Jane Reinheimer -- copyright 2009, all rights reserved

This is one of the most inspiring videos I've seen to date. So far, more than 9 million views! It's from an organization called Born Again American that has taken root in the spiritual soul of America and is growing at an unbelievable rate! Watch this video: http://www.bornagainamerican.org/index.html -- And thank you, Cody, in Warrensburg, MO for sending it to me.

February 5, 2010 -- Quote for the Day: The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong. -- Mahatma Gandhi

God's Promise to You: In the past, people did not understand God, and he ignored this. But now, God tells all people in the world to change their hearts and lives. -- Acts 17:30

Would you consider yourself an empathic person?

Would you also consider yourself as a person who can build rapport with others?

If you answered yes to either of those questions, then you are most likely a forgiving person too.

Let's take a quick look at what empathy means. Basically, you're an empathic person if youc an stand back and understand another person's position. If you can also understand another person's feelings, that's a huge bonus.

Being empathic is absolutely crucial to the success of a relationship. It's also crucial to being a forgiving person.

But being empathic does not mean you have to agree with someone else all the time. It only means that you can see another person's point of view. We also call that ability perspective taking.

Perspective taking is one of the most powerful strategies in a married couple's toolbox.

For instance, if you come bouncing into the house after a hard day's work and you spouse gives you that look and growls a hello at you, you might be tempted to send a verbal slap back in that direction.

On the other hand, if your spouse tried to explain why he (or she) got up on the wrong side of the bed and it kind of made sense to you, then you're acting empathically.

I remember years and years ago how frustrated I was when I went downstairs to get into my car to go to work. I didn't just have one flat. Oh no. I've never done anythig lukewarm. I had flats on three tires! The car had to be towed to the tire store, which I could not afford. I mean, mostly, I usually had about two nickels left over at the end of every month. On good months, that is.

My boss laughed as he visualized my predicament, then apologized and said, "You must be really frustrated."

He was being empathic. Not so much that he gave me a raise, though.

I've often thought of that experience after I started my counseling practice after grad school. Every once in a while a client would be late for an appointment. Or call at the last minute to cancel. My first reaction would be, "Are you okay?" Then I'd hear the stories of being in a fender bender, or getting an emergency phone call, or getting stuck at a train crossing, or heading for the emergency room.

Truth is, there are many things that can play havoc with a schedule. And it certainly doesn't mean that someone is trying to aggravate me or being manipulative.

Even my neighbor whom I refer to as Mr. Grumpy is tolerable. After all, his was an ugly divorce and of course he would not like a strong-willed woman who is assertive enough to know her own worth, like myself. But the loss is his. We'll probably live next door to each other for the next twenty years or so. I'd be willing to be a nice neighbor given half a chance.

And now I want to share one of my favorite poems with you. It's by Rudyard Kipling:

If

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings -- nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And -- which is more -- you'll be a Man, my son!

-- Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)

Rudyard Kipling turned down many honors offered to him including a knighthood, Poet Laureate and the Order of Merit, but in 1907 he accepted the Nobel Prize for Literature.

The beauty and elegance of "If" contrasts starkly with Rudyard Kipling's largely tragic and unhappy life. He was starved of love and attention and sent away by his parents; beaten and abused by his foster mother; and a failure at a public school which sought to develop qualities that were completely alient to Kipling. In later life the deaths of two of his children also affected Kipling deeply.*

* from http://www.businessball.com/ifpoemrudyardkipling.htm

in-between notes

Mostly about music. Like this video of Roy Orbison singing Pretty Woman. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uw0fngpM2GY The guitar picking solos in the middle of the video are absolutely amazing!

And here's Leonard Cohen from his performance in London, singing Democracy [Is Coming to the USA] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHI9BTpGkp8 love it love it love it!

Cohen's Dance Me to the End of Love: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ki9xcDs9jRk&NR=1

What an absolutely soothing voice.

And just for grins and giggles, here's an absolutely riveting tango with Antonio Banderas: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6VvR3hkePI&feature=related He has gone to inner city schools in New York to teach dancing. In this video, he dances a tango at a high school. Heads turned!

February 4, 2010 -- Quote of the Day: When you hold resentment toward another, you are bound to that person or condition by an emotional link that is stronger than steel. Forgiveness is the only way to dissolve that link and get free. -- Catherine Porter

and

To forgive is the highest, most beautiful form of love. In return, you will receive untold peace and happiness. -- Robert Muller

Forgiving Others -- Chapter 1

First, we have to figure out what we mean by forgiveness.

In over a thousand research articles published in a little over a decade, it becomes clear that forgiveness means different things to different people.

We can all agree, though, that just the thought of forgiving someone comes about because of some pain that someone else caused you.

Sometimes the other person knows the pain was caused; sometimes not. But the injured party usually holds the idea that the hurt was intentional.

It's just difficult to be hurt deeply and thing that someone wouldn't have a clue that you were hurt.

So what's the big reluctance about not forgiving?

Believe it or not, there are a great many people who believe forgiveness and reconciliation need to be bundled together.

The two ideas don't necessarily belong together. In fact, there are times when you wouldn't want to be reconciled to a person who has hurt you. Even endangered you. In that case, reconciliation could mean you'd be re-victimized, or placed in harm's way all over again.

Forgiveness is certainly possible without reconciling yourself with a dangerous person. That's especially true if there's a likelihood of further harm coming to you.

-- continuing

February 3, 2010 -- Quote for the Day: Happiness is not the absence of problems but the ability to deal with them. -- Stacy Charter

God's Promise to You: With God's power working in us, God can do much, much more than anything we can ask or imagine. -- Ephesians 3:20

The Little Book of Happiness -- Chapter 8

Many years ago, Dale Carnegie wrote a book called The Power of Positive Thinking. And much more recently, there was something a little similar called The Secret. In The Secret, supposedly there were all these success gurus espousing great and wonderful things if you would only imagine the wonders you could bring to your own life. It was a runaway best-seller, as was Dale Carnegie's book.

Well, I'm not about to make any such claims that I have a secret that will unlock great wealth and success for your life. But what I would like to share with you today, since we are talking about happiness, is something you can do that will give you a greater sense of well-being. It's not even my own opinion that I share with you.

I go back to the research of K. M. Sheldon and S. Lyubomirsky who published an article, "How to increase and sustain positive emotion: The effects of expressing gratitude and visualizing best possible selves," in the Journal of Positive Psychology. This particular article talks about a very intentional activity of visualizing yourself as you would want to be.

This visualization works best if coupled with that gratitude attitude we talked about before.

Simply put, when you see yourself better and different, you stand a much better chance of becoming better and different. That's especially true if you kind of shoot for the moon, so to speak. The researchers found that, after their four-week trial testing, participants who enjoyed the very best increase in well-being were the ones who visualized themselves in the best possible light that they could.

So why in the world would that be? And how could such a seemingly little thing matter at all?

Well, for starters, visualizing yourself in a better light might just fill your heart with optimism. And optimistic people see the world filled with friends and neighbors, not scoundrels who are out to get you. Kind of like the research that's already been settled into our social psyche that non-depressed people think differently than depressed people do. The world is certainly a happier place when you're an optimist.

Kind of like Descartes who said, "I think, therefore I am."

So, starting from today forward, think of yourself as a playful person who deserves to be happy.

Think of yourself as a person who has had many wonderful life experiences. Be grateful for all those happy experiences.

Think of yourself as a person who will bring an exciting tug on the heartstring of your beloved. And may all your love be as mysteriously wondrous as that first moment when you were so close that you were breathing the same air together.

See yourself happy. Don't sit on the sidelines of your life. All the research that's been done about happiness says that it's best served up in warm, sweet memories that you savor. When you're savoring, you're re-experiencing your memories. Those memories exist as a videotape in your mind. Take the videotape out frequently and watch it over and over again.

Savor the gift of life that God has blessed you with. Throw away any negative thoughts that you may be punishing yourself with. You deserve to be happy. Believe it and it will be so!

February 1, 2010 -- Quote/s for the Day: He who was willing to spend his Son's blood to gain them, will not deny his power to keep them. -- Willliam Gurnall

and

Saving faith is not offered to man by God; it is conferred upon him. -- A. C. Custance

Grace is the mother and nurse of holiness, and not the apologist of sin. -- Charles Spurgeon

The Little Book of Happiness -- Chapter 7

"Count your blessings," my grandmother's voice echoed across the growing up years. Without knowing for sure why I should, I did it just because she told me I ought to.

Now comes fairly recent research in 2003 that underscores Grandma's wisdom. Authors R. A. Emmons and M. E. McCullough explained the benefits of counting blessings in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Their findings are so obvious that I just sit here and think, "But, of course."

It seems that just counting your blessings makes you see the good things that are happening in your life. And the more you think about how blessed your life truly is, the more you savor the good things in your life. It's kind of hard to take your blessings for granted when you're counting them regularly.

I hope you've got a gratitude list going. There's something really interesting about the list. And it doesn't matter if your blessings are big things like good health, a wonderful marriage or a good job versus relatively little things like your car starting on a cold winter morning, getting a nice cheery note in the mail, or just getting green lights when you're rushing across town to a meeting.

But here's the kicker that surprised me.

People who make their list of five blessings every day didn't have the same sense of well-being as those folks who made their lists once a week. Maybe people who do their blessing list once a week think more deeply about what they ought to be grateful for.

I do know that when I've had clients make a list of five things they're grateful for, there tended to be a lot of repetition. Maybe a once-a-week-list has more new things on it since people have a whole week to reflect on blessings in their lives.

Since it's the once-a-week blessings list that has the best increase in well-being, what a great idea to make this list on Saturday night. That way, you'll be all set for your Sunday morning adventure of going to church to worship the God who brings you all your blessings, and also to renew friendships with all your favorite peeps.

And, I might add, the next time you're tempted to say, "Boy, am I lucky," change that thought to "I am so blessed."

-- continuing

January 28, 2010 -- Quote for the Day: How can those who do not garden, who have no lot in the great fraternity of those who watch the changing year as it affects the earth and its growth, how cn they keep warm their hearts in winter? -- Francis King

God's Promise to You: Beloved, let us love one another; for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God and knoweth God ... Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us. -- 1 John 4:7, 11-12

The Little Book of Happiness -- Chapter 6

"What good would that do?" I'm often asked when responding to questions people have about what to do to make their lives a bit more meaningful.

The same response might come to the surface for some of you when I talk about the benefits of random acts of kindness. Researchers J. K. Boehm, S. Lyubomirsky nd K. M. Sheldon discovered in their manuscript Spicing up Kindness; The role of variety in the effects of kindness on improvements in mood, happiness, and self-evaluation. This manuscript has been a work in progress since 2008.

This manuscript is based on a study that lasted some ten weeks.

Some of the folks in the study were to do something kind for others. These acts of kindness could simply be holding the door open for someone. Or maybe doing the dishes for a roommate at school. Or maybe offering to pick up a neighbor's kid from school.

It turned out that these charitable behviors made the do-ers feel better about themselves and better about the social group they were a part of.

It didn't seem to matter so much whether the acts of kindness were practiced every day, every other day or a couple of times a week.

What did matter, though, was the variety of the acts of kindness.

And then there was a control group that didn't do anything particularly kind. Even halfway through the study, this control group's unhappiness increased. These people eventually returned to their mopey baseline of just being less happy than the people in the study group who were practicing kindnesses. The research group, however, increased their sense of happiness and it was still increased six months later.

So here's the deal. When you're kind to others, you get a tremendous boost in your own sense of happiness.

I'm very fortunate because I happen to be married to a happy guy. I'm glad he helps me with my coat. And he opens doors for me, and any other lady who is nearing the same door that he is. I'm glad his acts of kindness brings him happiness because he so deserves to be as happy as he can be.

So next time you want to do something kind for someone and you get rebuffed, just say something like, "Oh, I get a tremendous boost in my own happiness just doing something nice for you."

And if you see others who aren't wearing smiles on their faces, give them one of yours.

-- continuing

January 27, 2010

The Little Book of Happiness -- Chapter 5

My original question at the beginning of this little book was whether or not people can be trained to be happy.

The answer to that question is a thunderous, echo-across-the-Grand-Canyon "yes!"

That was a ground-breaking discovery by research M. W. Fordyce all the way back in 1977 in an article of findings published in the Journal of Counseling Psychology.

Fordyce taught a course entitled "Fundamentals of Happiness." Some of these fundamentals included socializing, being optimistic, staying in the present, reducing negative thinking and not worrying, among other things.

These courses worked so well that people in the research studies who were taught these strategies continued to do so much better than folks who didn't get the training.

This negativity may be a biggy for some people. I'm guessing that it's part of that heritability factor that we talked about earlier. Although we haven't identified a negativity gene, it's one of those attitudes we "catch" from growing up in a crabby family. It becomes an acceptable way of looking at problems. It brings a sense of doom nd expected failures with it.

But take heart. If you grew up in this kind of dysfunctional family as I did, it's not a fatal flaw and it most certainly does not doom you to a life of sadness and ill will.

I'd much rather look at the possibilities of filling up tht 40% of the glass by making happy-bound choices than worrying about the 50% of history that already has been accounted for by heritability.

The promise of a happy lifestyle is in the 40% of the glass that's left over. And over all these many years I've walked the earth, I've met a lot of wonderful people in volunteer organizations, including church. They've taught me how to do things and they've shared laughter and warmth and lots of affirmations with me. They helped me make the long journey of liking myself and feeling like I have a valuable contribution to make in their lives.

It sure beats sitting at home looking out the window watching air move.

-- continuing

January 27, 2010 -- Quote for the Day: If you want to live a happy life, tie it to a goal, not to people or things. -- Albert Einstein

God's Promise to You: The power of the wicked will be broken, but the Lord supports those who do right. The Lord watches over the lives of the innocent, and their reward will last forever. They will not be ashamed when trouble comes. They will be full in times of hunger. -- Psalm 37:17-19

The Little Book of Happiness -- Chapter 4

Is there a happy personality? Some researchers think so. In a 1999 piece of research by E.Diner and R. E. Lucas (article published in the MIT Press in Cambridge, Massachusetts) entitled "Personality and subjective well-being," the writers draw a strong comparison between happiness and personality.

Personality traits, if you remember, are pretty much a consistent expression of how we feel inside. In fact, it takes something pretty big to change our personality traits once we become adults. We used to think that personalities didn't change much at all once a child got past the age of six or so. New studies, however, are showing that people do change their personalities as they get older, but those changes become more and more resistant to outside influences.

Something traumatic like the death of a loved one, or your house burning down, or a catastrophe of huge proportions can shake you at your moorings and bring about changes in how your personality expresses itself. Winning the lottery is not one of those big events, no matter how happy you think a cool million jackpot would make you. The novelty of being rich wears off pretty quick and you settle down to where you started out before you won the lottery. Or you could end up worse off if you develop some "new rich" spending habits and spend yourself into bankruptcy. That's happened before. But in the ordinary course, it doesn't take long for you to come back to what researchers call your baseline of well-being.

So what's your baseline?

For one thing, you ought to be able to soothe and comfort yourself. Keep saying to yourself, "This is life, not heaven." And bad things happen, even to good people. It doesn't mean you're useless and hopeless. It probably means that you've just hit a bad patch that's going to be a temporary event in your life.

Another thing you ought to have is a sense of mastery over your life. That might mean getting some extra training at your job. That would keep you on top of your game and you'd enjoy a greater sense of employability. It ought to mean that you have an active prayer life and that you keep in touch with the Almighty. Walk with God through your daily life and you'll be amazed at how your anxieties lessen. If you're unable to turn things over to God, just ask yourself what it is in your life that you think God needs your help with?

Something else that's really important is that you have intentional activities that will bring you a sense of well-being. These intentional activities should include making a Gratitude List every day. This will help you focus on the positive things going on in your life and get you away from the Boo Hoo List you might be focused on.

I was surprised to learn that, according to E. Diener and fellow researchers, life circumstances account for just 10% of your personal sense of happiness.

Add that to the 50% of apparent heritability, and you've got 60% so far. Well, dear friends, that leaves a big fat 40% left over that's up to you to do something about. You know -- glass half full versus glass half empty attitudes. That's where the intentional activities come into play. You're in charge of the activities you choose to fill up your life.

Are you a gardener? A reader? Do you like to visit the elderly folks in nursing homes? Make lap quilts for them. Be a volunteer at church, in your community or neighborhood. Write congratulatory notes to people you know who have done something special. You can also send a cheery note to someone on the sick list at church. (Hint: if you send a note to someone in the hospital, use that person's return address, not your own. That way, if your get well card gets to the hospital after your friend has been discharged, the hospital will return the card to their home address, not yours. That's a trick someone clued me in on a long time ago.)

The point is, get out from Charlie Brown's "gray cloud of woe" and start doing things that will make you feel better.

And I'm a great one for volunteering. There are so many good organizations looking for good people who can make a difference by just donating a few hours a week. And it will make you feel better too.

-- continuing

January 25, 2010

The Little Book of Happiness -- Chapter 3

The number one thing that people identify who are happy is this: Happy people feel they have some mastery over their lives.

This sense of mastery beats out wealth. It probably even beats out a Christmas card list with 300 people on it.

And why do you suppose a sense of mastery is so important? For starters, it means feeling competent to solve problems adn resolve conflicts with others. It means taking your pain and discomfort out and giving it a really good examination. Don't be too quick to dismiss your pain as being of no consequence. That's denial. Instead, look at it and feel the feeling that's so discomforting.

Where did the discomfort really start? And why is it so important for yout o hold onto painful feelings?

Is it possible that you hang onto pain because you don't have another enjoyable feeling to put in its place?

For instance, if you're still upset over a slight or an insult that's more than a month old, then you need to expand your repertoire of good thoughts so that you can deal yourself a hand of happiness whenever you need to.

The pain of old wounds will eat you up alive from the inside out unless you develop a mastery of your own feelings.

The source of emotional angst is almost always from an internal source. That's because we really don't go around looking for ways to make ourselves miserable. We let other people do that for us if we aren't n a position to make adjustments to the people who unwittingly step on our tender toes.

And just because you may have some pathological jerks in your life who hurt your feelings doesn' mean you have to join them in their pathology. The neighborhood probably isn't big enough for two of you anyway.

So be thankful for running into a jerk now and then. It gives you an opportunity to practice mastering your feelings and maintaining an internal focus of control, or center.

And at least once a month, take a long look at the ill winds blowing through the warm love in yur heart. Dispose of the pain after you're reckoned with it, especially if it comes from someone else.

It's just a bad idea to keep an active inventory of grudges. It makes your heart cold. And that just does not lead to a mind filled with inner peace.

When it comes to mastering your life, who is your mastery anyway? Whoever or whatever is so upsetting is what controls you.

-- continuing

January 22, 2010 -- Quote for the Day: The reason people find it so hard to be happy is that they always see the past better than it was, the present worse than it is, and the future less resolved than it will be. -- Marcel Pagnol

God's Promise to You: Whoever serves me must follow me. Then my servant will be with me everywhere I am. My Father will honor anyone who serves me. -- John 12:26

THE LITTLE BOOK OF HAPPINESS -- Chapter 2

New word for today: heritable, especially as it relates to happiness. Heritable means being able to be inherited. But you probably figured that out. Heritable is different from genetic, although genetic also means something can be inherited. The difference is in the difference, so to speak.

We inherit traits when our genes do their thing during cell division in the mother's womb. Things like the color of a person's eyes, hair, height, even body type. We also know about markers for diseases that place predispositions for genetic markers that govern what passes from one generation to another.

