It isn't the circumstances of life that rob you of your joy, it's all the time you spend worrying about them.
Joyce Meyer
In the back of my truck, friends in western Africa ...
There are those among us who are consistently at peace, even when times are difficult. There are those who, when faced with life-changing distress, can respond from a joyful heart and a grateful spirit.
Then, there's the rest of us. High-drama folks, black hole folks, sour-faced, fearful over-thinkers. Expecting the worst seems a common state of mind for many whether the current dilemma is financial or medical or relational ...
It doesn't have to be that way, though, does it. We do know better.
Ever notice that children usually worry less than adults do? Ever wonder why they can spend so much time being happy? Why even when they have little, they can be content?
Why don't children worry? Well, first perhaps, because their needs are simple. A family, food, shelter, and security will pretty much take care of their concerns for today. With such simple things, they're content. Each morning is new and exciting, and they're happy for the opportunity. Every day is a bit of a thrill.
The fortunate ones carry such simple contentment into adult life. Except you become like a little child ....
... and learn therewith to be content.
It's a practical truth, not a religious thing.
Joyce Meyer gave us the opening line, by the way. She's a thoughtful lady and a regular encouragement to folks around the world. (In a church service in Kenya, the sermon, translated from Swahili, reminded me of Joyce. After the service when I told the pastor, he laughed and said he'd been reading her stuff for years.)
A teen looking for the meaning of life told me, "I'm going to spend my life on something;it might as well be something that makes a difference."
A noble thought that deserves a workable plan!
Just for fun, here's a super-quick walk-through to seeing and hitting your target.
It's an informal 'personal mission statement' sort of exercise.
On paper, scribbleanswers for the questions below.
Quickly write the first thing you think of. No editing.
Give 30 seconds for each, and chuckle as you write.
Fun Life Questions:
1. What makes you smile? (Activities, people, events, hobbies...) 2. What were your favorite things to do in the past? And now? 3. What makes you lose track of time? 4. What makes you feel great about yourself? 5. Who inspires you? (Family members, friends, authors, artists, leaders, heroes, etc.) Why?
6. What are you good at? (Skills, abilities, gifts etc.) 7. What do people typically ask you for help with? 8. What are your top 3 values? Examples (right): 9. What are some challenges, difficulties and hardships you’ve
overcome? How? 10. If you could get a message across, what would it be?
And now, my life's goals:
“Writing or reviewing a mission statement changes you
because it forces you to think through your priorities deeply,
carefully, and to align your behaviour with your beliefs” ~Stephen Covey
From the questions above:
What do I want to do?
Who do I want to affect?
What is the result I hope for?
Now if you like, you can see a life plan with goals.
From your answers, notice the actions; for example, teach, help, change, educate, accomplish, empower, rebuild, encourage, give, master, equip, organize, produce, promote, travel, spread, support, provide, understand, write...
You can see who and what you believe you can help; e.g., people, creatures, organizations, causes, groups, environment, etc.
In a sentence or two, you might describe your goals. How will the ‘who’ from your above answer benefit from what you ‘do’?
You can reshape it on purpose, of course. And over the years, it will perhaps need to be adjusted a bit. Absent a plan, though, what progress might you expect?
You can be herded along by others, or you can pick your own path. Target identified. Fire for effect.
Malala was just 14 when she was shot. Last week, men stopped her small school bus, boarded, and shot her in the head along with her two friends. The men are Taliban.
She was 14 when she was shot. AND she lived through it.
Malala Yousafzai is a student and a vocal proponent for education in northern Pakistan. When she was eleven, she began writing an anonymous blog for the BBC about her life under the Taliban. Later, she began speaking publicly. She was sometimes in the media, speaking about the need for girl's education. She won the National Peace Award for her courage, one of the nations highest civilian honors. It's now called the National Malala Peace Prize.
The Taliban position, of course, is that girls belong in the home and should not be educated outside that context. In January '09, the Taliban issued an edict banning all
girls from schools. On her blog, Malala praised her father, who was
operating one of the few schools that would go on to defy that order.
The Taliban have attacked and destroyed girl's schools in northern Pakistan. They say they targeted Malala personally because she is secular-minded and critical of
the militant group.
Now, they are threatening to attack media agencies and kill journalists who are
reporting the matter, and they're threatening to track Malala down and
kill her. And her father.
This isn't religion, of course. This is the same dictatorial power-thinking that Stalin, Mao Zedong, and Pol Pot used to justify murdering millions. Get back in line or die!
After being attacked, Malala was finally airlifted from Pakistan to the U.K. The U.A.E. provided the medical evacuation flight.
Pakistan Taliban
London (CNN) "-- Pakistani schoolgirl Malala
Yousufzai stood for the first time after her shooting Friday morning and
is "communicating very freely," according to the director of the UK
hospital where she is undergoing treatment."
