What Might Have Been

"I have spent my days, stringing and unstringing my instrument, while the song I came to sing remains unsung." (Tagore)

My sister, Becky, also named Susan Rebecca Parsons Neff, is dying of cancer. That is not the saddest part. Becky lived life her way, and it is not my place to say she should have done it otherwise. She made her choices, and soon she will be gone. She has three beautiful and good children who have given her nine grandchildren who love her, and she is married to a devoted friend and caregiver, Charlie Neff.
I dedicate this page to her and post words from one of America's most beloved poets in memory of all of our lost dreams.

MAUD MULLER
John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-1892)
Maud Muller, on a summer's day,
Raked the meadows sweet with hay.

Beneath her torn hat glowed the wealth
Of simple beauty and rustic health.

Singing, she wrought, and her merry glee
The mock-bird echoed from his tree.

But, when she glanced to the far-off town,
White from its hill-slope looking down,

The sweet song died, and a vague unrest
And a nameless longing filled her breast--

A wish, that she hardly dared to own,
For something better than she had known.

The Judge rode slowly down the lane,
Smoothing his horse's chestnut mane.

He drew his bridle in the shade
Of the apple-trees, to greet the maid,

And ask a draught from the spring that flowed
Through the meadow across the road.

She stooped where the cool spring bubbled up,
And filled for him her small tin cup,

And blushed as she gave it, looking down
On her feet so bare, and her tattered gown.

"Thanks!" said the Judge, "a sweeter draught
From a fairer hand was never quaffed."

He spoke of the grass and flowers and trees,
Of the singing birds and the humming bees;

Then talked of the haying, and wondered whether
The cloud in the west would bring foul weather.

And Maud forgot her briar-torn gown,
And her graceful ankles bare and brown;

And listened, while a pleasant surprise
Looked from her long-lashed hazel eyes.

At last, like one who for delay
Seeks a vain excuse, he rode away,

Maud Muller looked and sighed: "Ah, me!
That I the Judge's bride might be!

"He would dress me up in silks so fine,
And praise and toast me at his wine.

"My father should wear a broadcloth coat;
My brother should sail a painted boat.

"I'd dress my mother so grand and gay,
And the baby should have a new toy each day.

"And I'd feed the hungry and clothe the poor,
And all should bless me who left our door."

The Judge looked back as he climbed the hill,
And saw Maud Muller standing still.

"A form more fair, a face more sweet,
Ne'er hath it been my lot to meet.

"And her modest answer and graceful air
Show her wise and good as she is fair.

"Would she were mine, and I to-day,
Like her, a harvester of hay:

"No doubtful balance of rights and wrongs,
Nor weary lawyers with endless tongues,

"But low of cattle, and song of birds,
And health, and quiet, and loving words."

But he thought of his sisters, proud and cold,
And his mother, vain of her rank and gold.

So, closing his heart, the Judge rode on,
And Maud was left in the field alone.

But the lawyers smiled that afternoon,
When he hummed in court an old love-tune;

And the young girl mused beside the well,
Till the rain on the unraked clover fell.

He wedded a wife of richest dower,
Who lived for fashion, as he for power.

Yet oft, in his marble hearth's bright glow,
He watched a picture come and go:

And sweet Maud Muller's hazel eyes
Looked out in their innocent surprise.

Oft when the wine in his glass was red,
He longed for the wayside well instead;

And closed his eyes on his garnished rooms,
To dream of meadows and clover-blooms.

And the proud man sighed, with a secret pain,
"Ah, that I were free again!

"Free as when I rode that day,
Where the barefoot maiden raked her hay."

She wedded a man unlearned and poor,
And many children played round her door.

But care and sorrow, and child-birth pain,
Left their traces on heart and brain.

And oft, when the summer sun shone hot
On the new-mown hay in the meadow lot,

And she heard the little spring brook fall
Over the roadside, through the wall,

In the shade of the apple-tree again
She saw a rider draw his rein,

And, gazing down with timid grace,
She felt his pleased eyes read her face.