But heritability is a bit different. Just because brothers and sisters grow up in the same family means they carry some environmental promises of how they may behave, how their personalities from and express themselves. Heritability can includes genetic markers and many other things we call traits, or characteristics, that you get from your Aunt Susan or Grandma Beaner. Whether you're a happy-go-lucky kiddo who skips along through childhood and puts on a happy face when you wake up in the morning looks like a heritable trait that comes straight from your genetic storehouse.

From the research that's been done on this particular aspect of happiness, genetics account for about 50% of the happy capacities in identical twins in a study conducted by D. Lykken and A. Tellegen way back in 1988. Their research was published in 1996 in Psychological Science. The correlation was so high that it didn't seem to matter whether the twins were raised in the same house or not.

Fraternal twins didn't enjoy this high correlation where their happiness concerned, even when they are raised in the same home.

So what does all that mean for us who are trying to figure out how we can become happy? If genetics and heritability account for only 50% of our stockpile of happies, where does the rest of it come from?

Yesterday we talked about making a list of things you can do to make yourself feel better. That ought to be an everyday feel good list that's ongoing.

Something else you can begin to do, if you don't do it already, is to feel gratitude. Be thankful for all your blessings. Don't focus on what you don't have. That won't make you feel better about anything. But you can be thankful for many things. The promise of salvation. People in your life who love you. People in your life whom you love. Friends. A dry place to sleep. A soft bed. Nourishing food. Warm clothes. Tell someone today how much you appreciate their being in your life.

Give thanks. It will make you feel better.

-- continuing

January 21, 2010 -- Quote/s for today: The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers. -- M. Scott Peck

and

The basic thing is that everyone wants happiness. And happiness mainly comes from our own attitude, rather than external factors. If your own mental attitude is correct, even if you remain in a hostile atmosphere, you feel happy. -- Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama

God's Promise to You: Those who love your teachings will find true peace, and nothing will defeat them. ... I obey your orders and rules, because you know everything I do. Hear my cry to you, Lord. Let your word help me understand. -- Psalm 119:165-169

Tip for indoor gardeners: I have this on the best authority of some very seasoned indoor gardeners at church, plus I've tried it faithfully for a year. Take all the guesswork out of when and how much to water your indoor plants. Just put one ice cube at the base of the plant in each pot every day. The ice melts gradually and provides just the right amount of water for the thirst requirements of your little darlings. And today I have a most beautiful pale salmon colored Christmas Cactus that has just broken out in a chorus of blooms. Lovely, lovely, lovely.

THE LITTLE BOOK OF HAPPINESS -- Chapter 1

We all want to be happy but do we know how to become happy?

For instance, happy people do more joyful activities than unhappy people. Doing positive, joyful activities is part of a cycle that keeps itself going. The more you do, the better you feel.

True, there are those who would say that when they feel better, then they'll do more to keep themselves in a better frame of mind.

The exact opposite of that works best. That is, if you want to feel better, do something positive. As your behavior changes, it drags your attitudes into new, peaceful places within you.

This is what researchers at the University of California - Riverside discovered in 2005. Lead researcher S. Lyubomirsky called these behaviors intentional activities in an article published in the Review of General Psychology.

It isn't enough to think about what makes you unhappy. Unhappy people are filled with vague, woeful thoughts that lack specific causes. And would you be surprised if I told you that most of the things on unhappy person's list are outside their locus of control?

Starting today, make a list of five things you can do for yourself that would make you feel better. This is not going to be a list of things you want other people to do for you. It's for you to do because your happiness is your #1 big job for every day.

-- continuing

January 19, 2010 -- Quote for the Day: There is a privacy about it which no other season gives you ... In spring, summer and fall people sort of have an open season on each other; only in the winter, in the country, can you have longer, quiet stretches when you can savor belonging to yourself. -- Ruth Stout

God's Promise to You -- The Lord says, "I will make you wise and show you where to go. I will guide you and watch over you." -- Psalm 12:8

Locus of Control -- Part 3

People who have an external locus of control believe that it's not what you know or how hard you work, but rather, who you know that determines whether you get a good job or not.

That's a hard one because in a perfect world, it would not be true. Success would be directly related to how much effort you put into what you do at work.

However, since the largest employer in the United States happens to be the federal government, patronage workers re-work the reality of that thought. The truth is, political hacks are everywhere. They sit in their cubicles in their government offices playing solitaire, watching porn on the internet, and all kinds of theft of time when they're supposed to be working.

In the ordinary course in real jobs, how well you do at work and how successful you are most certainly depends on how much effort you put into what you're doing.

Where all that political chicanery ends up will depend on how strongly taxpayers protest the abuse of time thieves doing practically nothing and collecting some pretty heft paychecks. And how do they get those jobs? Well, they're political workers. They are volunteers in campaign headquarters. They knock on doors and deliver campaign literature. And they work for pizza and soda pop and jobs that make few demands on many of them.

Granted, there are some workers in political offices who do work. And they work long into the night for the politicians who hire them. Those are the ones in the inner circle who make the big bucks. The other patronage workers -- the little folks who work for a pittance are the time wasters who are bleeding our governmental budgets into the billions and billions of dollars of wasted time.

continuing --

January 18, 2010 -- Quote for the Day: January is the quietest month in the garden. But just because it looks quiet doesn't mean that nothing is happening. The soil, open to the sky, absorbs the pure rainfall while microorganisms convert tilled-under fodder into usable nutrients for the next crop of plants. The feasting earthworms tunnel along, aerating the soil and preparing it to welcome the seeds and bare roots to come. -- Rosalie Muller Wright, Editor of Sunset Magazine, Jan. 1999

God's Promise to You: God began doing a good work in you, and I am sure he will continue it until it is finished when Jesus Christ comes again. -- Philippians 1:6

LOCUS OF CONTROL -- So what's the big deal?

As we go skipping merrily along the pathway of our lives toward self-improvement, you might ask yourself why locus of control matters so much, if at all.

It depends on whether you want to leave your life to the fates or the ill winds that blow through your psyche, or if you want to have some sense of mastery over your psychological landscape.

The researchers tell us that one of the things people who are happy believe is that they do have this sense of mastery over their lives. These are the people who believe that if they work hard and persevere, then life satisfactions will be theirs.

Makes sense.

If you flip that coin over, you could then say that people who have no sense of mastery -- who have an external locus of control -- are easy to take advantage of. Even easy to be victimized. You could be the only person in a crowded room who has an external locus of control and a con artist could spot you from way over there across the room. It isn't that you have a neon light blasting "victim" on your forehead. Rather, it's just not that easy to fake self confidence.

People who have an internal locus of control, on the other hand, don't invest the outcome of what happens to them in fate. They identify a challenge then get in there to work the problem to a successful conclusion.

It's not always just being in the right place at the right time. You can make where you are right now the right place for you to be.

continuing --

January 15, 2010 -- Quote for the Day: From December to March, there are for many of us three gardens -- the garden outdoors, the garden of pots and bowl in the house, and the garden of the mind's eye. -- Katherine S. White

God's Promise to You -- I leave you peace; my peace I give it to you as the world does. So don't let your hearts be troubled or afraid. -- John 14: 27

And so the horror continues in Haiti. Word on the news channels is that there have been 40,000 people buried already. Suspected some 100,000 injured.

More earthquakes spreading out across the restless Earth. Two in Okahoma today. of all places. And, of course, the aftershocks continue in Haiti and the region, including Puerto Rico. So scary.

In times like this, these moments of profound crisis, Americans open up their hearts and wallets. We give the downtrodden who are victimized by pain and suffering access to ourselves and what we have.

Americans share. We share our love and compassion. We share our medical aid. We share food and water. We share medical supplies. We share because we love all mankind. That's what being American means to the rest of the world.

So far, we've put three inflatable hospitals on the ground in Haiti, and the USS Comfort, a hospital ship is on its way to Haiti. This hospital ship can handle any kind of surgery that could possibly be required.

The presidential palace is in crumbles and the president is wondering where he's going to sleep. Now would be a good time to go out and sleep on the streets with your people, sir. They need you to be close to them.

The prison in Haiti spilled its guts and out came 4,000 ne'er do wells. They're walking the streets of Haiti with machetes, looting their way across the towns. They need to be gathered up. But then, the U.S. Army has landed. They ought to take care of those bad guys in pretty quick order.

January 14, 2010: Quote for the Day: Winter is the season in which people try to keep the house as warm as it was in the summer, when they complained about the heat. -- Author Unknown

God's Promise to You: "The mountains may disappear, and the hills may come to an end, but my love will never disappear; my promise of peace will not come to an end," says the Lord who shows mercy to you. -- Isaiah 54:10

I was talking about the locus of control with a client this afternoon. That's one of those "Philadelphia lawyer" phrases that probably could be replaced by something simpler. But I don't know what. Locus is the same Greek word that gives us the word location.

In the psychobabble world, this locus of control defines whether the location of what controls you is either internal or external.

Naturally, we're in a better emotional place if our locus of control is internal. If that's the case, then we have self-control. We don't rely on other people to tell us what we think about ourselves, how we should feel, etc. etc.

So I've been thinking of this locus of control and how it plays out with our self esteem. As I walk around the house muttering to myself, I'm actually composing this next offering to you which will play out in the next several days.

In the meantime, there are several multi-part series below that are going to have to be moved, rather, deleted. At first I thought I'd put them on the counseling page but apparently I'm using a lot of bandwidth with this website, so I'll make them available for a donation. Not much of a donation. Just whatever you think is fair for reprinting them and mailing to you. You can send your donation to me at 1206 So. 2nd St., Effingham, IL 62401. That's only fair, I guess, since I pulled the ads from this web site. It's not a commercial web site in that I don't actually sell anything outright.

Ah, poor Quint. He caught my cold anyway. It's a powerful nose-wringer of a cold that's going around. So he felt the first little invasive sniffle yesterday. That means next Wednesday he'll be fit as a fiddle again. But that cough! I can't get rid of that cough. The Robitussin tastes horrible. Makes me shake all over with the cringes. Yucko! I wouldn't bother, except that it works.

Quint went to the church council meeting tonight. I don't think he should have been so generous. I'd have been tempted to stay home. This time next week there'll be a dozen or so people who are not going to be thanking him too much for his little gift.

And with that, I'll go rest some more.

January 13, 2010 -- Quote for the Day: For those of you who don't understand Reaganomics, it's based on the principle that the rich and poor will get the same amount of ice. In Reaganomics, howver, the poor get all of theirs in winter. -- Mo Udall

and

It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold; when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade. -- Charles Dickens

God's Promise for You Today: And God gives us what we ask for because we obey God's commands and do what pleases him. -- 1 John 3:22

A poet, whose name I cannot recall, says winter is half past autumn. That's exactly right for me and my Groundhog's Day wait. I notice in the calendar last year that I made a special note that daffodils were blooming on April 1st. That would mean the daffodils were peeking out from their dirt blanket for weeks before the blooming. Gives me great heart to look forward to spring as I look out over the snow-covered rose garden in the front of the house.

It has been one week and one day since a naughty winter cold laid siege to me. Yesterday I pronounced myself cured; today, I feel ambition returning to me. Not too much, just some.

I think I mentioned that I once asked a doctor if I should bother with all those over the counter medications to treat cold symptoms and he said, "Your cold will go away in 7 days if you take the medicines, one week if you don't."

So not liking the feelings of misery, I have always treated the symptoms. And I give in a lot sooner and go back to bed for long naps. A luxury I couldn't accommodate when I was working feverishly in the practice up north. But my practice down here in the middle of the state is more part-time, so I can sneak in naps. Spraying the house with Lysol helps a great deal too. Kind of helps keep a sterile field in place. That way, Quint is not as likely to catch my cold. That's also why I spray the pillow cases, both sides, every morning. Killa all the cooties laying around on the pillow cases.

I think I told you about a new discovery. Well, not so new perhaps to some of you. But for me it's new. That is, peroxide mixed with water. About a half cup of peroxide to two cups of water. Great for sore throats. Better than warm salt water, and certainly better than any of the gargles out there on the market. It knocked my sore throat out in one day, where I had been trying with everything else I could throw at it for three days.

And now, I'm going to get back to my resting. I'm not finished yet.

January 11, 2010 -- Quote for the Day: I was just thinking, if it is really religion with these nudist colonies, they sure must turn atheists in the wintertime. -- Will Rogers

and

Winter must be cold for those with no warm memories. -- from the movie An Affair to Remember

God's Promise to You: The Lord sees everything yo do, and he watches where you go. -- Proverbs 5:21

I get my share of teasing about Ground Hog's Day on February 2. I don't care if the little "rat" sees his shadow or not. In my heart, we are halfway to spring. Why? Because the calendar says so.

Of course spring will be six weeks from Ground Hog's Day.

But every year, I start counting down the days 'til the Day of the Rat (Feb. 2) from New Years Day. And truly, in February the temperatures do tend to moderate a bit, even if snow still blankets the house and yard.

And thank you for your e-mails. I have officially declared myself well and over my winter cold. I am now in the process of recuperating my health and rebuilding stamina. These are the days when I am grateful for all those bursts of energy that motivated me to fill up the deep freeze with lots of meals already prepared. A blast from the nuke machine to warm them up gets a meal on the table in pretty quick order.

I think I may have shared with you how I get all that rich, golden chicken broth for my soups. Since I have to watch my sodium intake, I buy packages of chicken wings and freeze two or three in snack bags. Then, when I make soups, I just throw in a package of chicken wings. Completely sodium free.

We are watching that delicious BBC series Upstairs, Downstairs. The video that arrived today from Netflix will begin the third of five seasons.

And now I'm off to see what sort of mischief I can get into.

January 6, 2010 -- Quote for the Day: The mind is like a TV screen. There is always movement and action there. As you can switch off your TV, so you can off the TV screen of your mind. -- author unknown

God's Promise For You Today: Don't wear yourself out trying to get rich; be wise enough to control yourself. Wealth can vanish in the wink of an eye. It can seem to grow wings and fly away like an eagle. -- Proverbs 23:4-5

Self-Soothing -- Part 3

Self-soothing may sound like a foreign language right about now.

Oh, sure. You get it with the externals and the road ragers and other circumstances that need to be avoided.

That's easy to get.

But what about important people in your life? Like a spouse. Marriage is the most intimate of relationships between two people. It's like living in a shadow land. Never do you realize that more than if you're a lonely bean who needs alone time to mentally digest acrimony and you happen to be married to a shrieking chaser who's not going to let you rest until you get in there and sort out the "whoosy-whatsits" of a disagreement.

That's a situation that pulls you all the way to the top of that ladder I was talking about.

Calm yourself? How can you do that when the noise climate has approached the level of a jet engine and there's no place to go to get calm.

This is a serious situation and it's going to require two people to put on their grown-up clothes and have a polite, calm meeting where the two of you can define your different methods of settling differences. After all, you're radically different in your approaches.

Now, mind you, the time to have the meeting is not in the heat of the moment. Doing so at that time would just about guarantee a giant explosion of spitfire and wrath and anguish falling ouf the sky onto your heads.

Neither method is usually a deal-breaker in a marriage. But the more different the two of you are in your approach, the more challenging a time of finding a common ground where you can discover at least a couple of things you agree on.

It reminds me of a couple who were contemplating a divorce and they came for parenting skills for this new situation. They assured me that they didn't agree on anything when it came to raising the kids. That was, in fact, the main reason they wanted to divorce.

I told them I wasn't sure they couldn't find anything they agreed on. For the next hour we looked at things they admitted to agreeing on.

First of all, they agreed that their children deserved to be happy.

Well, yeah, they said.

And their children deserved to be well-nourished.

Well, yeah, they said.

Their children deserved to have loving parents.

Well, year, they said.

And the list went on. By the end of the session, they had 21 things they agreed on as far as parenting was concerned.

Which brings me to another point.

Sometimes it's easier to have those highly charged how-to meetings if you get off your comfortable turf. Go to a park. Walk off the heat. Go to a coffee shop and have a cup of coffee and talk.

Marriage is a relationship. It is engineered by the agreements two people make about how they are going to live their lives together without tripping over one another, or blocking each other's passage by standing in doorways, or pushing each other into corners. In other words, it's living in a calm, peaceful relationship.

January 5, 2010 -- Quote for the Day: What you do speaks so loud that I cannot hear what you say. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

and

Work like you don't need the money, love like you've never been hurt and dance like no one's watching. -- Mark Twain

Self-Soothing: Part 2

Imagine climbing up a 10-foot stepladder. And when you get to the top, you're just going to jump off. There's no one to catch you. No net to fall into. You're just going to jump off.

Well, the opportunity to self-soothe runs out on you when you get to about three quarters of the way up to the top of the ladder. When you get about halfway up to the top of your metaphorical ladder, you can still do a good job of calming yourself down.

Calming yourself down requires you to be in your logical state, not your emotional one. It's your emotional state that's going to beckon you to jump off the ladder when you get to the top. That's because you'll either be too angry to be rational, or too down-in-the-dumps to think things will get any better so you might as well just jump off.

So what can you do exactly to calm yourself?

First of all, think back to other times when you've been distressed. What did you do that worked for you?

If none of those strategies have any appeal to you now, then try something different. A long, hot-as-I-can-stand-it bubble bath works for me. If you're lucky enough to have a hot tub, then there's your ticket to peace and calm, maybe.

If you feel like you're on the verge of wanting to cry but can't wring out any tears, then go find the saddest video you can bring to mind and watch it. Maybe you'll start crying in response to the movie, but it probably won't be about the movie.

Forget about finding a new hobby. You're probably just not in the mood for that right now. Even though it would probably make you feel better to do something creative. Want to know why? Because when you're engaged in creative activities, dopamines start to attach to pleasure centers in the brain. Dopamines are good for us. They're those little neurotransmitters that make us feel good. So I could suggest creativity and you might take me up on it, but if you're new at this self-soothing thing, you might try to talk yourself out of it. Besides, creativity is a lot of more than painting water lilies, like Monet did.

Creativity can be decorating a cake. It can be rearranging the furniture. Read something you like. Poetry works for me every time. Make a flower arrangement. If you're reading this, I'm guessing you have a computer, so go on You Tube and do a search for your favorite song or musical group. www.youtube.com will get you there.

If you're getting the idea that self-soothing involves distracting yourself, you'd be right.

Self-soothing is all about reclaiming yourself. The time to get started is way before you get three-fourths of the way up the ladder.

January 4, 2010 -- Quote for the Day: Do you need or enjoy fear, worries and restlessness? If you don't, then why do you keep inviting them into your mind?

and

The wind causes waves to arise at the sea. Restless thoughts are the winds that bring waves and storms into the mind.

both quotes from Remez Sasson

The Importance of Self-Soothing

Of all the strategies we bring into our lives, the ability to self-soothe is one of the most important. At least, I believe so.

Think about it -- if you can self-soothe, you don't have to worry about being a road rager.

If you can soothe yourself, comfort yourself, calm yourself -- call it whatever you like -- for if you can do this, you remain in control of your behavior.

So how do you learn to self-soothe?

First of all, you have to give up the notion that other people are doing things on purpose just to upset you. Sounds a bit paranoid, don't you think? Truth is, most people are too busy worrying about their own stuff to worry about what you're up to.

So, to develop this ability to self-soothe, pick a person who tends to aggravate you. Or maybe there's a circumstance that really irritates. Pick someone or something that manages to knock you off center from time to time. That's what you want to practice on.

Remember, you'll be practicing on what's going on in your own head. You're not going to change another person, or whatever the circumstance is that bothers you.

You don't have control over those things and you're not going to change them. The only thing you can control is the way you react.

Developing the ability to calm yourself down with give you the power to be in charge of your reactions.

I personally do my most active self-soothing at check-out lines. Waiting in endless lines it not my cup of tea.

