await the arrival of tomorrow, for tomorrow — when it arrives — will be called today. There will be no better day, no better opportunity, no better springtime, no better time to begin than the current moment. Seize the moments as you find them and mold them into your own better future. Today’s procrastination will surely be tomorrow’s regret."

Great Talent . . . . . . . . . . . William Arthur Ward

"Great talent is occasionally molded into genius
by the hands of diligence and self-discipline."

Caged in Sin . . . . . . . . . . . Carmella Gentile

     A nine-year-old girl went to confession, as she did every Saturday for the last two years. As she finished her Act of Contrition, the priest started to chuckle and asked her to repeat the last lines she just said. The girl said, "And avoid all boys caged in sin!"

     Hey girls, that’s still some pretty good advice!

     A campus minister relates a conversation he had with a student. She told him she was in rebellion against many things, including her parents. They had given her everything but love, she said. She was in rebellion against the Church because she felt it was a meaningless institution with nothing to say to real life, nothing to reach her at "gut level," as she put it. She was in rebellion against Christians because she felt they were hypocrites.

     After about an hour of this, the conversation began to take a more positive turn. The girl began to talk about where her life was going, about what was she looking for. Finally, it came down to her saying the following: "Down deep inside I know the Jesus Christ has the answer to my life." Then, half-defiantly, half-wistfully, she ended the conversation with these words: "But I just don’t want that answer."

     In the end, that is really what it comes down to for all of us. We have the answer deep down inside us. The question is, "Do we want it?"