Sometimes her narrow kitchen walls
Stretched away into stately halls;

The weary wheel to a spinnet turned,
The tallow candle an astral burned;

And for him who sat by the chimney lug,
Dozing and grumbling o'er pipe and mug,

A manly form at her side she saw,
And joy was duty and love was law.

Then she took up her burden of life again,
Saying only, "It might have been."

Alas for maiden, alas for Judge,
For rich repiner and household drudge!

God pity them both! and pity us all,
Who vainly the dreams of youth recall;

For of all sad words of tongue or pen,
The saddest are these: "It might have been!"

Ah, well! for us all some sweet hope lies
Deeply buried from human eyes;

And, in the hereafter, angels may
Roll the stone from its grave away!


Postscript: Becky has been gone for more than two years now. I miss her and will always remember the beautiful, vibrant and strong girl of our youth. We were only 11 months apart in age, I was the oldest, but we were as different as two sisters could be in many ways.
In spite of that, she was my good friend and we helped each other during different difficult times in our lives. I pray she is at peace now and forever, and that her beloved husband, Charlie, who died a year after she passed away, is with her, too. I love you, little sister.
"God be with you 'til we meet again."

For Which I Am Grateful

I have spent too much of my life not saying "thanks" when I should have, or complaining about things that don't matter. So before I die, or get too busy doing something else, I want to list a few of those things for which I am grateful.

I am grateful I was born in the United States of America, the freest nation on earth, on Luke Air Force Base in Arizona, although I have never been to the Grand Canyon (pictured here) yet. I am grateful that there is still a chance I may get to go there one day with my beloved Philip. (And for his love and presence in my life, I am so very thankful!)

I am grateful for the sacrifice of our nation 's armed forces and their diligence in preserving my freedom. I am grateful for the education I received in this country, for both my high school and college degrees, for my teachers and professors who labored to instill in me a diverse and extensive knowledge base, and for the opportunity to work for my living and to those who employed me and gave me a chance. I am grateful for my home, my family and my city and county officials and the many conveniences I enjoy living here.

I am grateful for my life, even for all of the things that went wrong, because I finally got rid of all the bad things that made me strong ('tho' some came near to killing me.) Even more, I am glad for all of the good things that are still a part of me ... including my four children and two grandchildren, my sisters and their families, my mom, my friends and all of those no longer with us, especially my grandma Susie Beck, and even for my dad, although he was not so kind to me for most of my life.

I am thankful for this earth and all that there is to look at, enjoy and cherish ... waterfalls and rainbows, spring showers and lilacs, starry skies and sunsets, among many other things. I am grateful for the oceans and mountains and the great forests and deserts. I am grateful for this body and its senses ... taste, touch, sight, hearing and smell, and for emotions and laughter, tears and song.

I am grateful for my job and the people I meet everyday, the smiling salesperson, the kind co-worker, the dedicated people who take time to make this world better for everyone. I am truly grateful for authors, actors and musicians, composers, photographers, painters and sculptors, poets and essayists and anyone else who takes time to express themselves in ways that enrich and ennoble the lives of others.

I am grateful for all of the modern technology that makes my life so much more pleasurable, including hot water, electricity, combustion engines and T.V., radio and the Internet. Especially I am grateful for medical advances that have saved so many lives (including my own) and for all of those who spend countless hours in laboratories, universities and elsewhere researching, testing and promulgating new theories and technologies.

I am grateful that God created mankind and this beautiful blue planet. I am grateful to be alive and still learning, still growing intellectually and spiritually ... and so of course I am deeply indebted to all the philosophers, prophets and great thinkers that have gone before, for sharing their wisdom with me and helping me understand what this life is supposed to mean.

Above all, I am grateful there is a God ... as Blaise Pascal once said, "Instead of complaining that God has hidden himself, you will give him thanks for revealing himself as much as he has, and you will thank him for not revealing himself to wise men full of pride and unworthy of knowing so holy a God." (Pensees 394)

Finally, a big thanks to all who have made my life more interesting and/or have taught me to be a better person, whether they meant to or not. Thank-you for listening/reading, too.