It used to be belligerent drivers, but I've decided that all those road bullies are on their way to the nearest emergency room where they will have to make a life and death decision about a loved one. Why else would anyone possibly drive so unconsciously of the safety of other drivers.

But the long lines at the supermarket is another matter. I'm almost always there because I'm convinced that I prefer paying the lower prices that such efficient handling of mass purchases brings to the marketplace.

Besides, I'm old enough to remember back when buying bread meant going to the bakery. Or to a department store if I wanted clothes. Or to a produce store if I wanted fresh fruit and vegetables.

Instead, I have to share my own private cashier with hundreds of other shoppers, probably even you, who also have the idea that everyone goes through the cash register lines at the front of the store.

So I'm able to stay relatively calm while I distract myself with a look at the trash journalism because I'm winning the efficient money game. I mean, having all the shoppers converge and funnel through a few cash register lines is such an economically genius idea, it must have been one of my brainstorms. I take credit for it because I at least thought of it at one time or another.

Sheer genius. That's what it is. And who would ever want to go back to the days of de-centralized shopping? Going from one store to another, parking the car, walking from the parking space to the store down the block.

Sometimes I think we stress ourselves out because we don't give ourselves enough credit for having good ideas.

In your calm seeking moments, think of the good ideas you've had.

We let the irate people who bump up against us drag us into the arena of their chaotic emotions. Then we have to calm ourselves down after we've let them wind us up like an eight-day clock. We stand there sputtering like an idiot while those yokels over there are chuckling to themselves. Ignore them. It's part of your new plan of presenting a calm face forward. Even if you're not, at least for physical appearances sake, look as if you are.

People and circumstances. Those are two areas that challenge us to become calm.

Remember - it's a lot easier to be calm than it is to get calm.

December 31, 2009 -- Quote for the Day: An optimist stays up until midnight to see the new year in. A pessimist stays up to make sure the old year leaves. -- Bill Vaughn

and

The object of a new year is not that we should have a new year. It is that we should have a new soul. -- G. KI. Chesterton

and

People are so worried about what they eat between Christmas and the New Year, but they really should be worried about what they eat between the New Year and Christmas, -- unknown

and

Another fresh new year is here ...
Another year to live!
To banish worry, doubt, and fear,
To love and laugh and give!

This bright new year is given me
To live each day with zest ...
To daily grow and try to be
My highest and my best!

I have the opportunity
Once more to right some wrongs,
To pray for peace, to plant a tree,
And sing more joyful songs!"
-- William Arthur Ward

God's Promise to You Today: When a person's steps follow the Lord, God is pleased with his ways. If he stumbles, he will not fall, because the Lord holds his hand. -- Psalm 37:23-24

This from my good friend Kate here in Effingham:

Requests for the New Year

What shall I ask for the coming year
What shall my watchword be
What should thou do for me, dear Lord
What can I do for thee?

Lord, I would ask for a holy year
Spent in thy perfect will
Help me to walk in thy very steps
Help me to please thee still.

Lord, I would ask for a trustful year
Give me thy faith divine
Taking my full inheritance
Making thy fulness mine!

Lord, I would ask for a year of love
O let me love thee best
give me the love that faileth not
Beneath the hardest test.

Lord, I would ask for a year of prayer
Teach me to walk with thee
Breathe in my heart the Spirit's prayer
Pray thou thy prayer in me!

Lord, I would ask for the dying world
stretch forth thy mighty hand
Thy truth proclaim, thy power display
This year in every land.

Lord, I would ask for a year of joy
Thy peace, thy joy divine
Springing undimmed through all the days
Be the days of shade or shine.

Lord, I ask for a year of hope
Looking for thee to come
And hastening on that year of hears
That brings us Christ and Home.

-- author unknown

and from my cousin, Mark:

Winter in Illinois
It's winter in Illinois
And the gentle breezes blow
Seventy miles an hour
At thirty-five below.

Oh, how I love Illinois
When the snow's up to your butt
You take a breath of winter
And your nose gets frozen shut.

Yes, the weather here is wonderful
So I guess I'll hang around
I could never leave Illinois
Cuz I'm frozen to the ground!

And this 2010 contract from my good friend Joyce:

My Wish for You:

May peace break into your home and may thieves come to steal your debts.

May the pockets of your jeans become a magnet for $100 bills.

May love stick to your face like Vaseline and may laughter assault your lips!

May happiness slap you across the face and may your tears be that of joy.

May the problems you had, forget your home address!

In simple words --

May 2010 be the best year of your life!

Thank you, Joyce. My sentiments exactly. And thank you for thinking of me.

December 30, 2009 -- Quote for the Day: Now there are more overweight people in America than average-weight people. So overweight people are now average. Which means, you have met your New Year's resolution. -- Jay Leno

God's Promise to You: Enjoy serving the Lord, and he will give you what you want. Depend on the Lord; trust him, and he will take care of you. -- Psalm 37:4-5

I have always enjoyed a well-turned phrase. Like "Ambition is the path to success. Persistence is the vehicle you arrive in." -- William Eardley IV

I guess all the quitters got thrown under the bus. Apparently they didn't deserve to ride in the Persistence car.

And since tomorrow is New Years Eve again, I have to think about my resolutions. Of course I make resolutions. It's a way of realizing and accepting that I'm not perfect and must still work at polishing the dull finish, stitching up the frayed edges of the "Me" that I want the world to see.

If I didn't make resolutions, it would be like accepting myself as mediocre. Not going to happen. Resolutions push me toward excellence. It forces me to start the new year out with the reckoning that I'd better behave and get back to work on myself.

Besides, a few good habits to start the year off will work just fine. I no longer resolve to lose weight though. Having already lost some forty pounds over the last couple of years, I can safely say that I have developed a new eating style. Nothing to chew on after 6:00 or 6:30 p.m. Except maybe a piece of fruit, like a big juicy apple.

My guess is I will continue to lose weight until I stabilize at where I'm supposed to be.

One thing I have to do tomorrow is respond to a few Christmas cards. Some I was waiting to send because I wanted to send photos of the Junior Quilting projects. And others get a nice long newsy letter from me. I've never written one of those Christmas letters to enclose with Christmas cards. Not that I have anything against it. I dearly love catching up on the lives of friends and family with their letters though.

I miss getting a Christmas card from my sister, Cookie. She always mailed her cards on Thanksgiving weekend. It was like she and my mother had a contest to see who could get their cards out the fastest. Since I have lost them both, I miss their early cards each year. I do good to get all my cards out by Epiphany. In fact, one year I was so distracted by so many things that I sent out what I called Epiphany cards.

I reckoned that my good friends would understand. Besides, it's always a good time to hear from a friend.

I have spent most of the afternoon cleaning off the desk in my study. I am very proud of the fact that I did something "terminal" with each piece of paper in an eight inch stack of papers. There's an equal size stack that was sitting next to it that I'll get to tomorrow. Then my desk will truly be a workspace again.

And on New Years Day, I fill in all the birthdays and anniversaries on a big month-at-a-glance calendar. That's a cue I take from my mother. Everyone admired my mom because she never forgot a special day. I fill out the calendar just like she did, but I don't have it in a place where I can readily see it. So this year I'm going to do Part 2 of my mother's plan. On the first day of the month I'm going to get all the cards addressed and write the important date for each card in the upper right hand corner where the stamp will cover it up.

If I can put those two tasks together like my mom did, I'll be doing pretty good.

December 28, 2009 -- Quote for the Day: The Church does not superstitiously observe days, merely as day,s but as memorials of important facts. Christmas might be kept as well upon one day of the year as another; but there should be a stated day for commemorating the birth of our Saviour, because there is danger that what may be done on any day, will be neglected. -- Samuel Johnson

God's Promise for Today: Happy is the person whose sins are forgiven, whose wrongs are pardoned. Happy is the person whom the Lord does not consider guilty and in whom there is nothing false. -- Psalm 32:1-2

The New Year fast approacheth! It will be a quiet one for us, as was Christmas. At our age, we have come to like our quiet. Quiet brings peace and calm.

We've made the observation, through the years, that folks spend way too much time shouting at each other. All those animosities that pull the wounded soul down, deeper and deeper. As if saying "I'm sorry" could erase the blackboard in their hearts.

Truth is, you can't take words back once they've escaped the quiet sanctity of the inside of your mouth. Once these little words go for the high dive off the tip of your tongue, you ought to have a care that the words are palatable, just in case you have to eat them later.

Besides, it doesn't cost a nickel to be nice. And about those little word escapees, let me tell you that I've eaten my fair share and little lettered storm troopers have gotten me into plenty of trouble over the years. But I keep trying. Always keep trying. Hopefully, by the time I get to the Pearly Gates, I'll be more even-tempered and a lot less contentious.

But I don't focus on mistakes I've made. And I've learned that I have to forgive myself as much as I forgive other folks.

Sometimes I think that the reason people get stuck on this forgiveness business is that they believe forgiving others means letting them "get away with" whatever it is that was done. That isn't the way forgiveness works. It's God who keeps score on what people think they are getting away with, not the wronged person.

Doing wrong things is God's business. The sooner we let the wrongdoers out of our lives, the more peace we feel. So, in the end, forgiving others benefits you first. When you forgive, you'll quit tripping over the disappointments in your lives, finally.

I hope that your New Year will be a clean slate. But if you are burdened by the disappointment that others have brought to your lives, I pray that you will lay that burden down. If you are unable to do it, then ask God for help. When you do that, all the resources of heaven and earth are at your disposal. All you need to do is ask for God's help.

Hanging onto the ill will of discontent could mean that you have made an idol of the disappointments others have brought to you. Take great care not to elevate your unforgiving heart to that degree. It will separate your from God, not bring your closer.

And on a lighter moment, here's something to think about. Three things, actually: Cows, The Constitution, The Ten Commandments

1. COWS -- Is it just me, or does anyone else find it amazing that our government can track down a cow born in Canada almost three years ago, right to the stall where she sleeps in the state of Washington and they tracked her calves to their stalls. But they are unable to locate 11 million illegal aliens wandering around in our country. Maybe we should give them all a cow.

2. THE CONSTITUTION -- Remember when they were talking about drafting that Constitution in Iraq? Why didn't we just give them ours? It was written by a lot of really smart guys over 200 years ago, and we're not using it anymore.

3. TEN COMMANDMENTS -- The real reason we don't have the Ten Commandments in a courthouse is that you cannot post "Thou Shalt Not Steal," "Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery," and "Thou Shalt Not Lie" in a building full of lawyers, judges and politicians. It creates a hostile work environment.

December 22, 2009 -- Quote for the Day: Fail not to call to mind, in the course of the twenty-fifth of this month, that the Divinest Heart that ever walked the earth was born on that day; and then smile and enjoy yourselves for the rest of it for mirth is also of Heaven's making . -- Leigh Hunt

Great Little One! whose all-embracing birth
Lifts Earth to Heaven, stoops Heaven to Earth. -- Richard Crashaw

God's Promise for You Today: Wait and trust the Lord. Don't be upset when others get rich or when someone else's plans succeed. Don't get angry. Don't be upset; it only leads to trouble. It is better to have little and be right than to have much and be wrong. -- Psalm 17:7-8, 16

This story, My Adventure With Grandma, is shared with us from my friend Antoinette:

I remember my first Christmas adventure with Grandma. I was just a kid. I remember tearing across town on my bike to visit her on the day my big sister dropped the bomb:   "There is no Santa Claus," she jeered.   "Even dummies know that!"

My Grandma was not the gushy kind, never had been. I fled to her that day because I knew she would be straight with me.   I knew Grandma always told the truth, and I knew that the truth always went down a whole lot easier when swallowed with one of her world-famous cinnamon buns. I knew they were world-famous, because Grandma said so. It had to be true.

Grandma was home, and the buns were still warm. Between bites, I told her everything. She was ready for me. "No Santa Claus!" she snorted. "Ridiculous! Don't believe it. That rumor has been going around for years, and it makes me mad, plain mad. Now, put on your coat, and let's go."

"Go?   Go where, Grandma?" I asked. I hadn't even finished my second world-famous, cinnamon bun. "Where" turned out to be Kerby's General Store, the one store in town that had a little bit of just about everything. As we walked through its doors, Grandma handed me ten dollars. That was a bundle in those days. "Take this money," she said,
"and buy something for someone who needs it.

I'll wait for you in the car. " Then she turned and walked out of Kerby's.

I was only eight years old. I'd often gone shopping with my mother, but never had I shopped for anything all by myself. The store seemed big and crowded, full of people scrambling to finish their Christmas shopping. For a few moments I just stood there, confused, clutching that ten-dollar bill, wondering what to buy, and who on earth to buy it for.

I thought of everybody I knew: my family, my friends, my neighbors, the kids at school, the people who went to my church. I was just about thought out, when I suddenly thought of Bobby Decker.  He was a kid with bad breath and messy hair, and he sat right behind me in Mrs. Pollock's grade-two class. Bobby Decker didn't have a coat. I knew that because he never went out for recess during the winter. His mother always wrote a note, telling the teacher that he had a cough, but all we kids knew that Bobby Decker didn't have a cough, and he didn't have a coat. I fingered the ten-dollar bill with growing excitement. I would buy Bobby Decker a coat!

I settled on a red corduroy one that had a hood to it.   It looked real warm, and he would like that. "Is this a Christmas present for someone?" the lady behind the counter asked kindly, as I laid my ten dollars down.

"Yes," I replied shyly. "It's .... for Bobby." The nice lady smiled at me. I didn't get any change, but she put the coat in a bag and wished me a Merry Christmas.

That evening, Grandma helped me wrap the coat in Christmas paper and ribbons (a little tag fell out of the coat, and Grandma tucked it in her Bible) and wrote on the package, "To Bobby, From Santa Claus" -- Grandma said that Santa always insisted on secrecy. Then she drove me over to Bobby Decker's house, explaining as we went that I was now and forever officially one of Santa's helpers.

Grandma parked down the street from Bobby's house, and she and I crept noiselessly and hid in the bushes by his front walk. Then Grandma gave me a nudge. "All right, Santa Claus," she whispered, "get going."

I took a deep breath, dashed for his front door, threw the present down on his step, pounded his doorbell and flew back to the safety of the bushes and Grandma. Together we waited breathlessly in the darkness for the front door to open. Finally it did, and there stood Bobby.

Fifty years haven't dimmed the thrill of those moments spent shivering, beside my Grandma, in Bobby Decker's bushes. That night, I realized that those awful rumors about Santa Claus were just what Grandma said they were: ridiculous. Santa was alive and well, and we were on his team.

I still have the Bible, with the tag tucked inside: $19.95.
==============================
He who has no Christmas in his heart will never find Christmas under a tree.

-- Thank you, Antoinette. I was so fortunate to have a Grandma like the little boy in this story. And how fortunate you were to take your dinner every evening with my Grandma. Truly, she blessed us both and we are richer because she was in our lives.

December 20, 2009 -- Quote for the Day: Blessed is the season which engages the whole world in a conspiracy of love. -- Hamilton Wright Mabie

God's Promise to You: Happy are those who don't listen to the wicked, who don't go where sinners go, who don't do what evil people do. They love the Lord's teachings, and they think about those teachings day and night. They are strong, like a tree planted by a river. The tree produces fruit in season, and its leaves don't die. Everything they do will succeed. -- Psalm 1:1-3

We had a prayer and consecration service at church today to bless all the quilts that the Junior Quilters made for the veterans who are in the Skilled Care Unit in a nearby nursing home, and also baby quilts for the layettes at a pregnancy crisis center.

All of the Junior Quilters came forward to be recognized, as did all the wonderful ladies who also instruct the youngsters with me.

Lots of accolades as the folks looked at the quilts that the girls made with meticulous care.

Each one of us is looking for affirmation in our lives. We long to be in a place where we feel that we are valued by those around us. Today, the Junior Quilts enjoyed those full moments and they deserved every minute of it.

I don't know what their friends are doing on Saturdays, but I know that the Junior Quilts are at church designing, sewing and constructing quilts for individuals who are out there needing to be wrapped in something warm and soft that someone else has made with so much love and care.

And we are blessed to have a healthy World War II veteran in our congregation. He was so surprised to be called forward to receive a quilt.

Each quilt had an insignia for the branch of service that the gentlemen served in as its centerpiece. There were ten Army guys, 1 Marine, three Air Force and three Navy vets from World War II. We put the quilts together in about a month. The other blocks in the quilts, which is comprised of 9-inch squares, are kind of tailored to the branch of service. I was fortunate to find material at our local quilt shot that would apply to the individual service branches.

I truly hope that each veteran will stay warm underneath the quilts that we made.

We are also blessed to have gifts of material for the baby quilts that the crisis center will use in the layettes that they give to women and teens who are experiencing unwanted pregnancies but who have opted out of abortions.

A nice lady called in response to an article in our local newspaper about the quilters and said she makes scrubs for medical people at the Shriners Hospital and did I want the leftover material pieces. Well, yes we do! She brought two big tubs of quarter yard and half yard pieces. Lots of pretty material pieces and the girls got busy right away designing their nine-patches with the variety of fabrics.

These Junior Quilters are in Scouts or 4-H, are cheerleaders at their schools, on the Honor Rolls at their schools. And now quilting. They do just about everything except maybe keep their rooms as clean as their parents would like.

Annual Dementia Quit (got this from my cousin Mark and am sharing with you in case you're the one who's in charge of providing a few games to loosen up the crowd at your Christmas festivities -- thanks, Mark)

Your Yearly Dementia Test

It's that time of year to take our annual senior citizen test. Exercise of the brain
is as important as exercise of the muscles. As we grow older, blah, blah, blah.....
JUST TAKE THE TEST!!

OK, relax, clear your mind and begin.

1. What do you put in a toaster?

Answer: 'bread.' If you said 'toast,' give up now and do something else.
Try not to hurt yourself. If you said 'bread', go to Question 2.

2. Say 'silk' five times. Now spell 'silk.' What do cows drink?

Answer: Cows drink water. If you said 'milk,' don't attempt the next question. Your
brain is over-stressed and may even overheat. Content yourself with reading a more
appropriate literature such as Auto World. However, if you said 'water', proceed to
question 3.

3. If a red house is made from red bricks and a blue house is made from blue bricks
and a pink house is made from pink bricks and a black house is made from black
bricks, what is a greenhouse made from?

Answer: Greenhouses are made from glass. If you said 'green bricks,' why the hell
are you still reading these???
If you said 'glass,' go on to Question 4.

4. It's twenty years ago, and a plane is flying at 20,000 feet over Germany (If you
will recall, Germany at the time was politically divided into West Germany and East
Germany ..) Anyway, during the flight, two engines fail. The pilot, realizing that
the last remaining engine is also failing, decides on a crash-landing procedure.
Unfortunately the engine fails before he can do so and the plane fatally crashes
smack in the middle of 'no man's land' between East Germany and West Germany . Where
would you bury the survivors East Germany , West Germany , or no man's land'?

Answer: You don't bury survivors.
If you said ANYTHING else, you're a dunce and you must stop. If you said, 'You don't
bury survivors', proceed to the next question.

5. Without using a calculator - You are driving a bus from London to Milford Haven
in Wales . In London , 17 people get on the bus. In Reading , six people get off the
bus and nine people get on. In Swindon , two people get off and four get on. In
Cardiff , 11 people get off and 16 people get on. InSwansea , three people get off
and five people get on. In Carmathen, six people get off and three get on. You then
arrive at Milford Haven.
What was the name of the bus driver?

Answer: Oh, for crying out loud!
Don't you remember your own name? It was YOU!!