Malala shooting ...
"Malala can't talk because
she has a tracheotomy tube inserted to protect her airway, which was
swollen after her gunshot injury, but she is writing coherent sentences,"
said Dave Rosser, director of University Hospitals Birmingham.
"The latest progress
report ... could make a good recovery." CNN
Pakistanis pray for Malala.
The bullet went through Malala's head from behind her left eye and down through her jaw. There's some damage to her brain, but the doctors say she's thinking well and writing notes, and today she's even standing up with help. The brain injury, doctors note, means that she is just at the beginning of a long recovery process.
Thousands in Pakistan and thousands more around the world have joined the protest begun by this gutsy young girl. She was just eleven years old when she took up her simple cause. Now, perhaps Pakistan will have had enough of the Taliban and their ways.
Every hero's quest is hard. If it was easy, we wouldn't need a hero, would we.
We wish her well, and her family and friends also. Can you imagine how her father must feel? Despite the blinding sorrow of seeing his daughter in pain and in danger, through tears and anguish and fear, still he knows; his daughter is a hero. She's changed her world.
1. It’s the policies: Opposition to specific U.S. policies, rather than to American values or people, has driven this decline. The key policies are: The invasion and occupation of Iraq; support for repressive governments worldwide; a perceived lack of evenhandedness in the Israeli-Palestinian dispute; and torture and abuse of prisoners in violation of treaty obligations.
2. It’s the perception of hypocrisy: Disappointment and bitterness arise from the perception that the proclaimed American values of democracy, human rights, tolerance, and the rule of law have been selectively ignored by successive administrations when American security or economic considerations are in play. 3. It’s the historical memory: U.S. domination remains a potent image for long periods—and that image is used to discredit current U.S. policies.
4. It’s the lack of contact: Contact with America and Americans reduces anti-Americanism, but not opposition to specific policies. Visitors to America—particularly students—and even their families and friends, have more positive views about America than non-visitors by 10 percentage points.
5. It’s the visas: Interaction with the U.S. immigration and the visa process is a significant source of frustration with America. Particularly among Muslim applicants, the experience with customs and border officials creates a perception that they are not welcome. This perception spreads across their communities through their “horror stories” about travel to the United States.
6. It’s the perceived war on Islam: The combination of all of the previous findings has created a growing belief in the Muslim world that the United States is using the “war on terror” as a cover for its attempts to destroy Islam. Incredibly, these countries include Turkey, a long-standing U.S. ally, and Kuwait, the country that the United States liberated from Saddam Hussein’s rule. It is hard to imagine more troubling examples of the decline in America’s reputation.
7. It’s true: U.S. approval ratings have indeed fallen to record lows in nearly every region of the world. Generally positive ratings from the 1950’s to 2000 have moved to generally negative ratings since 2002. Approval ratings are highest in non-Muslim Africa and lowest in Latin America and in Muslim countries.
8. It’s the unilateralism: A recent pattern of ignoring international consensus, particularly in the application of military power, has led to a great deal of anger and fear of attack. This in turn is transforming disagreement with U.S. policies into a broadening and deepening anti-Americanism, a trend noted by the Government Accountability Office.
In Muslim countries, polls found a widespread belief that there is an American war on Islam going on now. Citizens in Muslim countries are concerned that the United States has become a military threat. Of our neighbor across the street, "he's a good fellow," we say.
We've known him awhile, and he's proven himself. He doesn't lie, cheat, or steal. He's thoughtful and good friend. He helps us sometimes, and we return the favor. He helps us watch out for our kids when they're outside. We struggle together with difficult problems rather than struggle separately. He's a thoughtful husband, father, and grandfather. He's a good fellow, we say; the sort of person you'd like to have live nearby, perhaps.
Is it time to consider how we might be a 'good fellow' as a people? As a country among countries? Shall we acknowledge our common future with the rest of mankind and act accordingly? Or shall we continue choosing our best without regard to the impact on others?
This is volatile ground, of course. Just suggesting someone look at the issue invokes centuries of discussion and debate on how one nation might relate to another to their advantage. Do we have a good foundation on which to build?
Interesting cover from a U.N. publication suggests a foundation for ethical policy.
With such a wealth of scholarly work in the field, can you guess how many of these schools of thought begin with fundamental principles you'd recognize; with the values that represent who we are as a people?
Americans face the most extraordinary opportunity to live the vision of greatness we were given by our founders, the good kind of great. How shall we then live?
We wonder as things change if they might slip and go too far. Remember back when the abortion issue was new, we wondered about how our national values might be changed. Did we need to worry about the sanctity of life?
The discussions were heated and long. I remember being told by the proponents of abortion that this wasn't about babies. This was before babies were people; just fetuses. Just a mass of tissue. Nothing to worry about.