Where Is God?

I want to believe that somewhere out there, in that great dark space beyond our own atmosphere, that there is a God who cares, hears us, and answers prayers.

But where is He when you really need Him? Yes, yes, I have had good things happen to me, things that never should have happened but did, like my fiance finding me after all the years we had been apart. And of course I consider all four of my children as blessings, along with my grandchildren, too.

But how much of anything that has happened to me been of God, and how much of it just happened ... for no reason at all except as a matter of course in the flow of human events, a natural outflow of being human?

I am beginning to lose my faith, for real. I do not want to become the person I feel myself turning into lately, and it distresses me. I remember when I was eight years old, I lay in my bed, the top bunk, in a small bedroom with my other three siblings, praying for God to simply make my dad quit kicking and beating my mother. As I lay there trembling in fear and helpless fury, wanting to kill my father as I listened to my mother's moans of pain, I remember very distinctly telling this alleged God, that if He did not stop my father, I would never believe in Him again.

Guess what? The beating finally did stop that night, but the same scenario happened over and over again as I was growing up, different victims in the family maybe, but always the fear, the pain, the name calling and the shame. Everything was such a big secret, too, you know. We were not allowed to ever tell Grandma what dad did to mom, could never tell our teachers what was happening in our house, lest we be punished for being "traitorous bitches." We did not know peace and quiet or the joy of having loving parents. I guess mom tried to maintain a facade of "normalcy"but she never took us away from him, even though she had a decent, loving mother of her own to bring us to. I guess worse things could have happened, so maybe it is not that big of a deal.

Yes, I agree ... many, many more people have had it worse than me and my siblings, like the Jews and others during the Holocaust of World War II. This, along with all of the other ethnic purges that have gone on since the beginning of civilization have to make us wonder ... where is God? How can a merciful and loving "creator" allow His creatures to suffer so much, incessantly tortured, humiliated, starved, diseased, beaten and killed? What kind of God is this? I begin to wonder at my sanity, it puzzles me so much.

Perhaps I should stop asking questions, stop asking "why?" Perhaps there really is no meaning to this life. It really is just as pointless and scary and crazy as I always believed it to be when I was younger. The false church my dad insisted we join so long ago, the Mormons, tried to convince me that we lived before this earth was created, and that we "chose" our earthly parents, chose when we would be born, and taught that we were as eternal as God, who they say was the literal father of our spirits as well as the creator of our mortal bodies. Well, guess what? I knew all along that this was false doctrine, as there was no way I would have EVER selected the two parents to whom I was born ... and I sure did not want to spend eternity as part of their "eternal family," another erroneous teaching of the Mormons (e.g., that all families will be "together forever" if they go to the temple and do the sealings etc. that allegedly bind whole family lines all the way back to Adam.)

Dad never kept the religion anyway; he made us join the church and was even baptized himself, but never participated in the religion beyond that point. He never quit smoking or drinking or running around on mom, either, so the whole thing was ridiculous. (Do as I say, not as I do edict.) Now that I have someone I can truly love and who loves me back, after all the years of no love, only hard times, I want more than ever to believe that there is a kind and loving God out there. But in my heart of hearts, I do not see how that is possible.

Is religion then only the opiate of the masses as early communists taught? Is belief in God even necessary to live a decent and moral life? I do not think so. I used to pray and ask God all of the time, when I was first baptized all those long years ago, if He would please let me talk to Him, or at least let me know if He heard me, let me know if he loved me. Guess what again? He never did. I was not asking for a sign; only for an answer, some little indication that I mattered to someone, somewhere.

Perhaps we only have each other. There is no God to save us and the way things are going, there is a very high probability that mankind will extinguish itself at some point in the not too distant future. I want to believe that we matter, that some great force out there beyond the sunset really cares about us, and will let us come home to Him one day. Life without hope is a terrible thing. Life without love makes it even harder. Aristotle said hope is a waking dream, but lately the dreams are too dark and crazy. I sometimes just want to go to sleep, curled up next to the man I love, and never leave our room, just stay where I feel safe and cared for and loved. But life pulls me onward, I have too much still to do, too many chores and earning a living, and no extra time to do the painting, reading and piano playing I enjoy so much.