December 17, 2009 -- Quotes for the Day: Christmas is a time when you get homesick - even when you're home. -- Carol Nelson

There has been only one Christmas -- the rest are anniversaries. -- W. J. Cameron

Never worry about the size of your Christmas tree. In the eyes of children, they are all 30 feet tall. -- Larry Wilde, The Merry Book of Christmas

Christmas is the season for kindling the fire of hospitality in the hall, the genial flame of charity in the heart. -- Washington Irving

Isn't it funny that at Christmas something in your gets so lonely for -- I don't know what exactly, but it's something that you don't mind so much not having at other times. -- Kate L. Bosher

Love is what's in the room with you at Christmas if you stop opening presents and listen. -- Author unknown, attributed to a 7-year-old named Bobby

Only in souls the Christ is brought to birth, and there He lives and dies. -- Alfred Noyes

God's Promise for Today: We have around us many people whose lives tell us what faith means. So let us run the race that is before us and never give up. We should remove from our lives anything that would get in the way and the sin that so easily holds us back. -- Hebrews 12:1

I have two stories to share with you. And they both bring a reminder that people watch us without our ever knowing that they are studying what we do.

The first story I share with permission from the individual who told me about his life. He absolutely wanted me to share his story with anybody and everybody who'd listen. So here it is.

He grew up with a father who was a habitual felon. His mother died before he was ten years old. He drifted in and out of foster homes during those times when his father was in the slammer, his felonies becoming increasingly more serious. He would have been a lifer if the "three strikes and you're out" had been in effect at that time.

I met this young man when he was in his late twenties. He had started going to church.

Want to know why? He wanted to be successful and when he looked around, he noticed that there were more church-goers who were successful, than not. At the church he joined he met a pastor who was a friend of mine and who made frequent referrals to me for counseling.

I worked with this young man for almost a year as he rid himself of the shackles of gambling. Then he and his wife came for couple counseling because as he healed, their relationship started to deteriorate. This is not unusual when one person has been holding another up for a long time, then that person gets healthy while the holding-up person wanders around in a seemingly lost ego state feeling choreless. So we got that all sorted out. Just in time to welcome the oldest boy into adolescence. Mischief maker he was but his parents would have none of it. All ended well for this young family. I think of them especially at this time of year because the young man brought such a childlike joy to the Christmas season. As adults, children who grew up in homes that were wanting frequently bring the joy of fulfilled anticipation to their own children.

In the end, it wasn't success so much that he gained; although he got his share of that too. But the joy and contentment that he gleaned from his new relationship with Jesus Christ helped him share that peace and comfort with his family.

The next story is about a person at the church Quint and I were members of before we moved to Effingham. Someone came up to us in the narthex as we were leaving the church one Sunday morning. This nice lady said she loved to watch Quint and me because we made it so obvious that we cared for each other and about each other.

Boy, I thought, maybe we ought to be sitting about thirty pews back if people are watching us. But we didn't move. We're not one of those Lutherans who like to sit in the back.

So I'll close for today with this quote from our former Pastor Karl Landgrebe: Be careful of the life you lead; you may be the only Bible someone will read.

But then, I got this beautiful story from my buddy Alice, who happens to be married to my cousin Al:

Each December, I vowed to make Christmas a calm and peaceful experience.
I had cut back on nonessential obligations - extensive card writing, endless
baking, decorating, and even overspending..

Yet still, I found myself exhausted, unable to appreciate the precious family
moments, and of course, the true meaning of Christmas.

My son, Nicholas, was in kindergarten that year. It was an exciting season for a
six year old.

For weeks, he'd been memorizing songs for his school's Winter Pageant.

I didn't have the heart to tell him I'd be working the night of the production,
unwilling to miss his shining moment, I spoke with his
Teacher, she assured me there'd be a dress rehearsal the morning of the
presentation.
All parents unable to attend that evening were welcome to come then.
Fortunately, Nicholas seemed happy with the compromise.

So, the morning of the dress rehearsal, I filed in ten minutes early, found a spot
on the cafeteria floor and sat down. Around the room I saw several other parents
quietly scampering to their seats.
As I waited, the students were led into the room. Each class, accompanied by their
teacher, sat cross-legged on the floor. Then, each group, one by one, rose to
perform their song.

Because the public school system had long stopped referring to the holiday as
"Christmas," I didn't expect anything other than fun, commercial entertainment songs
of reindeer, Santa Claus, snowflakes and good cheer.
So, when my son's class rose to sing, "Christmas Love," I was slightly taken aback
by its bold title.

Nicholas was aglow, as were all of his classmates, adorned in fuzzy mittens, red
sweaters, and bright snowcaps upon their heads.

Those in the front row- center stage - held up large letters, one by one, to spell
out the title of the song.
As the class would sing "C is for Christmas," a child would hold up the letter C.
Then, "H is for Happy," and on and on, until each child holding up his portion had
presented the complete message,
"Christmas Love."
The performance was going smoothly, until suddenly, we noticed her; a small, quiet,
girl in the front row holding the letter "M" upside down - totally unaware her
letter "M" appeared as a "W".

The audience of 1st through 6th graders snickered at this little one's mistake. But
she had no idea they were laughing at her, as she stood tall, proudly holding her
"W".
Although many teachers tried to shush the children, the laughter continued until
the last letter was raised, and we all saw it together.
A hush came over the audience and eyes began to widen.
In that instant, we understood the reason we were there, why we celebrated the
holiday in the first place, why even in the chaos, there was a purpose for our
festivities.

For when the last letter was held high, the message read loud and clear:
"C H R I S T W A S L O V E"
And, I believe, He still is.
Amazed in His presence....humbled by His love.

Remember, Christ IS the Reason for the Season!

Merry Christmas Everyone!

December 15, 2009 -- Quote for the Day: To get something you never had, you have to do something you never did. When God takes something from your grasp, He's not punishing you, but merely opening your hands to receive something better. Concentrate on this sentence -- The will of God will never take you where the Grace of God will not protect you. Something good will happen to you today; something that you have been waiting to hear. Watch for people whom God has put in your path. -- Anonymous

God's promise for today: Get along with each other, and forgive each other. If someone does wrong to you, forgive that person because the Lord forgave you. -- Colossians 3:13

FORGIVENESS: WITHHOLDING FORGIVENESS IS AN ANGRY CHOICE

When you go into a store and see something you like, do you think you can just take it off the shelf and walk out of the store without paying for it?

I think not!

That is, not unless you want to have security people chase you down the street. Then they'd tackle you and knock you down. Then they'd probably punch you in the face and pull your hair out in big clumps until you beg for mercy and give them their stuff back.

Well, maybe they'd just snag you, handcuff you, and drag your humiliated self back to the store while you wait for the constabulary to come get you in a big paddy wagon and cart you off to jail.

That theme has repeated itself ever since Eve headed for the nearest supermarket just blocks from the bolted shut gateway to the Garden of Eden. If you want the merchandise, fork over the cashola. That's what Eve says, and she learned about sin the hard way.

The choice is clearly yours. Pay and you get to keep the stuff. Don't pay and you're going to have a shopkeeper very angry with you. You choose.

God chose to forgive us, you know. You'd think he'd be pretty tired of all our sinning, day in and day ot. But because he loves us, in spite of our sins, he also expects us to forgive those who sin against us.

God says in Mark 11:25: When you are praying, if you are angry with someone, forgive him so that your Father in heaven will also forgive your sins.

How much plainer can God be?

But back to the store concept. If you've ever been to those fancy schmancy high end stores that sell expensive stuff like diamonds and leather coats, you'll notice magnetic strips bolted onto the stuff something. This magnetron is reserved for stuff that costs a lot of loot.

Try to get out the door without a cashier taking the magnetron strip off when you pay for the stuff. Otherwise, the magnetron will trip an alarm at the exit door and everyone will stop and stare at you and point accusatory fingers at you like you're some kind of stupid person who thought you could get away with the good stuff.

Well, if you refuse to forgive people who have sinned against you, God knows. He doesn't need a magnetic strip attached to you because he can read what's in your heart. But I'll just bet that every time you choose not to forgive someone, alarms go off in heaven.

And I'll just betcha that God is sitting there wishing you'd wise up to the eternal truth that forgiveness is a choice you make.

God orders you to forgive. Even if you don't feel like it. Maybe especially if you don't feel like it.

And yes, God will outlast your stubbornness if you refuse. You only have a brief lifetime that might last a hundred years or so to make up your mind to obey God. But God's in charge forever. So you'll have to answer the first question he'll probably ask you at the Pearly Gates. The conversation might go something like this: Let's see, I thought I was pretty firm on this order for to forgive others. Why didn't you?

I hope you don't think you'll get away with something flippant like you didn't think he really meant it. I wouldn't recommend talking to God that way.

The Bible is God's Word. He means what he says. Each and every word.

December 11, 2009 -- Quote for the Day: A liberal is a man too broadminded to take his own side in a quarrel. -- Robert Frost

and

Where all think alike, no one thinks very much. -- Walter Lippmann

SHAME -- Part 5: Is There a Good Side to Shame?

We've talked about the down side of shame in this little miniseries. But does shame have any redemptive qualities? Actually, it does. And in this final segment, that's just what we're going to explore.

When we do something that's bad enough to make us ashamed of what we did, it triggers guilt. This guilt then leads to feelings of remorse. At least we hope to find remorse in the aftermath of wrongdoing.

However, people who commit heinous crimes frequently lack remorse, depending on the degree of pathology that's involved. We call such people amoral. Or psychopathic. Or pathological. Not only do they lack remorse, but they usually don't think that what they did was wrong. That would be mainly because they believe their victim got what they deserved.

But in the absence of pathology, we know that people know that what they've done is wrong at precisely the point of shame recognition. No shame recognition, no sense of having done anything wrong.

Many a parent recognizes this signal of misbehavior with their errant youngsters.

Our oldest swore up and down that he had LIAR written on his forehead because we'd recognize the telltale sign of guilty head bowed low. "Don't lie to me," we'd say. It got to the point that he'd cover his forehead whenever he'd tell a fib. Good clue, wouldn't you think?

So many times I've heard from people that they've done something so horrible that even God would never forgiven them.

To which I would tell the story of the Apostle Paul.

Now if you're familiar with people who lived in the Bible, you'll remember that God sometimes changed the names of people right after they had life changing events.

It was that way with Paul too. He used to go by the name of Saul in the old days. That was back when he rode around the countryside killing off as many Christians as he could find. In face, he usually had an execution order in his pocket just in case he ran across a Christian walking down the road. Just fill the Christian's name in the blanks, that's what Saul would do.

Then one day Jesus appeared to Saul. You could say it was a blinding light. Jesus asked Saul why he was persecuting him.

It wasn't until Saul was taken into town where he rested in his blindness for three days that God changed his name to Paul.

New name. New man. New job. Now Paul was to get busy working to build God's kingdom.

And forgiveness? It was complete. Paul believed that he was forgiven. He just knew it. Fact of the matter is, the New Testament would be a mighty thin volume if we didn't have the letters that Paul wrote to the budding Christian congregations that he started up on his missionary journeys.

My point is, if remorse and shame were going to land on anyone's shoulders, don't you think Paul would qualify? But that wasn't the case.

So next time you have the idea that God could never ever forgive you, think about Paul and how God's forgiveness changed his life.

December 10, 2009 -- Quote for the Day: Pick battles big enough to matter; small enough to win. -- Jonathan Kozol

and

Whenever two good people argue over principles, they are both right. -- Marie Ebner Von Eschenbach

Shame -- Part 4: Shame As A Motivator

Shame is a really big motivator. Ask any kid who has been reluctant to go on a ride at a park only to have someone say, "Whatsa matter? Chicken?"

Kind of like me when I refuse to go on one of those zombie roller coaster rides. Just teasing, you think? Maybe. Maybe not. If you're the person who's resisting, it doesn't sound much like teasing, does it? More like humiliation.

But a ride at an amusement park is a relatively simple matter. What bothers me are the more serious activities where shame is used to make someone do something they really don't want to do.

Sex, for instance. Or drugs. Or booze. This is especially true of teenagers who are often particularly vulnerable to the demands place on them by others. Resistance is met with counters that increase in volume and frequency. And then comes the argument that moves them over the threshold of capitulation. Shame can be used for just such a thing.

In the back seat of a car, a guy will whisper all the sweet nothings. So far so good. His sweetie is still able to resist going all the way. That is, until he says once too often, "If you want me to treat you like a woman, why don't you act like one?"

There he goes. Tampering with her identity and self-esteem, as if sexual activity is all there is to being a woman.

Or how about an employee who shames another employee into stealing something from work? Ever had anyone try to shame you into something like that? I remember when the company I used to work for first started providing laptops for executives above a certain pay grade. They kept disappearing until a memo went around telling the employees to lock up their laptops; otherwise, replacements would be at the employees' expense. End of problem.

Maybe you didn't get a raise last year because of the economy. Someone might say something like, "It's stupid to keep giving and giving and not getting anything back."

Did you hear anything after "It's stupid...?"

It doesn't take much of a leap to bridge the thought that if what you're doing is stupid, then you must be stupid to do such a thing.

There it is again, an attempt to get you to do something you don't want to dy by wearing your self-esteem down. Shaming you.

Abusive spouses keep their victims shamed into all kinds of attempts at pleasing. How many times I heard battered women make excuses for the abuse they endured because they didn't keep a clean enough house, or cook delicious enough meals, or look pretty enough, or made the kids behave perfectly. And the list went on and on and on. No matter what they did or didn't do, it was never enough. Never good enough. The victim was continuously demeaned until they got the most shameful act of all - another round of physical violence.

When shame is used to motivate behavior imposed by others, it's toxic and destructive. It's a highly effective way to manipulate behavior in dysfunctional relationships.

Self-imposed shame can also motivate. It's been said that each person who has managed to stop abusing alcohol or drugs, or both, has a shameful image of himself or herself that the individual never wants to get to that state again. Ever. This is one instance where shame can be a powerful motivator for good.

December 8, 2009 -- Quote for the Day: There are thousands of causes for stress, and one antidote to stress is self-expression. That's what happens to me every day. My thoughts get off my chest, down my sleeves and onto my pad. -- Garson Kanin (American Writer, Actor, and Film Director (1912-1999)

Can you tell that one of my favorite Christmas carols is Little Drummer Boy? If you enjoy it as much as Quint and I, you have a mini-marathon in the links above.

The story of the little drummer boy appeal to me for a lot of reasons. First of all, the little guy didn't have a single cotton pickin' thing he could bring to the Christ Child, but he thought he ought to do something. So he decided that he'd play his drums. He may not have been a Carnegie Hall musician, even for Bethlehem days, but he was not ashamed of his blooming abilities. So he figured he'd play the very best he could and hoped it would be enough for the little baby. No shame there.

I got this message from my friend Kate here in Effingham and am sharing it with you. I believe I've seen it before, and perhaps you have too; but its message still deserves another read. And thank you, Kate, for sending it along.

Letter from Jesus about Christmas:

It has come to my attention that many of you are upset that folks are taking My name out of the season. Maybe you've forgotten that I wasn't actually born during this time of the year and that it was some of your predecessors who decided to celebrate My birthday on what was actually a time of pagan festival. Although I do appreciate being remembered anytime.

How I personally feel about this celebration can probably be most easily understood by those of you who have been blessed with children of your own. I don't care what you call the day. If you want to celebrate My birth, just get along and love one another.

Now, having said th, let Me go on. If it bothers you that the town in which you live doesn't allow a scene depicting My birth, then just rid of a couple of Santas and snowmen and put in a small nativity scene on your own front lawn. If all My followers did that there wouldn't be any need for such a scene on the town square because there would be many of them all around town.

Stop worrying about the fact that people are calling the tree a holiday tree instead of a Christmas tree. It was I who made all trees. You can remember me anytime you see any tree. Decorate a grape vine if you wish. I actually spoke of that one in a teaching, explaining who I am in relation to you and what each of our tasks were. If you have forgotten that one, look up John 15:1-8.

If you want to give Me a present in remembrance of My brith, here is my wish list. Choose something from it:

1. Instead of writing protest letters objecting to the way My birthday is being celebrated, write letters of love and hope to soldiers away from home. They are terribly afraid and lonely this time of year. I know, they tell Me all the time.

2. Visit someone in a nursing home. You don't have to know them personally. They just need to know that someone cares about them.

3. Instead of writing the President complaining about the wording on the cards his staff sent out this year, why don't you write and tell him that you'll be praying for him and his family this year. Then follow up. It will be nice hearing from you again.

4. Instead of giving your kids lots of gifts you can't afford and they don't need, spend time with them. Tell them the story of My birth, and why I came to live with you down here. Hold them in your arms and remind them that I love them.

5. Pick someone who has hurt you in the past and forgive him or her.

6. Did you know that someone in your town will attempt to take their life this season because they feel so alone and hopeless? Since you don't know who that person is, try giving everyone you meet a warm smile. It could make the difference.

7. Instead of nitpicking about what the retailer in your town calls the holiday, be patient with the people who work there. Give them a warm smile and a kind word. Even if they aren't allowed to wish you a "Merry Christmas," that doesn't keep you from wishing them one. Then stop shopping there on Sunday. If the store didn't make so much money on that day they'd close and let their employees spend the day at home with their families.

8. If you really want to make a difference, support a missionary -- especially one who takes My love and Good News to those who have never heard My name.

9. Here's a good one. There are individuals and whole families in your town who not only will have no "Christmas" tree, but neither will they have any presents to give or receive. If you don't know who they are, buy some food and a few gifts and give them to the Salvation Army, Catholic Charities, or some other charity which believes in Me and they will make the delivery for you.

10. Finally, if you want to make a statement about your belief in and loyalty to Me, then behave like a Christian. Don't do things in secret that you wouldn't do in My presence. Let people know by your actions that you are one of Mine.

Don't forget: I am God and can take care of Myself. Just love Me and do what I have told you to do. I'll take care of all the rest. Check out the list above and get to work; time is short. I'll hel you, but the ball is in your court. And do have a most blessed Christmas with all those whom you love and remember:

I love you!

Jesus

December 7, 2009 -- Quote for the Day: You see things and you say, "Why?" But I dream things that never were and I say, "Why not?" -- George Bernard Shaw

and

Never look down on anybody unless you're helping him up. -- Jesse Jackson

SHAME -- Part 3 -- Shame Evaporates When It Can't Hide

A number of years ago I attended one of those all-day workshops for counselors who wanted to beef up what they know about drugs. Believe me, when someone walks through the door to the office wanting help with a substance abuse problem, you'd better be up to date and you'd better know what you're talking about.

The one person who impressed me the most stood up, introduced the agency he represented, then told hi story of how he got himself into the mess of a drug world. And how he managed to crawl out, with the help of a lot of people around him who cared very much that he make it.

It was a medium brief story. The audience got very quiet. We wanted to hear every syllable of what he had to say.

Too many times these kinds of speeches imbed blaming onto others. Then they become just another ho-hum boring speaker. But not him. He took full responsibility for his blunders. Then, just before he sat down, he said, "And now that I've shared my story with you, you can't hurt me with it."

There it was. He brought it all out into the open. It was just sitting in the daylight. Then, poof, the details started to fade away. What courage it took for him to share so many intimate details with a bunch of us strangers.

"Now you can't hurt me with my story," he said. How incredibly simple. And how utterly goose-pimply brave of him to do that!

But who among us has had a perfect life? Not one.

And who among us hs the right to feel better than anyone else because of the educational level we've gotten to? Not one.

And who among us deserves to feel just a tad better off than those who live in a lower rung of the economic ladder? Not one.

And if the truth be known, who among us has some shameful memory for something we'd just as soon no one knows about us? Some little secret you're keeping from the rest of your social group? No one.

Whether we decide to stand up and share the details of our personal "once upon a time" stories, or just quietly take out these memories and share with a trusted friend, the shame goes away when you bring it out into the light.

