Spreading love, joy, peace, faith & unity

Posts tagged ‘loving one another’

What’s Important?

So, what’s really important?

Ask yourself that question.

What are the items, ideas, concepts, people, activities that come to mind?

It’s a sobering question in today’s world, an important question to address, and your answer really should direct your thoughts, time, and actions.

What’s My Answer?

Your answer to that important question most likely will be very different from mine. That’s okay, because it is a crucial question – and it needs to be answered personally. Here are my thoughts:

  • Our earth’s survival … especially in light of climate change and the way it is causing floods, earthquakes, forest fires, animal deaths, a reduction of safe human water supply, etc.
  • Our USA democracy’s future; the future of our adherence to the constitution, and the results of the 2020 presidential election
  • Morals… our ability as a people in the world to live in Christ-like love, treating one another with respect and compassion
  • Sharing our resources, caring for one another, using our sense of kindness and our resources and talents to be all God made us to be
  • Tell me what you would add in terms of “What’s Important to You?”

Making a Difference

Even though my list starts out with global and national concerns, and I am committed to doing whatever I can, the place where I feel we can do the most good is on that one-on-one contact. If we look at those giant problems, we sometimes conclude they are too big for us to do anything about them, even though they may be “most important” to us.

So, bottom line, while I support “Pure Love Does” to educate children in third world countries, and I reach out with “Clean Water” donations and other monetary ways to support worthy causes, what’s most important to me is what I do day after day in tangible ways:

What’s Most Important to YOU?

Here’s another of mine:

Share your ideas with me!

Thanks for visiting JanBeek.

See ya tomorrow.

O = Opportunities

Day #15 in my A – Z series of “What Makes Me Happy?”

OPPORTUNITIES

Opportunities

Should not ever be wasted

Grab onto one now

.

What opportunity might you take advantage of today?

.

Share with me an “O” word that makes YOU happy.

.

Oh, and Happy Halloween!

How Giving Are You?

Give With Abandon

Is the message for today

Let’s hold nothing back.

Mother Theresa inspires me with her wisdom. She told us, “It’s not how much you give, but how much love you put into giving.”

Today I will give with abandon all the love I have in me.

And I won’t stop there. I will give:

  • Joy
  • Compassion
  • Encouragement
  • Trust
  • Hugs
  • Hospitality
  • Lasagna, French bread, a salad, and strawberry sundaes…

How about you? Give with childlike generosity. Give with abandon!

What will you give today?

Kind Words

Kind Words

sunset hands love woman

Photo by Stokpic on Pexels.com

 

Mother Theresa was the first

who said something like this:

“Kind words can be short

But their echo

Lasts Forever.”

.

  • Come in
  • Thank you
  • You’re welcome
  • I’m sorry
  • You’re forgiven
  • I need you
  • I’m praying for you
  • He hears
  • I’m listening
  • I care
  • I’m here for you
  • Join me
  • I’d love to

.

Can you add to the list?

What kind words

Have you spoken today?

What kind words

Have you heard today?

How did you respond?

Do you hear the echoes?

.

  • Come again soon
  • I love you!

Life’s a Teeter-Totter

Twenty-seven years ago I wrote the poem that’s framed in the picture above (when I still considered myself a kid). I presented it as a birthday gift to my mom. When she left this earth a few years ago, I inherited the poem and the ceramic, musical mice in the teeter-totter that accompanied it.

Yesterday a blogging friend wrote a piece about “Balance.” She asked if it gets easier to find balance in life as we get older. I recalled this poem and told her I would post it today.

Rereading it now with 27 extra birthdays under my belt, I believe the “IFs” in here still are relevant today. And without that foundation of love, I would imagine finding balance is a bigger life-long struggle than it is for those whose home, mother, family and friends provided the love and stability we all crave.

What do you think?

.

Life is Like a Teeter-Totter

.

Life is like a teeter-totter,

Full of ups and downs.

Kids learn to roll and toss with it,

To shake away the frowns,

If they have had a loving home

To lean back and reminisce on when they roam.

.

Life is like a teeter-totter,

Full of bounces and of bumps.

Kids learn to rock with a jolly jump

And shake away the lumps

If they have had a loving mother

To hug them tight and with kisses smother.

.

Life is like a teeter-totter,

It works better in pairs.

They keep each other balanced

And handle life in shares –

If they have had their mother’s arms

To guard against abuse and harms.

.

Life is like a teeter-totter,

Full of laughs and silly giggle.

Full of noise and wonderment –

Girls to squeeze and boys that wiggle –

If they have been secure in love,

Both from home’s hearth and God above.

.

Thank you, Mom, for filling my life

With love. More ups than downs, for sure.

You seemed to know my every need.

For every hurt, you had a cure.

Happy Birthday, Mother dear –

I thank God every day that you are near!

.

.