I will continue to pray that there is a God and that He sent His only begotten Son to earth to die for our sins. I want to believe that the Lord loved us enough to die for us, and because I believe that, maybe one day all will be well.

"More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of." (Alfred Lord Tennyson)

On Being of Norwegian Heritage

My father was half Norwegian, his mother pure blooded, as both of her parents were from Norway and married in Minnesota after their immigration. They changed their names from Olson to Nokleby, for reasons I can only guess at, namely, that maybe there were so many Olsons already living in Minnesota that they took their Norwegian hometown name, I think, as a surname to help distinguish themselves from all the other Olsons.

Who knows? Incidentally, the picture I've posted on this page is of Norway, a beautiful, cold land of fjords, lakes and rocky shoreline which saw the rise and fall of the Viking culture more than a thousand years ago. I am proud of this heritage because my brief and not-too-in depth study of the Vikings reveals that they were more than savage invaders who repeatedly raped, pillaged and terrorized the shores of neighboring lands, especially Ireland, England and northern France (e.g., Normandy). The Vikings settled in many of the places they visited, including far off Russia (which they named), and they were expert merchants/tradesmen with a knack for languages. They co-existed with other cultures and brought prosperity and progress to many otherwise backward areas. And, yes, they did discover America before Columbus. They were fearless seafarers and savvy businessmen (why do you think they named a thermally heated island "Iceland" and a cold, desolate island "Greenland"? They named them thus in order to confuse or misdirect potential settlers in Europe and thereby keep them out of Iceland!)

Anyway, Great-grandma Lottie (her real name was Charlotte) Nokleby married her second cousin, Ole Nokleby (nee Olson), an older man who moved her to Calgary, Alberta, Canada shortly after they were wed and began homesteading there. She bore five live children (as opposed to the more than three or four stillborn she lost) for him- three girls and two sons- and I have heard stories of Grandma Lottie having to get up from her childbirth bed to go put out a raging fire in their corn field. She was tough as nails and finally divorced her first husband and married four more times. The last fellow she married, a man named Peterson , had some money and owned a rendering factory in Mt. Vernon, in Washington state (by the way, my dad's birthplace). Lottie learned to fly airplanes and owned and raced thoroughbreds after the age of 50. I vaguely remember that she was short, only about five feet tall, and broad, and she had a distinctive Norwegian accent and cooked "pretty cribs" (boiled, ground-potato balls stuffed with a piece of salt pork or herring) and potato pancakes and other Norwegian delicacies. She never let me play with her extensive collection of horse statues when we visited her in Sedro Wooley, Wash., which were beautiful. I never felt like a beloved granddaughter as she never hugged or spoke to me (our branch of Norwegians held the belief that children should be seen, not heard, EVER!) and when she died, she left all of her estate to her youngest daughter, Pearl, ignoring all of her other children, including my grandmother, Gladys.

Well, the point of all of this diatribe is to discuss what I think are the pros and cons of being of Norwegian descent. I inherited the native intelligence and natural curiosity of the race, and a bit of wanderlust flows in my veins, as well, since I love to travel and see (discover) new places. I also inherited the Norwegian musical ability. Grandma Lottie played a mean accordion and her husband played the fiddle. My dad played guitar which I took up at age 12 and later I largely taught myself to play the piano (or play "at" it, as best as I can) and I have been a pretty good vocalist for most of my life. I inherited the coloration of the race, being olive-skinned, light-green-eyed and auburn hair (unlike my three siblings who were all fair-haired and blue-eyed, in the truest Nordic tradition). I also inherited a natural athletic ability but not as much as my sisters, and the long bones and facial features, high cheek bones and full lips, of the Nordic people.