Otherwise, the shame stays in that little thought cave somewhere deep inside you where you store all the memories of your "ought nots" or "wish I hadn't done thats."

Shame doesn't deserve the allegiance you give to it. Shame doesn't deserve to dine at your mental table.

December 4, 2009 -- Quote for the Day: It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future. -- Yogi Berra

and a few more of my favorite Yogi Berras:

You can observe a lot by just watching.

The future ain't what it used to be.

When you get to a fork in the road, take it.

Shame: Part 2 -- You're More In Charge Than You Think You Are

Let me ask you a simple question. How helpless do you feel with these negative, shame-filled messages bombarding your every living thought. Well, maybe "every" is an exaggeration. But it may seem so, most of the time.

And you think you don't have the power or the right to change your own messages about what you think about yourself?

Can you answer why you might believe that falsehood?

This bondage to the shame-based beliefs anchors itself to your very core.

But realize this. Your brain -- that small little organ sitting on the top of your neck -- is little more than three pounds of electrically charged fat cells.

Your brain exists to serve you. It is at your mercy, not the other way around.

And this may come as another surprise. Your brain will believe (and obey) what you tell it.

Try to change messages. Start with a small, simple message. Just to prove it to yourself. Something like, "I can do this."

Restructuring your mental processes is just as simple, and complex, as that.

But here's the real challenge. If you ever have a prayer of ridding yourself of these pesky shame thoughts, you are going to have to replace them with some other message.

Right now those messages you don't like are sitting there taking up space. And when those thoughts get out of your head, the empty space needs to get some other thought in there.

That's the way nature works. Does not like empty spaces.

You see, positive happy thoughts are not made up of vitamins, cholesterol, calcium, or anything else that's chemical. These positive thoughts are the gift that you give your brain. And, in turn, your brain blesses you with all the rewards that every other optimist enjoys.

-- to be continued

December 3, 2009 -- Quote for the Day: If you do a good job for others, you heal yourself at the same time, because of dose of joy is a spiritual cure. It transcends all barriers. -- Ed Sullivan

SHAME: Part 1 -- Feeling Yukky From the Inside Out

I know. I know. "Yukky" isn't a psychobabble word. But it so well describes how shame makes us feel, doesn't it?

Shame is a failure-based belief. And because we do not expect to succeed, our expectations are that other people will hurt us. Worse yet, if we are shame-filled, we even feel like we deserve to be hurt by others.

We have Eric Erikson to thank for developing the stages of emotional development. Erikson said that along about the period of 3-6 years of a child's life, the youngster works hard at developing a sense of initiative -- working hard to adopt a "can do" attitude. As children are encouraged to take on more challenging tasks, they rally in their successes. However, if youngsters are criticized and teased to the point of humiliation, they begin to get the idea that they can't do anything right. It doesn't take much ridicule coming from the very people who are supposed to be their encouragers to fill a child up with self-contempt.

So, you may ask, "Who would do that to a child?" to which I reply, "You'd be surprised. Maybe not on purpose, but parents, aunts, uncles, big sisters or brothers, even grandparents can criticize a child to a point of fracturing a developing ego.

Now, don't get me wrong. Anything that gets captured in the young person's mind is not necessarily written in indelible ink.

So if you think I'm going to make blame statements about parents and the possible damage they unwittingly do to make a child feel shame, you'd be wrong.

Truth is, it's hard to find solutions in the middle of the fog called shame.

So for today, I'll close with the truism that you can't control the wind, but you can adjust your sails.

If you are feeling shame, there comes a time to lay that burden down. The shame you may feel comes from distorted messages that were given to you by someone who shaped your view of yourself.

That message, or those messages, may be distorted but they aren't fatal flaws. But you'll no doubt continue to haul them around and hang onto them until create replacement thoughts.

Eventually, as we grow up and mature, we replace those shame-based statements that keep rising to the surface with the fruits of our own mental labors.

When we hear that small voice from deep within the storehouse of our memory taunt us with, "You can't do anything right," we need to consciously counter with "I do a lot of things right."

There, another adjustment to your sails on the stormy high seas of life.

-- to be continued

December 2, 2009 -- Quote for the Day: Speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will ever regret. -- Ambrose Bierce

and

Whatever is begun in anger ends in shame. -- Benjamin Franklin

SHAME -- WHAT IN THE WORLD IS THAT ALL ABOUT?

Being ashamed of something is a lot stronger than making up a list of your most embarrassing moments.

Shame eats away at you and forms a toxic part of yourself that can be absolutely paralyzing.

That's what I'm composing now. It will be a new four or five part series. Once shame gets defined, then we can begin to talk about overcoming it.

But here's a clue: those people who have had distorted images of themselves reflected back as they grow up are living under an umbrella of shame.

It could be carrying the shame of a teenage abortion around for twenty years. It could be trying to create an alibi that would help undo the shame of drug abuse, but still feeling dirty from the shame.

So if you have any questions or comments about shame, please send them to me at jane@janereinheimer.com And no, I would never quote you or identify you in any way but your situation may be helpful to hundreds, even thousands of other readers in other countries. Be assured I will protect your anonymity.

The series starts tomorrow. Tell your friends.

On another subject, I have to tell you I am not thrilled with the prospect of winter coming again. It is not my favorite time of year. But then, I probably wouldn't welcome spring so much if it weren't for the fact that all my little plant friends are stunned by frost and sort of hibernating through the winter. Poor little things, bet their little feet are shivering down there under the dirt.

Laura, my friend in the Atlanta area, says they have a winter variety of petunia that blooms. I'm trying real hard to not be pressed into guilt of the 10th Commandment on that one.

In the meantime, Quint and I are snuggled in for the evening and will be watching another installment of Foyle's War. It's another one of those delicious BBC series. Foyle is a police superintendent and the series is set in WWII. He's an extraordinary crime detective. And he always solves the mysteries. He is driven about by a woman drive, Samantha, who was appropriated from the embassy staff. She's very insightful.

And I'll have you know I was the only person at the Ladies Aid Christmas party last night who had the correct answer to when Charles Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol. A purely lucky guess I grabbed out of thin air of 1843 was the winner. Annette, one of the members, was in charge of the entertainment/games section and she volunteered to do a Christmas trivia bunch of questions. I only got 3 out of 7 on each of three rounds.

And then we found out who our Secret Pal was and exchanged gifts. This year, I had Arlene's name. And lo and behold, she also had mine. That does not happen very often. I got a very nice little cookbook some delicious looking Christmas recipes, and a beautiful ornament for the tree. I gave her a perpetual calendar that has a quilting pattern for each day of the year. Having a quilter for a secret pal sure makes things easier.

The evening had started off with a delicious Lutheran chow buffet. Yum yum yum!

November 30, 2010 -- Quote for the Day: Let us not look back in anger, nor forward in fear, but around in awareness. -- James Thurber

and

The world needs anger. The world often continues to allow evil because it isn't angry enough. -- Bede Jarrett

Tonight I will be making real Southern Pralines. Now, there are pralines, and then there are pralines. Most praline recipes start off with brown sugar. No thank you. I want regular sugar that turns brown because it's the sugar caramelizing. And yes, you need a candy thermometer. And you can't taste the fact that buttermilk is used. It's far superior to the integrity of the recipe. Somehow. You'd have to ask my chemist husband Quint about that.

I am putting the recipe on the Recipe Page at left. I had to jump through informational hoops and read a lot of recipes before I found the recipe that I used to have thirty years ago and lost. Ta Da! This is the one.

It's for the dessert table at our Ladies Aid December meeting tomorrow evening. And I find out who my Secret Pal has been all year.

And now we begin the countdown to get the lap quilts finished by Christmas for the nursing home. The Junior Quilters at church will be lending a hand. I have no doubt that we'll finish the project. What we're working on are lap quilts for veterans, most from WWII.

It's turning cold here in the middle of the state. We had a freeze that was cold enough to finish off the begonias from last summer. I brought most of them in already, but these were little scrawny things that just couldn't seem to get their blooming act together. The roses are still trying to bloom. But they're under a deep mulch of leaves, which is good for the acidic soil that they like.

Okay, so now, I'm going to make pralines. But first, I'll put the recipe on the Recipe Page.

November 27, 2009 -- Quote for the Day: A lot of church members singing "Standing on the Promises" are just sitting on the premises.

and

Be ye fishers of men. You catch 'em; he'll clean 'em.

I was glad to have the day off today. What did I do? Quilted. And more quilting. I'm making lap quilts for some folks in a nursing home. I learned that there are 18 WWII veterans in the skilled care unit of the nursing home and the lap quilts they have at present are not much bigger than what I would call a receiving blanket for a baby. Maybe a little bigger but not much. So I think the Junior Quilters at church and Jo and I can get some twenty nice lap quilts that will be long enough to tuck around their feet and go all the way up to their chins, and still be wide enough to tuck under them while they sit in their wheelchairs.

I don't know where they served during the way, but if they were in northern Europe, it was cold up there when our soldiers were there. So, today, in Effingham it was 28 degrees. When I went outside, I thought of how horrible it would be to have to dig a foxhole with a little teensy weensy trench shovel, then sit there during the night shivering in the cold.

We couldn't do anything about their being cold back then, but we sure can now. And each one of these vets are going to get a nice warm fluffy lap robe to keep them warm.

There are three sailors, three air force vets, one marine and eleven army. I found material at Angie's Nine Patch that has a twelve inch insignia for each branch of the service, so they're going to get a lap quilt customized to their branch of the service with the insignia in the big middle of the lap quilt.

That's what I'm thankful the most for this Thanksgiving -- the courage of our military men and women who are deployed to foreign shores, and many in country, who take this business of freedom and patriotism very, very seriously. We should all make sure that we give them our support and most of all, our prayers.

And from the Junior Quilters, they're going to get lap quilts. I'm sure that some of the Junior Quilters will be glad to take time away from making baby quilts to honor our heroes from WWII.

November 25, 2009 -- Quote for the Day: It demands great spiritual resilience not to hate the hater whose foot is on your neck, and an even greater miracle of perception and charity not to teach your child to hate. -- James Arthur Baldwin, American Essayist

Live Your Life Intentionally

I'm not saying you can will your way to nirvana. That would be insulting to those people who, try as they may, seem to get tripped up by adversity at every bend in the road of their life.

What I am saying is to look for a blessing in the problems that come your way. There is a blessing -- always a blessing -- though it may be hard to find sometimes. Just because it isn't in the first place you look for it only means you have to look in more than one place.

I was reminded of that one bright sunny morning last summer. I was transplanting zinnias from a "birthing" bed in the back yard to a garden at the front of the house.

I noticed a little curl of smoke coming from the neighbor's open garage door across the street. "Wonder what Don is doing this morning."

Not giving it another thought, I turned and went for more zinnias. Next time I came around the corner of the house, there was billowing smoke. But the garage door was open so I figured he was home and running for the fire extinguisher. Besides, his truck was parked in the driveway. Both mistaken clues that he was home.

I saw flames on my third turn around the house. "That's it. Time to call the fire department."

It seemed like half the trucks in our part of the state were on our block five minutes later. No kidding, the first responders were there within three minutes.

Turned out the neighbors were at church working on some project or another. That was probably a good thing. I doubt that they would have been able to stand on the sidelines and watch dispassionately as the rest of us from the neighborhood. "Oh, look, they're chopping a hole in the roof." Or, "Did you hear that? It sounded like an explosion." In fact, it was of sorts. Paint thinners in the garage, we guessed.

The neighbors got back home about the time the fire was put out.

And the blessing? They got a new roof to replace the blue shingles that she didn't like anyway. And the temporary looking add-on to the garage was replaced by an expanded two-car garage complete with a new workshop for the carpenter neighbor.

All this was to count the real blessing that no one was hurt. Not the neighbors. Not the firemen. And since we lived right across the street, we got to meet most of the neighbors we had only seen drive by our horse, with a friendly wave. Stuff can be replaced. Or not. But lives? That's different. No loss of life, no injury. Blessings indeed.

I think of my own mother waiting for the ordeal of death. If you ever sit quietly with someone who is dying, listen very carefully to them. They are usually the first person who knows that death is a fast-approaching certainty. I listened to my mother for better than six weeks. And then she shared the intimacy of her thought, "I'm dying, Jane."

I knew that she had made the turn toward her last journey when she told me, with excitement growing in her voice, that she couldn't wait to be with Jesus. And there was a long list of relatives she looked forward to being with again. Not the least of which was her own mother who died when she was a newborn infant of two days.

The reality is that things happen. And no matter how well we think we place our lives, things happen anyway.

Solemn events test our ability to snap back.

People live in poverty and yet there will always be some who define themselves as broke, not poor. And they work their way out of the adversity of ghettos in big cities all around the globe.

There are people who survive abusive childhoods. And it's true that some thirty percent will become abusive themselves. But what that research also says -- and here's the blessing -- a whopping seventy percent do not become abusive parents.

So take a deep breath when you go around corners and be watchful for the blessings in your life. These blessings don't always have big flashing letters blinking at you. Sometimes they're quiet little things that you migth miss if you're in a grumpy mood.

But look for them anyway.

November 24, 2009 -- Quote for the Day: The leaders I met, from whatever walk of life they were from, from whatever institutions they were presiding over, always referred back to the same failure -- something that happened to them that was personally difficult, even traumatic. Something that made them feel that desperate sense of hitting bottom -- as something they thought was almost a necessity. It's as if at that moment, iron entered their soul; that moment created the resilience that leaders need. -- Warren G. Bennis

Ready for some lighter moments? I got this story from my cousin Mark. No matter how many times I read it, it always warms my heart.

One day a farmer's donkey fell down into a well. The animal cried piteously for hours as the farmer tried to figure out what to do.

Finally, he decided the animal was old, and the well needed to be covered up anyway. It just wasn't worth it to retrieve the donkey.

He invited all his neighbors to come over and help him. They all grabbed a shovel and began to shovel dirt into the well. At first, the donkey realized what was happening and cried horribly. Then, to everyone's amazement he quieted down.

A few shovel loads later, the farmer finally looked down the well. He was astonished at what he saw. With each shovel of dirt that hit his back, the donkey was doing something amazing. He would shake it off and take a step up.

As the farmer's neighborhs continued to shovel dirt on top of the animal, he would shake it off and take a step up.

Pretty soon, everyone was amazed as the donkey stepped up over the edge of the well and happily trotted off!

Life is going to shovel dirt on you, all kinds of dirt. The trick is getting out of the well is to shake it off and take a step up. Each of our troubles is a steppingstone. We can get out of the deepest wells just by not stopping, never giving up! Shake it off and take a step up.

and this from my cousin Al:

A man was driving when he saw the flash of a traffic camera. He figured that his picture had been taken for exceeding the speed limit, even though he knew that he was not speeding.

Just to be sure, he went around the block and passed the same spot, driving even more slowly, but again the camera flashed.

Now he began to think that this was quite funny, so he smiled as he passed the area again, but the traffic camera again flashed a fourth time with the same result.

He did this a fifth time and was now laughing when the camera flashed as he rolled past, this time at a snail's pace.

Two weeks later, he got five tickets in the mail for not having his seat belt on.

You just can't fix stupid.

November 23, 2009 -- Quote for the Day: A sense of humor can help you overlook the unattractive, tolerate the unpleasant, cope with the unexpected and smile through the unbearable. -- Moshe Waldoks

and

Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved. -- Helen Keller

Resilience -- Wrapping it Up

On your way to becoming resilient, you come to know God's love.

It is a great blessing that He bestows on you, and as your resilience increases, you feel more loved. Partly because you come to know that you deserve God's love because He has gifted us with the inheritance of birthright.

It's not that you earned it, for you can never earn love.

But just basking in the afternoon warmth of the sun as it begins to wrap up the day, God's love permeates every nook and cranny of our being with the grace of His love.

And even with the grace of God's love, resilience also gives us the acceptance of God even when He does not intervene in our lives. Even when horrible things happen to us. Things not of our choosing. Some calamities bring chaos to the peaceful landscape of our mental horizons. Resilience is something we cultivate as we travel our journey from the cradle to the grave.

Elizabeth Edwards, in her book Resilience said, "...I cannot understand how I merited these blows. What did I do? Even though I think I know better, I will continue to ask and I continue to wonder. And then I remind myself: This is the world we made; its flaws are our flaws; its shortcomings are our shortcomings, and the degree to which there is injustice or unprovoked suffering is just a reflection of our failures... He gave me free will. It is my world, and now, if I am able, I have to fix it."

It's at times like that, as Elizabeth puts it, that we have to look for and find a more powerful partner to shore up our lives.

A partner more powerful than death.

A partner more powerful than pain and sorrow, or indiscretions of others.

A partner more powerful who will help us choose to forgive others when we'd rather make punitive choices.

A partner more powerful than the devastation of storms and earthquakes.

A partner more powerful than the shambles of a house gutted by fire.

A partner powerful enough to anchor our lives with hope when the fears seem as dark as night.

A partner powerful enough to bring order to our lives when mental illness invades the order of our loved one's helpless thoughts.

During those times when we feel vulnerable and cope is a four-letter word that stretches from one pole to the other, we need to find a powerful partner who can help us become more resilient.

It is in this world of pain and struggles that resilient people make the difference.

Incorporating the suffering of others does not make us powerful. It only weakens our resolve and disguises itself as a counterfeit in the shadows. Better to cultivate resilience. It re-empowers by bringing us more choices.

Resilient people adopt Leonard Cohen's song, Anthem as their mantra:

Ring the bells that still can ring.
Forget your perfect offering.
There is a crack in everything.
That's how the light gets in.

November 20, 2009 -- Quote for the Day: Diamonds are nothing more than chunks of coal that stuck to their jobs. -- Malcolm Stevenson Forbes

and

Problems are not stop signs, they're guidelines. -- Robert Schuller

and

I haven't failed. I've identified 10,000 ways this doesn't work. -- Thomas Edison

Resilient People Stay Connected

I remember many years ago when we left the Texarkana area and moved to my mother's hometown of Paducah. Relatives and lifelong friends left behind. Not only could I not write my father's people or my friends from school, but I was not allowed to speak their names. It was her house. She decided. I was nine. I started over.

So imagine the thrill I felt when someone I've never met, Jeannie, sent me an e-mail telling me that my father's sister, Naomi, was her great great grandmother. And imagine when, several days later, her father sent me a message through Jeannie, telling me more stories about the family I had long ago lost in the dust of long-gone memories. Jeannie's father told me that my grandfather had told the family that he thought the Haltom family was Welsh in origin.

Last winter I traced the Haltom family back to John Haltom who came to the colonies in the early 1700s from England. Lancashire, to be specific.

My mother had created a myth that the Haltoms were Cherokee.

Not true. Some may be, but not our family tree.

So, today I went back to the Haltom family story on the web. And there it was. "John Haltom left for the Potomack in 1750." Actually, the census records have him in either Baltimore in 1720.

And then I talked to Frances, another Haltom relative. She lives in a little town in Texas. We had a wonderful chat and talked about relatives I lost so long ago. Reconnecting with family is so wonderful. I can't even tell you how great it feels.

My sister, both my brothers, my mother, father, and step-father have all predeceased me.

So our planned trip to Arkansas next year will be to look up cousins and other relatives instead of trudging through dusty old records in courthouse basements. We may do that too, but the real joy will be face to face contact with my people. I thought they were lost to me forever.

Thank you Jeannie, and thank you Frances, and thank you James for finding me. I knew you were out there; just didn't know where you were. And how warm it made me feel when James told me, "Your dad and my dad were best friends. They trained two trees to become entwined and the trees are still standing."

I want to see those trees that are wrapped around each other in a close embrace of a kind of eternal friendship between two youngsters. I want to touch the bark of the tree that my father had touched.

