Thought for Today

How To Feel Great in 2008!

1. Take a 10-30 minute walk every day. It is the ultimate anti-depressant.
2. Sit in silence for at least 10 minutes each day. Buy a lock if you have to!
3. Tape your late night shows and get more sleep.
4. When you wake up in the morning, complete the following statement: My purpose is to___________ today.
5. Live with the 3 E's. Energy, Enthusiasm, Empathy.
6. Play more games and read more books than you did in 2007.
7. Make time to practice meditation, yoga, tai chi, qigong and prayer. They provide us with daily fuel for our busy lives.
8. Eat more foods that grow on trees and plants...and eat less foods that are manufactured in plants.
9. Drink green tea & plenty of water and eat blueberries, almonds &walnuts.
10. Clear your clutter from your house, your car, your desk and let new energy into your life.
11. Don't waste your precious energy on gossip, issues of the past,negative thoughts or things you cannot control. Instead invest it in a gift we call the present.
12. Realize that life is a school and you are here to learn. Problems are simply part of the curriculum that appear and fade away like algebra class...but the lessons you learn will last a lifetime.
13. Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and eat dinner like a college kid with a maxed out charge card.
14. Each night before you go to bed complete the following statements: I am thankful for __________. Today I accomplished____________.
15. Develop meaningful relationships with yourself, your family, your friends, and your higher power.

Whew!
OK, let's start with only one or two of the above ideas...it will still make a difference in your life!

Donna

Thought for Today

Grand adventures await those who are willing to turn the corner.-- Chinese saying

OK, so I know all I need is light enough to take the next step...BUT who doesn't want to see around the corner?! Sounds like the adventure lies in the willingness to turn the corner, with or without the light!

So it's about taking a risk...having faith...,courage even when you're afraid, and all that scary stuff. It's about living fully as opposed to living partially. Daring to be, to do...not cowering in the corner hoping you won't be called upon to answer...hoping you're invisible.

OK, so stand up...do the deed...take the credit...let the adrenalin flow! Turn that corner! You'll be amazed at what is waiting round the bend!

Donna

Thought for Today

It is very easy to forgive others their mistakes. It takes more gut and gumption to forgive them for having witnessed your own. ~Jessamyn West

It feels noble to forgive others their awful mistakes, but we are filled with guilt and shame when we realize they've caught us in a mistake. To take the focus off what we've done, sometimes we try to find something wrong with them. It isn't easy to claim our own mistakes...but it can be very freeing.

We can embrace the experience of being found out and see it as a gift to help keep us honest. It is one of those gifts that is so well-wrapped, we have difficulty recognizing it!

Donna
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Thought for Today

He who believes himself to be far advanced in the spiritual life has not even made a good beginning. ~Jean Pierre Camus

There are no graduates who have completed the spiritual course. We are all teachers and students of one another.

To believe we don't need to grow anymore spiritually is a sure sign that we have more learning ahead of us. It's kind of like boasting about how humble we are!

It's great to take comfort from your faith; it's quite another to believe you have completed the course.

Donna

Thought for Today

When pain is to be borne, a little courage helps more than much knowledge, a little human sympathy more than much courage, and the least tincture of the love of God more than all.

~C.S. Lewis

If you listen to the TV ads or look on the pharmacy shelf of a store, it seems there is a medication for every type of pain. But there are some types of pain that no medication can touch. Even physical pain is often the result of the deeper pain of the mind, heart, or spirit. So courage, sympathy and the love of God may be just the answer for healing or reducing some of our pain.

Pain requently comes from fear. Perfect Love (Spirit) casts out fear. Consider the cures that can come from love...your love and the love of God.

Donna

Thought for Today

We have met the enemy and they is us. ~Pogo

We are ALL children of God. Today when you meet people in the supermarket, fellow employees, or your family and friends...look at them as if you were interacting with God, because you are!

The sacred Hindu greeting of Namaste means "I salute the divinity within you." Practice Namaste daily and you'll start to see people in a new light. We are all one in spiritual kinship!

They IS us!!

Donna

And the angels sang...

WOW! That was the consensus at Sunday morning services today! Keri King and Amanda Watson sang. They sang the Prelude, led our 2 community songs, sang Special Music, and led us in a round for Offertory!! It was beautiful, touching, and heart healing. Many of us were moved to tears. People told me they could actually feel their hearts lifting. I know I felt my own heart soar.

Music must soothe the savage beast...or breast! And we want more!!

Thank you, Keri and Amanda!! Excellent!!

Thought for Today

When Jesus said that we should not judge lest we be judged, he was stating the action of the law of cause and effect. If we wish a complete clearance from any sense of condemnation about ourselves, we must first be certain we have released all condemnation of others from our own minds.~Ernest Holmes
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After I read these words of Ernest Holmes, I picked up my Daily Word booklet and read the message saying...'as children of God we mirror to one another the divine attributes within us.' And I thought to myself...I wonder if we also mirror to one another the negative attributes within us. Hmmm.

Is the person who is critical of me simply a mirror image of my own critical inner being? Are those who sit in judgment of me a mirror image of myself sitting in judgment of others?

Yikes, once again I am confronted with the knowing that this spiritual path is about ME, not THEM. I have to release my criticism, my judgment, my "stuff" and that will allow the Spirit in me and the Spirit in others to know their Oneness.

There is One Presence and One Power. That Presence and Power is God and that Presence and Power fills everything and everybody.

Donna

Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.
Oscar Wilde(1854 - 1900)


Usually, the weakness we see and criticize in others (and find most difficult to accept or forgive) are those things about which we have not forgiven ourselves, or in which we most fear being deficient.

Look at what angers you in others. Look at the kind of person you just can't stand, and you will likely see something in yourself that you have been unable to forgive.

Letting go of our denial and facing the truth about ourselves is a fearful step.

Donna