But there is a dark side ... the bad part of being Norwegian is the temperament and stubbornness that besets so many of them. A harder working group of people than my Nordic family branch you will never meet, but God help you if you catch them after a few drinks and tick them off. The violence, both physical and verbal, was horrifying, and drinking exacerbated the situation, acted like fuel to a roaring fire. When angry, and especially when I used to drink a bit, I, too, seemed to lose my mind temporarily, would actually black out as I struck out at people and things with a force and blood lust that is terrifying when I look back at it after calming down, or after all the years that I have behaved myself. Then deep remorse would set in, and I would do all I could to make up for the storm of emotion and screaming, throwing things, hitting myself and, if mad enough, striking another individual. These rages were not uncommon and many a sheet rock wall has been caved in or pieces of glassware thrown and broken over the years.

After the violence of my childhood, the rages my father made us endure, seeing my mother and siblings and myself beaten into the ground nearly every time he drank, (I took my first beating at age four for running away from my father: my last one at age 18, when dad tried to kill me by strangulation, punching me in the stomach, ripping out my hair, and putting me through a sheet rock wall) you would think I had enough of violence to last forever. But his continuous beatings and rants and destructive behavior imprinted themselves on all four of his children, and we self-destructed, each in our separate ways. I will not speak of my siblings, as those are their stories to tell (or not), but I married four times, each one progressively worse, more violent and more heart-rending than the last.
It was only after years of psychotherapy and repeated suicide attempts (and a couple of "lock-down" sessions in Baton Rouge psychiatric wards) that I was able to regroup, stop the drinking and the ensuing rages, and try to build some self-esteem.
For the bottom line was that after being raised by one rage-filled parent who tore us down emotionally, mentally and physically - (and another who was a victim herself and so let it all happen, did not save us from him), - neither I nor my siblings had any sense of self worth. Our individual liberties or rights as individuals had long been stripped away, and I, at least, did not believe I had any worth at all; I felt that I was nothing and meant nothing to anyone, and so I deserved to be punished ... I became a victim and, as a result, nearly died at the hands of a husband.

After years of abuse, I finally came to the conclusion, (especially after my father died this year of a disease -Type 2 diabetes- that he stubbornly insisted for years that he did NOT have), that I was of some worth. My four children love me and I finally met a man who loves me for myself, in spite of all my failings. I have my college education, a good livelihood and a pleasant, modest home. I have so much to be grateful for and I am again proud of my Nordic heritage, that which gave me the courage to change my circumstances and dare to be more than I ever thought I could be.
Enough said about that, then. I am not mad at anyone anymore and life's too short as it is ... and these are the "good old days" now that I am living "la bon vie" with my beloved Philip and twins.

As a Man Thinketh . . .

"As a man thinketh, so is he" originated from a Bible verse, Proverbs 23:7 , and was incorporated into an essay written in 1902 by James Allen, who began his book with the following poem:


Mind is the Master power that moulds and makes,
And Man is Mind, and evermore he takes
The tool of Thought, and, shaping what he wills,
Brings forth a thousand joys, a thousand ills: —
He thinks in secret, and it comes to pass:
Environment is but his looking-glass.



The essence of Allen's work was that our state of mind determines all of our actions, so be careful what you think about or dwell upon. This idea has been around a long time and many others have commented on the power of the mind and its creative (or destructive) abilities. William James said, "The greatest discovery of my generation is that human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind." Isaac Bashevis Singer wrote, "We know what a person thinks, not when he tells us what he thinks, but by his actions." Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "A man is what he thinks about all day."



Even Abraham Lincoln noted, that "most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be." Mary Kay Ash said, "If you think you can, you can. If you think you can't, you're right." All of our destinies are first formed in thought, how we view ourselves, others around us and the world we live in. If we "act the way we'd like to be, soon we'll be the way we act" according to Dr. George W. Crane; in other words, rehearse a particular role often enough and soon you will become that type of person permanently. Emerson said, "That which we persist in doing becomes easier to do; not that the nature of the thing itself has changed, but that our power to do is increased."



Persistence of thought then is key. Vince Lombardi said, "The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather a lack of will." Will, being of course, the power of mind over circumstance or matter. Lincoln also said, "Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any other one thing."