Connections. It helps us on our way to becoming resilient.

In the meantimes, yes, there is a town of Halton in Lancashire. A slight variation of the spelling of the family name. The Haltons have been there since 1046. It eventually turned from an earldom to a duchy. How about that! The last Duke has died, but the inhabitants of Halton, in the County of Lancashire, whisper their secrets into my heart and imagination. My grandfather Zacharia said he thought the family was Welsh. Well, guess what? The history of Halton began when one of its earliest inhabitants came from Wales.

I wish I had known all this when Quint and I went to England a few years ago. We spent some time in Wales looking for his family name Lewellyen, from which came his mother.

It's a wonderful feeling to be able to say "my people" who live in Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Indiana, and God only knows where else. But I'm gonna find 'em. And then I'm gonna call them up and talk to them, or write them letters, or both.

And just because I feel like celebrating, I found this amazine rendition of Ode to Joy played on wine glasses. You have to see it to believe it. Click here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rlk59xdM_YY&feature=related

And, of course, there's the incredible talent that Andre Rieu brings us from Dublin, with Ode to Joy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMGKPajKs08&feature=related

Here's another. This time, children connecting everybody with their rendition of Ode to Joy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YRATI__jKU&feature=related

And you knew it was the anthem for the European Union, didn't you? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_t3Qs9WFx4&NR=1

You probably guessed that Beethoven is my favorite composer, right? And Ode to Joy -- well, that's about as close as you can get to musical perfection. In my opinion.

November 19, 2009 -- Quote of the Day: There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects if. -- Edith Wharton

Resilient People Are Optimists

The more we ache for something we've lost the more we feel the loss. But at some point we have to re-invent normal and inch our way forward.

Sometimes destiny has a big eraser and smudges its way across the landscape of our emotions. Sometimes destiny deals us catastrophes. But there are more times than not when destiny brings us great joy, not calamities.

But calamities? For me, cancer was just such a calamity. I was 29 years, eleven months old. The catastrophe turned my lackadaisical church going all of a sudden into a deeper spirituality as I pondered my own mortality. Now, nearly some fifty years later, I can use all those tearful thoughts to help others who have cancer. And I can attest that it isn't necessarily the death sentence that it used to be. I can share hope with people living with what they thought a death sentence from cancer is.

Optimism. Grab onto it and cherish the moments and days that destiny gifts you with. We weren't meant to suffer through all that dread, marching knee deep in pessimism all the live long day. Live this day as if there would be no other. Don't trick yourself into thinking that all your pessimism is really just bad luck. Bad karma that has somehow miraculously resurrected itself from a former life. Not! I'm Lutheran. My church doesn't have a karma section in the catechism.

Resilient people are optimistic. They do not let the frustrations they feel, or the anger that may temporarily invade them define who they are.

Optimism lets us keep maintain the dignity of our best purpose. It keeps us civil as we strive for resilience. On the way toward becoming resilient, sometimes we travel a road that seems like corduroy. But keep going anyway. The reward is a serene inner landscape.

November 17, 2009 -- Quote for the Day: People who soar are those who refuse to sit back, sigh and wish things would change. They neither complain of their lot nor passively dream of some distant ship coming in. Rather, they visualize in their minds that they ae not quitters; they will nto allow life's circumstances to push them down and hold them under. -- Charles Swindoll

More About Resilience -- Part 3

I could sum this up with one sentence: Get to church.

And do it regularly. Why? Not because God is watching you, even though he is.

It is his Second Commandment, you know. It's how God concludes that you are remembering the sabbath day and keeping it holy.

Oh sure, there are many, many people who believe that they can worship God by going for a walk through their favorite landscape. And there are people who really believe that it doesn't matter where you are as long as you are thinking worshipful thoughts. That's true too.

And there are people who don't want to go to church because the church is full of hypocrites (sinners). That's certainly true. After all, going to church doesn't make you a Christian or more religious any more than eating at McDonalds turns you into a cheeseburger.

But there are a couple of good reasons to attend worship once a week. Number One: God says to do just that. Somewhere in the Bible, in the Old Testament, there's a passage where God says he wants his followers to meet in an assembly of fellow worshipers. Number Two: Members of the congregation are certainly not perfect human beings, but if you're looking for someone who shares your values and moral code, the chances are you'll come closer to find them in church than out on a trail through the woods on a Sunday morning, or Saturday evening. Number Three: Just what are you going to tell God when you get to the Pearly Gates and he asks you why you didn't obey this commandment that he gave?

God gives us Ten Commandments. These are not suggestions, as the joke goes. These are commandments. Worshiping God, meeting in assembly with fellow believers, praising God -- what do you think he means when he says "Remember the Sabbath Day and keep it holy?" Do you really believe that he intended to leave the definition of what worship is up to you? I don't think so.

Resilient people have a spiritual life. They share their spiritual life with fellow believers. They learn how to be forgiving people. True, it may take longer for some than for others, but being in communion with fellow sinners/believers will help get you on your way than trying to do it on your own. Spirituality, however, is not to be confused with religiosity. Spirituality means that you have a relationship with God. Religious practices, generally, are the study of God. Good faith practices will deepen your sense of spirituality. One of those faith practices is worshiping God. Others include prayer and reading the Bible and other spiritual writings.

Resilient people have the trait of spirituality. Non-resilient people? Not so much.

So if you're looking for ways to become more resilient, so that you can bend in the breeze rather than standing there like a rigid tree that either gets uprooted in a windstorm, or broken in two.

If you're looking for a formula that will help you get past the pain in your heart, learn those parts of resilience that you are learnable. Some aspects of resilience are inherited, it looks like. But a lot of resilience is learned behavior, so get in there and learn what you can and change what you can.

It's worth the trouble. You're worth all the effort it takes.

November 16, 2009 -- Quote for the Day: Things don't go wrong and break your heart so you can become bitter and give up. They happen to break you down and build you up so you can be all you were intended to be. -- Charlie Jones

and --

It is not the size of the dog in the fight, it is the size of the fight in the dog!
The person who is not hungry says that the coconut has a hard shell. -- African tribal sayings

and

It is said an eastern monarch once charged his wise men to invent a sentence, to b ever in view, and which should be true and appropriate in all times and situations. They presented him with the words, "And this, too, shall pass away." How much it expresses! How chastening in the hour of pride! How consoling in the depths of affliction! -- Abraham Lincoln

More About Resilience -- Part 2

Resilient people find ways to stay connected with others. And while it's true that resilience has at least some parts that are learned behaviors, this particular trait of resilient people can certainly be learned.

How can this be so?

For instance, when someone gives you a gift, hopefully you've been trained to be polite and say thank you. So you call people up on your phone and say "thank you." You've learned that it's important to do this. You don't write "thank you" on the back of the check under your signature. If someone has taught you to do that, then you need to go back for re-training. Another little "silent" rule about thank yous is the countdown. The clock ticks to six weeks. After that, you are late! In that event, you not only have to say thank you, now you've got to say you're sorry for being late.

What's another way of staying connected? Well, think about this. There's a reason why all those pretty cards are blank inside. There blank so you can write your own little notes. I think these note cards are made for resilient people who want to send off a little note to someone, to stay connected.

And birthday cards, sympathy cards, anniversary cards? If you think they're just inventions of Hallmark to make a lot of money, then you probably don't spend a lot of time practicing resilience, or connectedness with people you care about. We send those cards to please people we care about. Not sending birthday cards, anniversary cards, or sympathy cards might just mean you don't care. So bite the bullet and find another way to make your social protests. Hallmark isn't going to go broke if you won't spend a couple of bucks to send one of their cards to someone you want to be connected with.

I'm always amazed, though, by people who think they are making a protest against a corporation yet they won't get another brand of birthday card to send. Until you admit that it's connecting with others that you're objecting to, you can live with the un-resilient delusion that you're mad at Hallmark. Hallmark didn't invent birthdays or anniversaries. But resilient people honor others they care about by remembering important events in the lives of others. That's an important way resilient people stay connected.

But staying connected is all that and more.

Resilient people also know when to lean on other people in moments of truth and in times of trial. Here's a fantastic web site that has more than 500 groups online that can help you get connected with others who share your particular area of concern: http://www.dailystrength.org/ Everything is here from alcoholism to parenting. From depression to fibromyalgia. You name it and there's a group here with people who want to hear from you and hear about you.

Someone once said that we can survive the "what" of anything if we know the "why."

That underscores our search for meaning and making sense our of what happens in our lives. Resilient people look for meaning in their life and part of the armor of their resilience is the connections they have with people they care about and people who care about them. It's a cultivated relationship that brings us this resilience.

I was fortunate to have lived in the South during my growing up years. Southerners really work at staying connected. If you're a neighbor, then you're apt to get a visit in the afternoon from someone who was "happening by." If you were sitting out on the front porch in the swing and someone was driving by, they'd be likely to stop in to say "Hi." All in all, we wore our connectedness on our sleeves and genuinely welcomed a spontaneous "I was just in the neighborhood and saw you ...." It was great. It's also one of the things I love about the small town we live in. Neighbors walk across the street for a quick little visit when we're out and about. And it takes a good half hour or forty-five minutes to get out of the narthex after church on Sundays. Lots of visiting going on. It's one of the things we love about the church we joined. Helps make up for missing family members who live many states, even countries, from here.

Times a'wasting, so get out there and get going! AT&T is right -- reach out and touch someone.

November 13, 2009 -- Quote for the Day: It's easier to preach ten sermons than to live just one.

More About Resilience

I shared some thoughts about resilience earlier and want to expand that subject for several reasons.

The first reason is that the holiday seasons are rapidly approaching. For those of us who enjoy friends and family, everything is okay. But there are a great number of folks out there who do not the richness of warmth and love. For those persons, we need to talk about becoming more resilience. Fast.

A lot of resilience has to do with learned behavior. While it may look like resilient people are just lucky, you're kidding yourself if you really believe that.

Resilient people look for the silver lining in gloomy things that happen to them. Of all the horrible things I've endured just getting to my age, I can honestly look back and find blessings in each of those things that seemed like traumatic things I'd never get over. Most of the blessings have to do with helping others get beyond their worst nightmares.

For instance, I was assigned to go to a church where a pastor had pled guilty of sexually abusing a young boy in the confirmation class. Childhood sexual abuse. That's something I can relate to. Especially with a thirteen year old. So I showed up on Sunday morning to introduce myself and let the congregation know that I would be back on Thursday evening to meet with anyone who had been touched, one way or another, by sexual abuse.

Since the thirteen year old was still in the psych ward at the hospital, I thought maybe his family would show up. I was most surprised to find some ninety people waiting for me for a group discussion in the activity center on Thursday evening. What I thought would be a small group of ten people, or thereabouts, for a couple of weeks, turned out to be a very enriching experience for everyone for better than six months.

So the blessing of my own horror helped ease the pain for almost a hundred people. Many of them had also been sexually abused as a child. They didn't come to the church to listen in, or watch others tweak their trauma. Oh, no. They were there to complete the business of their own healing.

I look back on my own experience and glean blessings for the changes in me. One was my ability to choose to forgive that person. Finally, I reached the point where the thought occurred to me that he'd have a lot of explaining to do to God when he showed up on Judgment Day hoping to have one of those mansions in the sky. When I finally gave up my stubborn hold on unforgiveness, a giant burden lifted from my heart. God knows best and He can take care of him in ways I could never get away with. That is, if God chooses to punish him. I don't know. I've grown beyond that pain.

And I'm more resilient for it. Certainly more light hearted.

November 12, 2009 -- Quote for the Day: Adolescence represents an inner emotional upheaval, a struggle between the eternal human wish to cling to the past and the equally powerful wish to get on with the future. -- Louise J. Kaplan

Before I finish up with Adolescence, I'd just like to say, for the benefit of our friends and family in so many distant places, that Quint survived cataract surgery just fine yesterday. What a trooper he is! All is well and he has great vision again. Just an aside, as far as older people are concerned. Several years ago, I read that new employees in banks had to get through their first day on the job with Vaseline smeared on glasses that they had to wear all day and a pair of rubber gloves. It increased their consciousness about the plight of what seniors go through, I guess. The Vaseline kind of is like impaired vision when cataracts are "ripening." And the rubber gloves make handling money especially challenging, I would guess. Except now, so says the ophthalmologist, cataracts don't have to "ripen" anymore because they use ultra sound to smash the whole thing asunder, then suck it out the tiniest of little incisions. The entire surgery took all of seventeen minutes. And with the patch that he had to wear all day, I heard "Arrrrgh" all day long. He is no longer a pirate wannabee because the patch came off today at the doctor's follow-up appointment.

Adolescence -- Part 4

This is going to be a wrap-up of several points I want to make before we leave our darling adolescents and go on to something else.

For the most part, adolescence is that period of time when they'd rather drop dead before being seen in public with their parents. For the most part, that was true except for the last chick to leave the nest. Dean acquired a taste rather young for lobster. So we never had a problem of getting him to go to dinner with us. And all through high school, he took on the chore of a Joke of the Day that he gleaned from the halls at Stagg High School. At least, those jokes that he could repeat to mixed company. Dean has his father's sense of humor, so meal times were always pleasant.

I hope that you enjoy your adolescent during these developmental years. They really can be pleasant company.

Just a final thought about the autonomy and financial independence I mentioned early on. One young lady who came to see me when she was in town for college vacations described college life as "life with training wheels on it." And that's oh so true. When they go off to live on campus, the adolescents have carte blanche with their scheduling. Except for campus curfews, if there are such things, they can come and go as they please. The money part is varied from one family to the other. But for the most part, teens don't have it all that rough during those college years. Unless, of course, they get mixed up with booze and dope, and start flunking their subjects.

But life with training wheels. How apt!

And then, there's the Bonding - Debonding - Rebonding.

You see, we have the first twelve years or so of a kid's life when we convince them that they absolutely cannot live with us. That's bonding.

Then comes adolescence. That's the developmental stage when they debond from parents. And man, that hurts. You feel them starting to pull away from you emotionally. It feels kind of like someone has amputated your heart right out of your body when you weren't looking. And then, poof! They're gone. Vanished right out of our lives.

Now, don't panic. It's normal for adolescents to do this. It's their developmental thing going on. But be very careful that you don't try to keep them from debonding. Because, if you don't, they won't ever rebond to you as an adult friend.

So that's about it for adolescence. Not that I couldn't write a big fat book about it, but in a nutshell, this is the skinny on the subject. However, I will be looking at your e-mails very closely to see if I've missed some burning points that I should have included, so keep your mail coming and let me know.

November 10, 2009 -- Quote for the Day: Adolescence is a border between childhood and adulthood. Like all borders, it's teeming with energy and fraught with danger. -- Mary Pipher

Adolescence -- Part 3

Here are four additional hallmarks of adolescence ending and maturing beginning.

One of the endearing views we get of adolescence is to watch them becoming. During this time, these young folks are so busy constructing their own identity. They do this by surveying qualities they like most in their heroes. These qualities become part of who they want to become and how they want to behave. When they're all finished, they have a patchwork quilt of their best traits that just needs to be put together into an identity that makes them a unique person.

So who are their heroes? Can they be living and long-departed loved ones, even movie starts and presidents and Florence Nightingale? You bet! We want adolescents to find something about Grandma that they liked, something they want to be like. Having a whole bunch of heroes keep us from being emotionally bankrupt.

Another idea that comes screaming into the adolescent's psyche is this notion of immortality. They just don't believe that anything bad is ever going to happen to them. Not a car wreck, not an illness, nothing! So they take risks because they think they're going to live forever. Big risks. Drag racing. Drinking and driving. Unprotected sex. How many times have I heard a young teen totally bewildered because she got pregnant the very first time she'd had sex. She didn't think that's the way it happens.

And the great sadness at a wake when a high school student dies. People in their teens are not supposed to die. Might have been a guy who sat across the aisle in homeroom. Might have been someone they saw in the class play. No matter. Young people are not supposed to die. That's for old people. And when someone they know does die, it shakes them at their moorings.

Hopefully they can all get to young adulthood without going to a wake or a funeral of a young friend. But when it does, the entire high school population is likely to show up for the wake. Schools close for the day of the funeral. Grief counselors are called in. "Somebody please explain to me how this can happen," they cry through their tears.

This notion of our own immortality is one of the things we shed and leave behind like an old skin as we approach young adulthood.

Another subtle difference we see is teens shrinking their parents down to life size. All through childhood and the teen years, we see our parents as bigger than life. Somewhere along the line we get the idea that our parents are human beings who do the best they can with what they have. They aren't Santa Claus. They don't perform miracles. They're just plain old people who make mistakes on their way through life.

Nothing could have been clearer than this when I had a termination session with a young man and his father. We talked about this very thing for a bit. The dad laughed and said that he knew his son had crossed a threshold somewhere in his head when he finally gave him a sweater that fit him.

I must have had a funny look on my face because the father went on to explain that his son had always given him a size 2x sweater for his birthday. The dad wore a medium. The son explained that he would hold a medium size sweater up in the store and think, "This will never fit my dad." So he'd hold up bigger and bigger sweaters until he got to the 2x. That looked about right. But this last birthday, he asked his mom, "What size sweater does dad wear?" Sure enough, it was a medium and that's the size he bought. It fit.

This last notion that kids give up is the imaginary audience. If you've ever watched an adolescent talking on the phone, you know exactly what I mean. They prance back and forth, making all sorts of gestures in the air. It's as if they are on stage in front of an adoring audience.

Well, eventually we get the idea that there probably aren't a handful of people who really are all that interested in what we have to say. And there certainly isn't a theater full of people waiting for us to enlighten them with great chunks of wisdom. So, they kiss that idea goodbye too.

And on to something fun. I got this from my cousin, Mark:

1. I think part of a best friend's job should be to immediately clear your computer history if you die.

2. Nothing sucks more than that moment during an argument when you realize you're wrong.

3. I totally take back all those times I didn't want to nap when I was younger.

4. There is a great need for a sarcasm font.

5. How the hell are you supposed to fold a fitted sheet?

6. Was learning cursive really necessary?

7. Map Quest really needs to start their directions on #5. I'm pretty sure I know how to get out of my driveway.

8. Obituaries would be a lot more interesting if they told you how the person died.

9. I can't remember the last time I wasn't at least kind of tired.

10. Bad decisions make good stories.

11. You never know when it will strike, but there comes a moment at work when you know that you just aren't going to do anything productive for the rest of the day.

12. Can we all just agree to ignore whatever comes after Blue Ray? I don't want to have to restart my collection -- again.

13. I'm always slightly terrified when I exit out of Word and it asks me if I want to save any changes to my ten-page research paper that I swear I did not make any changes to.

14. "Do not machine wash or tumble dry" means I will never wash this -- ever.

15. I hate when I just miss a call by the last ring. (Hello? Hello? Damn it!), but when I immediately call back, it rings nine times and goes to voice mail. What'd you do after I didn't answer? Drop the phone and run away?

16. I hate leaving my house confident and looking good and then not seeing anyone of importance the entire day.

17. I keep some people's phone numbers in my phone just so I know not to answer when they call.

18. My 4-year old son asked me in the car the other day, "Dad, what would happen if you ran over a Ninja?" How the hell do I respond to that?

19. I think the freezer deserves a light as well.

20. I disagree with Kay Jewelers. I would bet on any given Friday or Saturday night more kisses begin with Miller Lites than Kay.

Thank you, Mark! :)

November 9, 2009 -- Quote of the Day: I feel that adolescence has served its purpose when a person arrives at adulthood with a strong sense of aself-esteem, the ability to relate intimately, to communicate congruently, to take responsibility, and to take risks. The end of adolescence is the beginning of adulthood. What hasn't been finished then will have to be finished later. -- Virginia Satir

Adolescence - Part 2

This stage of development bridges childhood and adulthood. Not to be confused with the teenage years, the end of adolescence doesn't come until a person reaches autonomy and becomes self-supporting.