So the court cases came and went, new laws and medical practices. Abortions were just shapeless blobs at first, but later we found out there were these perfectly formed humans. Some are dismembered by surgeons while still in the womb, then extracted piece by piece, or they have their brain sucked out seconds before being born alive. And if a child should survive an abortion, Planned Parenthood admits they would let the baby die on the delivery table. It's unwanted.
Scholarly discussions are now in the journals of medicine discussing the lack of difference between pre- and post- birth babies. It's all the same, philosophically speaking. A day before versus a day after; no difference. A week before versus a week after; no difference. A month before versus a month after; no difference. It makes no moral difference, the scholars tell us, if an unwanted baby is aborted or if it is killed on the table after being born.
They admit, they'd leave a baby who survived abortion
to die in the delivery room. It is, after all, unwanted.
They're right, of course. There's no distinguishable moral difference between what the law calls 'abortion' and what the law calls premeditated murder.
It's legal but not morally different if done in utero rather than in the bassinet a few days later.
It's a more difficult issue than first imagined and a more slippery slope than even the worst forecast.
Swept away! Few things bring sweeter memories than being madly in love.
Beginning somewhere around the 6th grade or so, the turmoil we label 'falling in (and out) of love' occupies our emotional lives and awareness. It is great fun, mostly, and absolutely full of drama.
If we are careful to be good-hearted about it, it remains fondly with us in our memory for a lifetime, along with perhaps a few regrets about how we might have been a bit gentler along the way, a bit more sensitive to how the other person might have felt.
Early love is inexperienced and understandably overbalanced toward self and feelings. There's often little substance beyond how wonderfully it makes us feel inside. Older folks smile and tell us that love isn't a feeling.
Love that's had time to grow up a bit retains the high-impact emotional content, but love itself becomes broader and deeper. And it is just too enthralling for words!
So, truth and lies.
Love isn't just a feeling.True, but the feelings that accompany love often speak more eloquently and describe it more fully than mere words. Feelings do get a lot of attention.
a. Love isn't a feeling; it's a decision.Mostly true also, and not
just one. It's decisions made day after day,
decade after decade, in favor of another. And the feelings seem to thrive and grow more complex and rich on the decisions.
Love leads to 'happily ever after'.Lie. Life is full of happy and unhappy. Love can transcend but doesn't preclude the unhappy part.
Love is 'the' source of happiness.Maybe, sort of, almost; but not just 'being in love'. Loving to great purpose can bring great joy.
If someone loves you, they will know and meet all your needs.Ha! Lie, nonsense, and BIG mistake, unless your someone is a magician and mind-reader. And even if they were, being loved covers much, but never 'all your needs'. So sad.
The opposite of love is hate.Not really. For us, love and hate are both choices we make, as in: I wish you well, or I wish you failure, harm, death. The opposite of love is perhaps just selfish indifference to others. I choose for my own benefit alone and without considering you at all.
Love leads to joy. True! While there's great fun and happiness that accompanies our 'being in love', when love grows up, joy accompanies the result.
Persistent selfishness is a love-killer. We can stumble overit every dayuntil we're willing to face our self-centeredness head-on. Some folks
never do, unfortunately, and by the time they're old, they're
permanent frowners, bitter, and angry at everyone except
themselves. Learn and live, don't and die; a downhill slope into loneliness.
Love is larger still than
we understand, I suspect. Grander than romance, deeper than marriage, richer than family, greater than ... than we know. A loving heart, we're told, is patient and kind, not jealous or boastful or proud or rude, doesn't demand its own way, not irritable (?!), and it keeps no record of being mistreated. Love's great heart isn't pleased by injustice but celebrates when the truth wins out. It perseveres, it holds faith and hope firmly, and endures the impossible. True.
... and it changes what it touches! True. It can change the world. Also true.
With all that, it feels like way too much to live up to. Perhaps we're all somewhere along the road, learning about it.
Waving goodbye yet again; good folks on
the far side of the world ....
These thoughts were provoked by a conversation with an associate; he was attempting to offer a compliment on some humanitarian work that my wife and I had helped along. I found myself explaining apologetically that there isn't a philanthropic or altruistic heart behind it. We've talked about it; we're mostly just doing our best and enjoying the opportunity; it's great to hear from the overseas work and particularly from the families we know. Maybe it's a start toward the larger, real love we'd like to know.
It really is great fun (a joy), and the pleasure spreads broadly across our lives.
It makes you wonder - who thought of this 'love' thing anyway. And just how big can it get? :)
The second great calling to the heart of mankind ...
We are all of one blood, none truly outside the family, and we must each discover for ourselves what that means. We must decide if we will live practically and graciously, and choose as favorably for each other as we do for ourselves ... to love my neighbor as I love myself.
The first great calling ..., well that's another story.