The mind alone has the power to keep us morally straight and free from vice. Plato said, "The first and best victory is to conquer self; to be conquered by self is, of all things, the most shameful and vile." Proverbs 16:32 says, "He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city." Mahatma Gandhi asked, "How can I control others if I cannot control myself?"



Above all, the mind has power to make dreams come true and the power to make us better people. "Cherish your visions and your dreams as they are the children of your soul - the blueprints of your ultimate achievements" (Anon.) Believe in the better angels of men's natures, as Lincoln suggested. Take William Shakespeare's advice in Hamlet: "Give thy thoughts no tongue ... give every man thine ear, but few thy voice: Take each man's censure but reserve thy judgement." And remember George Bernard Shaw's saying: "Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself." Remember, as Emerson said, that "what you are is God's gift to you; what you do with yourself is your gift to God."

Finally, remember Emerson's words from "Self Reliance": He who would gather immortal palms must not be hindered by the name of goodness, but must first explore if it be goodness. Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind."

Our minds are everything, the ultimate source of all that is good and bad in our lives, and the only thing we can take with us when we die. Control your thoughts and the direction of your mind, and you control your fate. All that we can be, all that we can accomplish, lies within our own heads: we truly are the Masters of our Destinies. Now that's something to think about!

At the End of the World

Many people today believe the end of the world is near, or at least the world as we know it now. Along with this belief comes the fear of death and dying, or of suffering and/or losing our loved ones as a result of cataclysmic events.
In truth, the "beginning of the end of the world" began for me September 11, 2001. I was struggling with graduate school, working part time at the high school as a substitute teacher at the same time as I was trying to finish student teaching after earning my bachelor's degree August 2001, and all the while taking care of my young twins and a house with only my mother to help me. (Thank God for my mother and father's help during these times!)
At any rate, I was student teaching the day I heard about a plane crashing into the World Trade Center and moments later, we all heard about the second plane crash, and I knew immediately this was no accident. My students asked me why this was happening and all I could say was, "I don't know."
Within a week, my parents gave me an ultimatum: they would not support me any longer in graduate school as they believed the undergraduate degree was enough college and I should be able to get a job with that alone. Not so, for my student teaching was in the graduate level courses and I could not get a teaching certificate in Georgia without completing the master's program in which I was enrolled at Valdosta State. Nevertheless, I lost heart after 9-11, along with my will to continue the long commute from Bainbridge to Valdosta, and so I applied for a job with The Post-Searchlight, a local newspaper, where I became a news writer for six and a half years.
As I covered local events, political and military news, I became more aware of the state of the world than ever before. I spoke with people from all walks of life and found out that most of them, like myself, were engaged in day-to-day survival and making ends meet, raising children, paying bills and hoping for the best. But when I had time to think about such things, I realized I was not ready for any kind of disaster: I had no supplies or savings or any kind of plan of action that would safely see my family through a major upheaval. On the other hand, what kind of safeguards can keep us safe from a 9-11 event? If such a thing should occur here in the deep South, we would be no safer than the more than 2,000 souls who lost their lives simply by showing up for work on time one beautiful late summer day.
Bottom line then, the only preparation we can make is to prepare ourselves for death, and hope that there is something after this life to wake up to. I once heard a story about someone asking God about what it was like to die. He told the person it is like going to bed. The person said, "Do you mean it is like going to sleep?" and God supposedly said, "No, it is like when you wake up in the morning after sleeping all night."
If that is true (and wouldn't it be nice if it were) then the lives we are living now are the nightmares, the dreaming, and our real lives will begin in the morning, when we awaken to another existence. There is only today, then, and what we will make of it. "Carpe diem" ... sieze the day, and live each day as if it were your last. Do not go to bed angry with anyone, and forgive others for their meanness to you. Remember what Socrates said: If all our misfortunes were lumped together, with everyone forced to take an equal share, people would be glad to take back their own. And remember that "rudeness is a weak man's imitation of strength" (Eric Hoffman), so make your words sweet as you may have to eat them. (Susie Beck Braswell)
Remember, too, Etienne de Grellet's advice:"I shall pass this way but once;any good, therefore, that I can do; or any kindness that I can show to any human being, let me do it now. Let me not defer nor neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again."
Remember that "a man who is not satisfied with a little will be satisfied with nothing" (Epicurus) and that "the significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them." (Albert Einstein) Remember that "there is no 'one-and-only' ... there are just 'one-and-only' moments; we cannot expect continuity of being loved alone, " per Anne Morrow Lindbergh, that "happiness makes up in height what it lacks in length." (Robert Frost)
But also keep in mind that "It's a funny thing about life: If you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it" (W. Somerset Maugham) and that "life does not have to be perfect to be wonderful" (Annette Funicello) and "the heart that loves is always young" (Anon.)
"Write it on your heart that every day is the best day of the year" as Ralph Waldo Emerson suggests. Remember that "if you judge people, you have no time to love them," as Mother Teresa noted. Remember that "it's by what you do that you communicate to others that you are deeply involved in their well being" (Ashley Montagu) and that "we make a living by what we get, (but) we make a life by what we give" (Winston Churchill) and that "a wise man will make more opportunites than he finds." (Francis Bacon)
And above all keep in mind what Mahatma Gandhi said about life: "A man cannot do right in one department of life whilst he is occupied in doing wrong in any other department. Life is one, indivisible whole." He also said, "Let us fear God and we shall cease to fear man." The Lord told us to focus on each day, do our best to do our duty, serve our fellow man and give the glory to our Creator, and all shall be well.
We cannot hope to change the world or other people, we cannot control what others will do or how the world will end. But we can and should be the best persons we can be and remember that God loves a grateful soul. Be thankful for all, and do well, and things will work to the good in your life. Be patient in suffering and forgiving of all. That is all that we can do, no matter what goes on in the world around us ... it has to be enough, then.