Simply put, the individual finally is able to make up his own rules and live within them. And, just as important, the individual enjoys the freedom and independence that being financially self-sufficient brings.

This may or may not have anything to do with the end of the teenage years.

As a culture, parents in the United States probably keep their kiddos dependent on them longer than any other culture in the world. For instance, after high school, we encourage our kiddos to go on to college. Four years later, they're twenty-two years old and still financially independent. And if we encourage them to continue their education on to grad school, that financial dependence can still have an individual in adolescence because they're still financially dependent on parents.

Living in a basement apartment at mom and dad's doesn't count for emancipation either even if you get to set your own rules. You can pretty much set your own rules, within reason, at college too, but it doesn't mean you're independent.

But there's more that needs to happen before adolescence ends. That will be Part 3.

November 6, 2009

After all the carnage at Ft. Hood had been sifted through, it appears that the shooter is still alive. Although he was shot four times, it looks like there's a possibility he will survive.

Quote for the Day: Anger, if not restrained, is frequently more hurtful to us than the injury that provokes it. --Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Adolescence -- Part 1

Adolescence is a period of time between pre-puberty and early adulthood when emotional feelings begin to merge with the rational part of our youngsters. This is a developmental time where there's lots of feelings of stress and vulnerability. These new emotions leave teens feeling stressing and highly emotion.

And like conflicted married couples who use their conflict to maintain emotional contact with one another, adolescents express their emotions as a way of keeping others connected to them.

At this time in their young lives, it's so important to have good boundaries that will govern their lives. And they need to understand that these rules exist to keep them safe and are there for there well-being.

For instance, one rule needs to be about what information they give out on the internet. Never ever give out addresses or telephone numbers. Teens need to know that there are lots of pedophiles out there on the web who are disguising themselves as teens and they live in chat rooms. Fortunately, there are also police officers doing the same thing, but they're looking for dangerous adult lurkers. And while teens could argue, in one of their all-knowing assurances, that they would never get fooled by these dirty old pedophiles, it ought to be a bone chiller to learn that the police officers set up stings to meet these guys in shopping malls who are lured by what they think is a mid-adolescent siren song.

Another rule ought to be about booze and drugs. Zero tolerance for underage drinking and drugging needs to be the rule by each and every parent.

Another rule ought to be about dating and when the teen will be allowed to date, or be alone with a member of the opposite sex.

Another rule ought to be about curfews. Your family curfew might be different from the state law where you live.

It's so important that you also explain to your adolescent that the purpose of these rules or boundaries is for their safety and well-being but if they ever break the rules, you are still concerned about their safety. So they need to tell you when they break the rules so that you can talk about it and deal with the situation. Hint: first thing you do is applaud their honesty and take it from there.

While you're having this discussion with your teen, keep in mind that adolescents are the Master of the False Agreement. Out of these thought comes the idea that if you persist in "What's wrong with you?" type of conversation, you're going to get a teen who's going to smile at you sweetly and agree to do anything you ask of them. Anything at all to appease you. Just don't be surprised if they go off and do what they please anyway. Because they probably will.

But you have to keep the boundaries in place. It gives your kiddo a feeling of security. That's because boundaries mean there's an adult in charge. And when adults are in charge, then it's safe for children to be children.

Even during cowboy days when a ranch put up a fence, he'd still get on his horse and ride back and forth to make sure the fence wasn't breached. And he repaired the fence when there was a break in it.

Boundaries = rules = fences = security and safety

November 4, 2009 -- Quote for the Day: Science cannot resolve moral conflicts, but it can help to more accurately frame the debates about those conflicts. -- Heinz Pagels from "The Dreams of Reason, 1988

40 ASSETS CHILDREN NEED

I can't get more enthused about a book for parents that I am about What Kids Need To Succeed!

It would probably be a copyright violation to print the entire list of forty assets that are listed in the book. Originally, there were thirty assets listed, then with a revised list, there are now forty. To quote from the synopsis at www.freespirit.com: This revised, expanded, updated edition, based on findings from a recent nationwide survey conducted by Search Institute, includes the latest information on asset-building and expands the original 30 assets to 40.

It describes new assets including caring neighborhoods, community service, integrity, cultural competence, and peaceful conflict resolution, then gives specific suggestions for building all 40 assets at home, at school, in the neighborhood, and in the faith community.

With over 700 ideas to try, "What Kids Need To Succeed" makes anyone an asset-builder and a positive force in young people's lives.

At only $6.99 from Free Spirit, it's the best seven bucks you'll ever spend, whether you're a teacher, a parent, a pastor, a Sunday School teacher, or a youth worker in the community, you'll find suggestions to help kiddos build assets.

And as the research points out, there's a very high correlation between the number of assets kids have and whether or not they stay out of trouble, stay away from booze and drugs as they grow up, don't get pregnant or engage in sexual behaviors in their teen years.

And naturally, the more assets kids have, the better their grades in school are.

November 2, 2009 -- Quote for the day: The direct use of force is such a poor solution to any problem. It is generally employed only by small children and large nations. -- David Friedman

INCREASING RESILIENCE

Having good problem solving skills will increase your resilience. That makes sense when you think about it because if you can solve academic problems, that's a skill that has legs and will walk through life with you.

From my old professor days, I remember how my college freshmen students would tend to shy away from the math and scientific parts of the psychology course I taught. And yet, each and every one of them was very adept at figuring things out. When I shared with them that female students tend to do better if they have a math teacher who is competent in math skills, then the female students do better in math courses. And there's another little truth in the research. That is, the calculator is the great equalizer. So what does that say? Basically, to me it says that male students are somewhat better at manipulating arithmetic data than girls are. But when both male and female students were given calculators, they did equally well. So the female students "get it" just as well as the male students do.

But I digress.

Being connected with loved ones will increase resilience. We need to have access to the love and acceptance of family and friends. Having a family where you are loved goes a long, long way in helping your increase your resilience. It's so important to share your hurts and disappointments with family and friends. These are the people who love you and care about you. These are the folks who want the best in life for you. They make you more resilient.

Having a spiritual life is a sure positive marker for resilience. We need to be connected to our spiritual being. This is where God lives in you. It is the essence of your soul. It was Karl Jung, one of the great pubahs of psychobabble, who said that no one comes to mental health with cosmic fidelity. Putting God in your life most certainly will give you resilience.

Helping others will also increase your resilience. We get more than we give when we reach out to help others, in in improving the lives of others, we also improve our own lives. This is the great reciprocal in life. We get joy and peace when we give joy and peace to others. Maybe that's part of what Jesus meant when he admonished us to pray for people who persecute us. Quint and I even pray for Mr. Grumpy each morning. He lives next door to us. We pray that he will somehow find a peaceful life. He's so unhappy. He needs some joy in his life. For now, we have to accept that just not touching a single leaf on his hedges is about all the joy he'll take from us. So we'll just keep praying for him.

There is also a large study that was done a number of years ago by Lutheran Brotherhood that identified forty assets that children need to be successful in life. That will be what we'll explore next.

H1N1 -- 2009 Flu Season

I'm happy to say that I'm old enough to not need to worry much about the H1N1 flu. That's because I've had the Hong Kong flu (H3N2 variety) that swept around the globe killing millions. Then there was the Type A, Asian strain in 1961. Supposedly, Quint and I have immunities to the current H1N1 because of the protection from having had the virus of other flus that are in the H1N1 family.

The H1N1 is that pandemic that emerged in 1918. That was way before my time or Quint's time, but strains of this flu have found their way around the globe during other flu seasons.

October 30, 2009 -- Quote of the Day: Great ideas often receive violent opposition from mediocre minds. -- Albert Einstein

RESILIENCE

Better than coping skills for stress is a power-packed addition to any person's repertoire. It's called resilience.

We think of resilience more where physical hardiness is concerned. The level of resilience when you exert yourself will determine how quickly you snap back to the state you were at before the stressor.

The physical stressor might be training for a marathon, could be running a 10k, might even be an exhaustive half hour on a treadmill. It has to do with your physical "recovery" from exertion. For instance, if I walk on a treadmill and really get my pulse rate going, then how long would it take for my pulse to return to normal? The more resilient I am, the better I am at getting back to normal.

When it comes to stress, and particularly traumatic stress, you want to be as resilient as you can be.

So what kinds of things help you develop this protectiveness that's called resilience?

We know from lots and lots of research that exposure to adversity can actually help you become more resilient.

And often, as happens frequently with adversity, these sets of adjustment requirements happen all the way back to childhood. The better able we become at positively adapting to these adversities makes us more resilient.

So if you have become a resilient person because of adversities you suffered in your growing up years, these could have made you the resilient person that you have become.

Any idea what kinds exposure to what kinds of adversities can help a child become more adaptive, and therefore more resilient?

True, adversities are not the easiest way to grow up, but it is possible that they can help you become mroe socially competent as an adult.

In fact, one piece of research that was done in Hawaii with children infancy to about age ten showed that one-third of the youngsters became very resilient. This was in spite of the poverty they lived in, had alcoholic or mentally ill parents, and many grew up in homes where unemployment was high. This groundbreaking research was done by E. E. Werner and was published in 1971 by the University of Hawaii Press at Honolulu.

The researchers went on with their studies to try to understand how some of the children could thrive so well and become good students.

Turns out that it was this notion of resilience that brought the protective processes to some of the children who shared the stressors of the same adversities.

How can some children adapt so well? If there are alcoholic or mentally ill parents, who teaches these resilient youngsters to cope?

Some areas of concern increased the vulnerabilities of children in the study. One thing that increased vulnerability had to do with intelligence. Children who had a low intelligence turned out to be more vulnerable to adversities. This isn't a big surprise to me. And, unfortunately, intelligence isn't one of those things that we can grow all that much.

There has been some research, however, that supports the notion that children who grow up in homes with five hundred or more books tend to have a higher intelligence. Like about fifteen points. The theory is that more books suggests more intellectual stimulation.

But if a child is growing up in a poverty-stricken home with an alcoholic parent, it's not likely that there's going to be a lot of books available in the home. Especially if most of the money gets spent on booze.

Interestingly enough, there are some protective events going on even in the worst of homes that make some children more resilient. These include whether a child is outgoing or not, and whether at least one family member is available to the child, or one parent is emotionally stable, and then the community support that's available to the youngster. All of these things play a part in determining whether a child will become resilient.

This notion of resilience haunted me all through my undergrad studies at Concordia University. I tired to understand how a bunch of kiddos could come out of the same family, raised by the same parents and yet, there'd be one kiddo who became a resilient adult.

I realized I was paralleling my own life. Kind of inserting the dysfunctional family I grew up in with all the adversities that seemed to slap me in the fact at every turn of my development. Yet I turned out okay, if you discount some of the bumps I experienced along the way.

The truth is, even if the family experiences are the same, it's the unshared life experiences that will set one child apart as the resilient one.

For me it began with my work at the library when I was young. The librarian, a spinster named Miss Jones in the children's department, must have recognized my lostness and waifness. She took me under her wing and became my cheerleader as I grew and matured. She shared my deep affection with my grandmother whom I visited regularly. These two people made a profound different in my life. I'll share those experiences at another time.

But for now, let me just say that with resilience comes good endings to childhood, regardless of the high risks that adversities bring.

Gaining resilience brings you competence even under stress. It brings you the confidence that you'll make it, somehow.

And most of all, gaining resilience allows you to recuperate from trauma. Each and every time.

So every time you indulge yourself with a woe-is-me thought, turn the woe into another opportunity to add another notch in your resilience belt. Think of it as a blessing that will teach you something. And along the way to learning all the life lessons, you become resilient.

October 29, 2009 -- Quote for the day: To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. -- Theodore Roosevelt

and here's one that counters our beloved Teddy Roosevelt, from Anita Dunn, in an attempt to explain why this administration has gone to war with Fox News because of differing points of view: We're going to treat them the way we would treat an opponent. As they are undertaking a war against Barack Obama and the White House, we don't need to pretend that this is the way that legitimate news organizations behave. -- Anite Dunn, one of Obama's czars in charge of something or other.

But we don't have to feel sorry for Fox News, folks. Its ratings continue to increase the more Anita Dunn's White House crabs about Fox. Pretty soon, Bill O'Reilly's numbers will go over a million viewers for his prime time program. I think he picked up about 100,000 viewers the first week of the Obama "war" on Fox News. And still rising.

So, in this case, does Rupert Murdoch, the owner of Fox News Organization, trump George Soros and all 30 something Obama czars?

It seems to me that there are so many other important issues that need to be addressed by this administration, not the least of which is the huuuuuuuuuge Obama deficit. That trillion dollar thing that he, and his congressional buddies who are in financial lockstep with him, shoved down the throats of the American taxpayers was not something he inherited. And besides, he can't blame the economy at Bush's feet anyway because the dumb Democrats had both houses of congress for the last two years of Bush's administration. It's congress that passes economic legislation, not the president.

But, back to stress. This will be Stress -- Part 3 -- Coping Skills

We come to adulthood with at least a few coping skills in our repertoire. These coping skills help us break down the frustrations of life into bite-sized pieces. Frustrations plague us when we are prevented from reaching a goal.

But you may be surprised to learn that it's not these coping skills that are the first reaction to frustration. Actually, the usual response to frustration is persistence. Persistence can help us reach a goal by motivating us to work harder toward a solution. If this happens, persistence can be very adaptive.

If, however, we are still frustrated from reaching a solution, we have other choice. Some more adaptive than others.

For instance, some people fall to escapism. This coping style reduces discomfort. That's because some people leave their frustrating situations by psychologically withdrawing. Running out of solution options is not a good thing. Recall that I mentioned earlier that we ought to have at least three or four solutions for every problem we are challenged with. Now, escapism is not to be confused with giving ourselves a moratorium. A moratorium is a temporary time-out. It's a time we give ourselves to regroup and strengthen our resolve to solve a situation. A moratorium can be a good thing unless we drag it out too long. It's supposed to be a time limited opportunity to gain introspective toward challenges.

A greatly misunderstood coping style is denial. Denial does not mean that a person "doesn't get it," or is not able to cope. Rather, denial can mean that a person is disorganized in thoughts. Too much emotional scatter can land you on the island of denial. People who are grieving the loss of a loved one are somethings accused of being in denial. For instance, if a person gives themselves a moratorium, this is not the same thing as denial, even though it might look like it to an outside. Denial can also mean that a person believes they are handling the grief issues pretty good, under the circumstances. In situations like that, I believe that we ought to be very supportive of grieving people. Just because they decide not to talk about their grief situation does not mean they are in denial. It might just mean they prefer to grieve in the quiet of their own counsel.

Another coping style is rationalizing. This means that you offer up "rational" thoughts for the reasons why you may be frustrated. These reasons my be rational because they have a logic that supports them, but it's not so adaptive if the explanation you offer is not the reason for your behavior. In that case, you'd be rationalizing and it's not too adaptive.

And the last coping style I want to discuss is reaction formation. I admit that I have to guard against this one. Simply put, it means that if you can't have something, you can convince yourself that you didn't want it in the first place. We also know this coping style by another name -- sour grapes -- kind of. Except that sour grapes goes a step farther and paints an unacceptable picture of something we wanted but changed our mine. After all, who would want inferior merchandise or spoiled stuff? That's perfectly logical, right? Well, not really. Doesn't that sound a little like rationalizing to you?

And so, there you have it. There are other coping styles in addition to these. I focused on the ones above because they are the most common styles for trying to handle frustrations when persistence didn't bring a hoped-for solution.

October 27, 2009 -- Quote for the Day: Stress is basically a disconnection from the earth, a forgetting of the breath. Stress is an ignorant state. It believes that everything is an emergency. Nothing is that important. Just lie down. -- Natalie Goldberg

Today I'm taking a break from the psychobabble. I only have one more part about stress that I want to share with you and I'm still writing it in my head. It will be about coping styles that we use when we're under stress. Yep. We have coping styles that help us get through our dark moments of stress and fear.

On another note, about global warming, and specifically carbon dioxide being blamed for all the global warming. More and more physicists are coming on board to denounce this ridiculous argument that carbon dioxide is the fault. As was pointed out to me at breakfast by none other than the greatest scientist of all time, my husband Quint, warm ocean currents emit carbon dioxide, and way up north where the currents cool down, the carbon dioxide is not emitted. In fact, carbon dioxide is absorbed in cold water. That is how God made the earth and it is a system that keeps everything in balance.

What all this global warming scare is all about and perhaps this is the real reason why governments are completely ignoring the scientific facts is that global warming presents a grand opportunity to collect taxes from you and me, the little taxpayers. After all, we are the people, apparently, who remember to pay our taxes. The politicians seem to be forgetting that they have to declare all the money they earn as taxable income.

Then there's this question about making it a law to require term limits. I have a better idea. It's so simple that it explains why it isn't a law. If every voter in every congressional and senatorial district in this country did not vote for the incumbent after two terms of office, we would have term limits.

The problem is, everybody re-elects his/her own congressional. It's everybody else, they apparently think, who should be subjected to term limits.

And what do we have in Washington, D.C.? The Democrats are meeting behind closed doors. They have locked the Republicans out. It reminds me of junior high schoolers with their private little "boys clubs" that have this big sign out front that says, "No Girls Allowed." But when everybody is running for re-election, we get all these promises of "Elect me and I'll reach across the aisle and work with them." Then, when the next congress is convened, all those promises get forgotten and no matter which side gets elected, the other side gets locked out.

We, the taxpayers, are paying for this absurdity.

Then there's the White House. We have presidents who send a message before votes are even taken in congress. Like, "If you pass this legislation, I'll veto it."

What we have here are a whole bunch of little immature kiddos who won't play fair, who take away their "toys" when they can't get what they want, and stomp their little feet and turn blue in the face as they try to control their inner rages from erupting in public.

And why should any one of them get re-elected?

Just asking.

October 26, 2009 -- Quote for the Day: In times of great stress or adversity, it's always best to keep busy, to plow your anger and your energy into something positive -- Lee Iacocca

Stress Inoculation -- Part 2

In order to cope with stress, and specifically the aftermath of stress, we need to identify the coping skills that offer you greatest success.

For instance, you come to adulthood fairly certain of your abilities to solve problems. How you solve your problems provide these clues.

When you get frustrated if plans get cancelled at the last minute, what's your first reaction? Hopefully, you don't stomp around shrieking and throwing a hissy fit. A cancelled event can be a gift of time that lands on the doorstep of your day. Since we all lead incredibly busy lives, who could not use the gift of a couple of bonus hours to catch up on some other task, or read or quilt or garden or paint, or any number of favorite things to do.

Stress inoculation says that your view of problems changes. Problems become creative opportunities to put your solution skills into play.

Think of yourself as Socrates. There you are in your mental toga addressing a group of your philosophy students. And what is Socrates best know for? The fine art of asking problem-solving questions. These questions can provide the sequence of steps you can use to solve a problem. What little step do you need to take first. Then what. And after that, what do you need to do? And so on.

Asking such questions about the sequence of events, or baby steps to take, can break the problem pie down into smaller and smaller piece. The the problem becomes a set of these baby steps that will get you to your goal.

For instance, if my problem is to de-clutter the living room, I don't say, "I'm going to clean the living room." Instead, what I'm like to focus on is clearing off the horizontal surfaces so that I can dust and polish the tables.

Then I'mm run around the room with that magic little swiffer thing.

Then I'll give all my little leafy friends a drink. Maybe even put some plant food in their water.

Then I'll shake out the throw rugs.