If you had a happy, loving home, with a mom who provided that sense of security and the ready help when you needed it, I bet you are able to keep life’s teeter-totter in better balance than those folks who missed that connection. How would you characterize your childhood? Did you have a mom who helped you have a greater chance for a balanced life?

FATHER

The poem below is one I found in a box of my mom’s favorite poems. She had this one memorized and used to recite it (along with others she had committed to memory) at various public gatherings and her Rebekah’s Lodge meetings.

FATHER

Used to wonder just why Father

Never had much time for play;

Used to wonder why he’d rather

Work each minute of the day.

Used to wonder why he never

Loafed along the road and shirked.

Can’t recall a single time whenever

Father played, while others worked.

Father never dressed in fashion,

Sort of hated clothing new;

Style with him was not a passion,

He had other things in view.

Boys are blind to much that’s going

On about ’em day by day.

And I had no way of knowing

What became of Father’s pay.

All I knew was when I needed

Shoes, I got ’em on the spot

Everything for which I pleaded

Somehow, Father always got.

Wondered, season after season,

Why he never took a rest

And that I might be the reason,

That, I never even guessed.

Wanted me to go to college

Dad was great on learning stuff

Always said that having knowledge

Helped a man through places rough.

But I thought it too much bother,

And I loitered day by day,

Wasting time, ignoring a Father,

Now I know I’ll have to pay.

Saw his cheeks were getting paler,

Didn’t understand just why;

Saw his body growing frailer,

Then at last I saw him die.

Rest had come, his tasks had ended,

Calm was written on his brow;

Father’s life was big and splendid –

And I understand it now.

Poet Unknown

Welcome

Welcome to the new year. Welcome to new friends. Welcome new ides. Welcome new insights –  revelations – growth – enlightenment. Life is good! I am having a wonderful time here in the fun of the sun in southern California. My pup loves it, too. So does my husband. Back home in Montana I am told they had one hundred mile per hour winds today. Yuck! Cold I can take. Snow I can appreciate. But raging winds? No thanks! I am happy to be here.

Thanks for coming to visit my blog today. I will try to find time each evening to share with you a few of the fresh insights that this new year has offered.

Image

Come walk and talk awhile. Let me share my first couple stanzas from last Sunday’s sermon notes – taken at Bloom in the Desert Ministries in Palm Springs. Rev Kev is quite the pastor. As I recorded his words through my poetic filter, I heard him say:

We welcome all who welcome all.
We open our hearts to you.
We see ourselves from the inside out.
We love as God loves you.

We gather in the presence of God.
We are His Light.
We hear the Word, receive Good News,
Imagine the fun of Snoopy’s flight…

And then he launched into a Snoopy, Linus, Red Baron story to illustrate other points he was teaching and preaching, but my mind took flight. Rev Kev read the scripture about Jesus’ baptism, the meaning and importance of baptism, and the way in which we mortals put our own spin on things. We over-think. We over-define. We see one another, too often, from the outside – make judgements, never give ourselves the chance to really see one another as God sees us. We limit ourselves and others in the process.

Once upon a time Bob and I left a church because the minister, Reverend Diane, decided to marry her female partner of a decade. How do you react to that? Hmmm…?

Come walk with me. Talk with me. Churches are splitting over this issue. Families are splitting over this issue. People are being threatened and killed over this issue. What would Jesus say?

Rev Kev introduced us to his husband. “We welcome all who welcome all.”

Bob and I talked as we walked in the desert. TazE, our sweet Boston Terrier, was a great listener.

Image

Welcome! Come walk and talk with us. See you tomorrow?

Inspirational Monday

Inspirational Monday.

My blog’s subtitle is “Love One Another.” I have not seen a story that exemplifies this concept quite like Tim Harris’ story written by Andrea Kelly and videotaped on http://www.thehandwrittenlife.wordpress.com/2013/03/18/inspirational-monday-2/

Check it out and be prepared to give a high-five and a hug to the next person you see. Oh ya!!!!!

My Christmas Letter

Each year for the past couple of decades, I have sent out a poem with my Christmas cards, a rhyming Christmas letter that summarized the events and blessings of the past year. I enjoy Christmas letters from my family and friends. Do you? This year I have decided to forego the poem. Instead, my cards contain a picture of Bob and me with our two adult children, taken last February at our 50th wedding anniversary party. The old cliche’, “A picture is worth a thousand words,” applies here. I’ll write a personal note on each card, but for family and friends who have watched us grow through the years, this photo speaks volumes.

Image

My Christmas Letter

We are living letters
To each other,
Sharing the beautiful story
God is writing with our ives.
Through the Holy Spirit,
By the grace of Jesus Christ,
Our stories are a testimony
Of God’s love alive in us.
We are living letters
To a hurting world,
Sharing hope and peace
Found only in our Lord.
Smile God’s blessed message;
Give your world a dose
Of the healing love of Jesus.
Be the balm to soothe
The souls of those who need it most.

We are living letters.

Merry Christmas, dear friends!