"Be still, and know that I am God." (Psalms 46:10)

On Being an Original

It is said that "while an original is always hard to find, he (she) is easy to recognize." (John L. Mason)

It is my personal belief that everyone is a unique individual, as different and varied as our fingerprints, but many fear to step outside of boundaries set by their families or societies and "boldly go where no man (or woman) has gone before" by becoming a truly original entity. It's just too scary for a lot of us, and fear of failure forms far more destinies than dreams of glory. ("For glory gives herself only to those who have always dreamed of her." Charles de Gaulle)
Henry David Thoreau celebrated the ones who dare to be different when he said, "If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away."
The key to becoming a distinctly different entity may be as simple as losing oneself in service to others, as Helen Keller noted when she said, "I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish humble tasks as though they were great and noble. The world is moved along, not only by the mighty shoves of its heroes, but also by the aggregate of the tiny pushes of each honest worker." Mahatma Gandhi said, "Satisfaction lies in the effort, not in the attainment. Full effort is full victory." And Mother Teresa said, "We can do no great things-only small things with great love."
Ralph Waldo Emerson noted that "character is that which can do without success," and John Wooden said, "Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do," and he also said, "be more concerned with your character than with your reputation. Your character is what you really are while your reputation is merely what others think you are."
Dr. Albert Einstein encourages us to use our imaginations to expand our horizons when he said, "When I examine myself and my methods of thought, I come to the conclusion that the gift of fantasy has meant more to me than my talent for absorbing positive knowledge."
From a 1991 Reader's Digest article by W.H. Murray: The moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help that would never otherwise have occurred. A stream of events issues from the decision, raising unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance which no man could have dreamt would have come his way. I have learned a deep respect for one of Goethe's couplets: "What you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it."
"Consider your origin; you were not formed to live like brutes, but to follow virtue and knowledge." (Dante, "Divine Comedy")
Do not be as Tagore wrote: I have spent my days stringing and unstringing my instrument, while the song I came to sing remains unsung.
Dare to be different, dare to do what is good and right for yourself and your loved ones: dream the impossible dream and follow your star.