I may or may not move furniture out from the wall and dust under the sofa. If I'm in a hurry, that can wait 'til next time.

But I still get to enjoy some sense of success if I just get the clutter off the tables. After all, no one ever at an apple by putting the whole thing in his mouth. Or her mouth. Little bites. Take little bites.

Now comes the face it part of the solution problem.

This is where your honest appraisal aks if there's any way at all that you could have contribution to the problem. Before you say absolutely not let me tell you a brief little story.

It's about someone who arrived a good twenty minutes early for an appointment. She was actually the first person scheduled after lunch. So here I come at ten minutes 'til one o'clock to find a very irate woman leaving the parking lot. When I rolled down my window and asked her why she was leaving, she told me in no uncertain terms that she'd been waiting for twenty minutes. Even though I reminded her that she'd arrived early for her appointment, it just didn't matter. I can still hear her voice trailing out the window, "Don't even think of billing me for a session today."

I didn't, of course. And I wouldn't anyway.

My point is, without even knowing it, we sometimes do or say things that make a situation worse. An honest appraisal of the part we play or mistake we make may go a long way toward calming troubled waters.

And it's perfectly fine to call someone and say, "I think I goofed." We've all had to do that at some point once in a while.

-- to be continued

October 22, 2009 -- Quote for the day: There are very few certainties that touch us all in this mortal experience, but one of the absolutes is that we will experience hardship and stress at some point. -- Dr. James C. Dobson

Stress Inoculation

Stress is defined as anything that forces us to make adjustments.

The goal of stress inoculation is to help a person gain confidence in the ability to cope better with anxiety and fear that comes from reminders of some emotionally upsetting event.

Ever wonder why scary movies are so popular? Or how about psychodramas?

Truth is, we're studying how to recognize dangerous situations. Watching these shows or movies also gives us opportunities in our minds for rehearsal and vicarious learning.

The rehearsal happens when we identify with the person in the story who survives the stressful event. We say to ourselves, "That's what I would do." Or, if the person in the movie is not doing what we think is best, then we coach that person. Or, if you escape from your cone of silence, then you find yourself talking to the TV set.

Vicarious learning means that we watch to see what happens to someone else and shape our behavior accordingly.

Both of these are methods of stress inoculation.

It was back in 1996 when the grand puba of stress inoculation first offered up his research to a waiting public. He is Donald Meichenbaum, Ph.D. He wrote "Stress inoculation training for coping with stressors," in the 1996 edition of The Clinical Psychologist.

Stress inoculation is really about building more effective ways of coping before you get into a stressful situation. It's about anticipating stress and surviving little pieces of it. It's about rehearsing the "what ifs" enough so that when you get into that stressful scenario, you've already anticipated what you could and should do to survive the stressful event.

There are a number of stressors that invade the peacefulness of our lives regularly. Some are scarier than others. Most creep in with too much regularity.

Most of the time we can anticipate what would stress us out. Those stressors are the ones we can try to avoid as best we can.

Other stressors are harder to avoid. For those stressors, we need to learn how to cope.

But first -- practice, practice, practice, practice your deep breathing. Pay special attention to the rhythm of your breathing. In and out, to the count of four. Inhale 1 - 2 - 3 -4. Exhable 1 - 2 - 3 - 4. Do this for several minutes and you'll find your blood going back out to your extremities.

That's because confronting stressors concentrates blood supplies to our internal organs. It's the body's way of preparing us for surviving by pulling blood away from parts of our bodies that we could survive without if we lost those parts.

So, when you find yourself getting "cold feet" or "clammy palms," that's the time when you tell yourself, "Take a deep breath." Then, if you've rehearsed your deep breathing, you'll be able to go into this very relaxing method of reacting to real stressors.

-- to be continued

October 20, 2009 -- Quote for the Day: The hottest places in Hell are reserved for those who in time of great moral crises maintain their neutrality. -- Dante Aleghieri

and Don't be afraid of opposition. Remember, a kite rises against; not with; the wind. -- Hamilton Mabie

Are there any remedies for conflicts?

Sure. There are always remedies or solutions to resolving all sorts of conflicts.

If the conflicts are internal ones, you have several choices. The first, and most cost effective, is to spend a great deal of time with yourself in introspective thought. Better yet, try your hand at meditation. I already covered how to meditate in a previous blog, so check out the Counselor/Listener page on this web site if this subject has been moved from below.

Be patient with yourself, though. It may take some self-training for you to get into a good meditative spot. You will know you are there when you feel almost weightless.

If you try and try and still are not able to get into a meditative spot in your head, try journaling.

Journalising is quite different from writing in a diary. For journaling to be therapeutic, you need to set aside 30 - 40 minutes where you can explore the conflicts that challenge you by writing either pen and paper, or keyboarding.

If it's hard getting started, it's perfectly fine to begin with what we call "stream of consciousness." That is, just write about what you're thinking. Then gently lead yourself into some problems you've encountered. After a half hour or so, you'll be experiencing more insightful thinking. Journaling becomes therapeutic when you focus on solutions.

As you continue your journaling, you'll find yourself experiencing deeper and deeper insights.

If these attempts do not get the results you hope for, see if you can seek out a trusted friend, or a pastor or priest, or a counselor. Be prepared to articulate your challenges with this other person. This is how you can get more insight in another way. Developing insight is the whole point of counseling.

Well, so much for the internalized conflicts.

Again, the approach-approach conflicts are the easiest to resolve.

The approach-avoidance conflicts are tougher to resolve. In fact, these folks often carry their conflicts around with them for years. Some never really clear all those hurdles and go through life carrying ambivalent feelings underneath the surface.

Those who carry avoidance conflicts are indecisive. The very thought of making a decision causes them to freeze.

On the other side of the coin, resolving external conflicts require logic, at best. Take time to get enough good information so that you don't act in haste. Might regret making a fast decision if your information gathering is insufficient or flawed.

If you have a chance, make a piece of the decision. There are a couple of ways youc an do this.

For instance, when Quint and I made the determination that we wanted to move out of a metropolitan area when he retired, we spent a couple of years investigating smaller towns we'd heard about.

We'd go out on investigative forays a couple of weekends each month looking at houses and neighborhoods and getting a feel for the various towns. We inserted ourselves into the communities by going to church, the library, and other places that the towns highlighted on their web sites. We both enjoy walking, for instance, so hiking trails were important. As were parks. By doing this kind of partial solutions, we were able to get a feel for the town we eventually moved to. And we've never regretted our choice.

You could do the same kind of partial solution if you have the luxury of investigating nearly college campuses. If classes are going on, you could get permission to attend a class or two. I've had those kinds of requests from visiting students when I taught psychology classes. Believe me, I did not mind one bit.

You can get creative in your solutions. Remember, there are always two or three solutions to every problems. It would be better if you could think of four solutions for each problem you have. But there is no such thing as only one solution to a problem.

And even now, since moving from a metropolitan area, I've found myself doing more and more telephone consulting. True, the sessions are not paid by insurance companies, but clients are able to pay through a Pay Pal account and schedule telephone sessions as if they were regular appointments. That's a different solution for folks who live at a distance from me. But then, with cell phone networks, many of the long distance charges are nil.

Next -- Stress Inoculation

Worst case scenario sees this child growing into a fearful adolescent who drifts in and out of relationships. He's not afraid to go looking for the perfect date, but after after only a few days, the avoidance pattern sets in.

You'd think this young man would be so hungry for steadfastness that he wouldn't do anything to cause an interference.

But the success of counseling means helping him refrain from the temptation to bail every time he feels the warmth of getting close to someone he likes. His relationships are challenged by hopping over avoidance hurdles that are very frightening.

His challenge is so much different than a person who's an avoider. This person may have built a cocoon around the psyche and doesn't want to interact with anybody. We call these people loners. They seem to deny their human needs for warmth and love and interaction with fellow human beings.

Maybe they were adopted out by their parents. Maybe they lost their parents because of a tragedy. Whatever it is that prompts them to avoid emotional connections, their pain is real but buried deep.

And the approach-approach can be just as much a challenge. Thee people often have a couple of seemingly perfect relationships lined up. Either choice is suitable. Both of their partners are generally successful, attractive and eager to be with them. Sometimes these are the folks who wander off from their marriages and engage in extramarital relationships.

In each of the three types of conflicts, the pain is very real. Engaging in conflicted behaviors disguises old wounds. More than anything else, conflicted folks are afraid of other people seeing their wounds. Too vulnerable!

It's just too intimate for them. They've been disappointed too many times and are afraid of letting someone else into their universe.

After all, old pain that's seemingly under control is better than the frightening novelty of new pains.

Subscribing to that thought can be hazardous to peace of mind and psychological contentment. The more you tamp down the conflicts and try to smother them out of existence, the more apt you ae to have them come out sideways, figuratively speaking.

Better to live free of the internalized conflicts that threaten you with little spooky thoughts that live in a cave of fear inside you.

All you have to do is poke at these conflicts and you'll experience anger's eruption.

Big surprise. "Where'd that come from?" you might ask if you've ever accidentally tripped over someone's wounded psyche.

Conflicts feed anger. Just like that.

October 16, 2009 -- Quote for the Day: Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned. -- Buddha

Anger -- Part 3

There are several types of conflict that can arouse anger. I'm zeroing in on three: approach-approach, approach-avoidance, and avoidance.

In all three cases, I'm going to talk about a very cute sixteen year old female student. It may seem like a caricature of extremes, which is my intent. Then we'll move into more real world instances.

In the approach-approach conflict, choices are equally desirable. Our young bombshell, Peggy Sue, is being pursued by the hero of the football team. That's great for her ego. She really feels good about herself since she suspects the head cheerleader would also like to get her nails into this hunk. Then, there's that new teacher. He's drop dead gorgeous, just out of the military, and now teaches chemistry. Peggy Sue has little to no interest in chemistry but she takes his course just to be around him. He's not that much older than she is. Besides, in ten years or so, Peggy Sue figures the difference in their ages won't matter so much. He actually winked at her in the lab yesterday. Both guys make her heart race and they weave their way in and out of her daydreams.

Peggy Sue is clearly torn between these two guys.

But her approach-approach conflict turns to approach-avoidance because she knows her parents would never allow her to go out with her chemistry teacher. She can visualize her mother having a cow if she appeared interested in any teacher. Suddenly, her equally desirable choices bring a hazard in the real world. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that legally she's jail bail, and just the thought of carrying an innocent crush to the next level would most likely cost that young teacher his job, maybe even his career.

The avoidance conflict is difficult to resolve.

Peggy Sue heads down the avoidance trail when she hears the rumors floating down the hallways and into locker rooms that her football jock has herpes. He may be the handsome hunk on campus but his reputation as a player is rapidly making him contagious and undesirable.

Those are the three kinds of conflict surrounding the same youngster. And the conflicts went from approach-approach to approach-avoidance to just plain old avoidance conflict.

However, these are external conflicts. When we talk about conflicts that arouse anger and make us grow those "buttons," we're usually talking about little internal wars going on inside us.

For instance, there's a lot at stake when a battered wife heads for a crisis shelter with her two little kiddos. The safety and warmth of the shelter is as desirable to her as is the prospect of resuming her career and regaining the independence she had before she married her abusive husband. It's an approach-approach choice because each choice is equally desirable: safety and resuming her career and regaining her independence.

Her choices become approach-avoidance fairly quickly. She is conflicted because the fears that drove her to seek shelter will subside in about a week in the shelter. Her remorseful husband is sobbing his way back into her heart and making her miss the lifestyle she had with him. Not to mention the financial freedom his vice presidency of a Fortune 100 corporation brought to her family. She believes him when he says the stressors of a business downturn has made him short-tempered and he had taken his frustrations out on her, even though it was wrong.

He promises to change and pledges never to hit her again.

She misses her big house with a master bedroom suite that is almost as big as the entire downstairs of the shelter. At the shelter, she has to do all sorts of chores. At home she has a maid who comes in three afternoons a week to clean bathrooms and windows and floors. Not like at the shelter where she has to share these tasks.

At home she has a position in the community. She is recognized for her contributions to the community and her photo is frequently in the society pages of the newspaper.

If only she could believe tht her husband would never knock her around again. That would make her choice an easy one.

Our second conflict of approach-avoidance is not so easy to resolve. As much as she enjoys the social status and financial ease of her life, there's also a long history of a marriage where abuse rears its ugly head more and more frequently.

The battered wife will be torn between her choices. And our research tells us that battered women make eight attempts or so before finally making the break from an abusive partner.

The avoidance conflict is a difficult one because both choices are undesirable. For instance, a college graduate may find themselves facing this dilemma when job prospects require a long distance move away from family and friends.

The money offers are good on the west coast even thought the cost of living is also higher. And there's all that sunshine and year round summer. She's also looking down the barrel of about $100,000 in student loans. Staying home in her small hometown would keep her near family and dear friends, but it would take forever to pay for her education.

More money, more distance from home. She has to choose.

Conflicts keep us on the edge of our wits. They scare us in the middle of the night with cold-sweat anxieties.

They become tipping points in our sense of well-being. Conflicts put the triggers in motion when frustrations give way to anger.

In Anger-Part 4, we'll talk about conflicts that come out of old wounds.

October 14, 2009 -- Quote of the Day: Anger and jealousy can no more bear to lose sight of their objects than love. -- George Eliot

Anger -- Part 2

Anger is nourished by a repeating theme.

By that, I mean that there are different triggers that arouse anger. These triggers keep reappearing over and over again until we get whatever conflicts there are within us that arouse angry feelings.

For instance, if you find yourself feeling betrayed; if someone devalues you; if some discounts you, then anger could erupt and spew out of you.

Frustrations can lead to angry themes.

Likewise, disappointments, disempowerments, and encroachments.

Whether you call them triggers or buttons doesn't matter. They are the events that arouse your anger.

Notice I didn't say that these events cause your anger. That's because anger is caused by an unresolved conflict within you. And when you are conflicted, your anger can be aroused by the triggering events.

So if you say that so and so pushes your buttons, what you're really saying is you have handed over a key to your well-being to that person. The person who is able to arouse your anger has a lot of control over you.

The goal here is to eliminate the buttons. That will take some intentional and contemplative thinking on your part.

The first question you need to ask yourself is why something matters so much to you.

Secondly, what do you lose if you shrug it off and walk away from the frustrating situation?

In a 6-part anger management workshop I conducted , I shuddered a bit when I walked into the conference hall and found everyone of the forty seats filled. A good many of these people were court-ordered to take the seminar. Some had even come from domestic violence court and it was either this workshop or 30 days in jail. That's always a happy bunch, believe me. After all, what was a psycho-babbling know-it-all going to be able to tell them about their anger, let along how to manage it.

Each one was in a relationship where anger was easily aroused. Some had lost one too many relationships because of anger. All wanted things to be different. That is, they wanted other people to quit making them mad.

And so we began. Always first on the agenda was the chemistry of anger. That usually surprises people. Even my PSYCH 101 students.

After that, with the help of those who were more open than others, I begain to hear their stories.

It amazed them because a two-minute story, or even a five-minute story, could be distilled down to a one-word theme.

I then asked the folks with the same themes to sit together: discounted, devalued, disappointed, frustrated, encroached upon.

At the beginning of each of the following sessions, I'd give each group a half hour or so to talk about any triggers they'd recognized during the week. Then we'd reconvene and begin our work.

Along about the third week, I'd introduce them to the various types of conflicts we experience as walking-around-on-the-earth human beings. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Conflicts will be covered in Part 3.

I'd like to close this part with this story.

It's about a little tyke who had been kicked out of no less than three pre-kindergarten schools. He was four years old! He finally ended up in a church-sponsored daycare and when he pulled his little shenanigans, the director told his parents, "You have to go see Jane."

Now, four year olds are very conversational. And since this little guy was an only child to two doting parents, he had a lot of intellectual stimulation which also gifted him with a very good vocabulary. His method of handling his anger was biting, hitting and kicking.

Not tolerated at school. If he was in a biting mood, he would break the skin of his little vicitm. Or leave bruises from the hitting and kicking.

His theme, it turned out, was encroachment. He had little to no tolerance for anyone who got too close to what he considered "his space." Sometimes that would be a big chunk of the playground. And woe be to anyone who got to "his" swing before him. Or first in line. Everyone should have known that the gods had already assigned that preferential place to him.

After some many, many months, the little guy skipped into my office and announced one day that he had "this anger thing under control."

When I asked him what happened, he said, "The anger came up out of my stomach, then out of my mouth and ran out the door. It's dancing on the street for cash!"

He never had a relapse. But every time he felt himself getting angry he could visualize this little monster inside him rushing out of him and dancing on the street for cash.

Next stop: Part 3

October 13, 2009 -- Quote of the Day: Anger is a killing thing: it kills the man who angers, for each rage leaves him less than he had been before -- it takes something from him. -- Louis L'Amour

I like Mark Twain's quote too: Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.

Or from Ralph Waldo Emerson: For every minute you remain angry, you give up sixty seconds of peace of mind.

But probably most of all is this from Elizabeth Kenny: He who angers you conquers you.

Anger -- Part 1

Don't build an altar on your adrenal gland upon which to set your anger. The vessel for all that chemistry is your own human body, and the chemistry of anger will make you feel like you're blowing up from the inside out.

Unlike lower creatures like snakes and other reptiles, human beings have kind of merged the chemical output of the adrenal glands. That is, the inside of the gland makes one kind of chemical and the outer bark, or the adrenal cortex, makes another chemical.

That is a gross, gross oversimplification and I apologize to all you biochemists out there who have studied the chemistry of the human body in far more detail than I have. My interest in bodily chemicals is not medical, but rather, how all this mumbo jumbo interferes with our best intentions and good will. In other words, are there chemistries that make us misbehave.

And it appears, in fact, that there are such chemicals. The behaviors come into play when we can figure out how their manufacture gets triggered.

But first, let's take a tiny little step backwards and remind ourselves of what we already know. That is, the adrenal gland makes a powerful chemical called adrenalin. That's the chemical that gets the body ready for a fight/flight response. Making this chemical lets us set land speed records when we are running from something threatening us. It would also allow me to lift a huge big limb that I absolutely couldn't lift if one were to fall on top of Quint. But, just as adrenalin can be a lifesaver, it could also kill us if we kept up this surge of protection for too long.

Guess that's because none of us were really intended to be Superman. Our body, in fact, makes a type of kryptonite, just like the one that disempowers Superman. Except that our body makes what we call noradrenalin. We now call these chemicals epinephrine and norepinephrine. Norepinephrine cools the body down from all those fiery squirts of adrenalin that surge through us at just the right moments.

It reminds me of a story that a friend of ours shared with us when he came back to visit our Tinley Park Rotary Club a few years ago. Dr. Sunny, we'll call him, was from the Philippines and it disturbed him greatly that people were dying for little or no reason for lack of medical care. More to the point, for lack of antibiotics after surgeries. To his growing discontent, the good doctor sold his home and his thriving medical practice and moved back to the Philippines to open surgical clinics.

He told us the story of how, on one of his first evenings back in the Philippines visiting his mother, he decided to take a walk down to the bay. It was a beautiful, sunlit evening but as he walked along, glad to be back in his ancestral home where he hoped to make great strides toward medical improvements for the poverty-stricken, suddenly rearing its ulgy hooded head was a huge, six foot cobra!

He mentally chastised himself briefly for forgetting that this was not the upscale suburb of Orland Park, but rather, a jungle with big bad things in it.

So I asked him, "What did you do with the cobra?" (I wasn't the only person in the room with the heebie jeebies.)

To which he replied, "I surgically removed it from earth."

My point is, everyone over the age of twenty has probably had a rush of life-saving adrenalin at one time or another. This burst of adrenalin provides a powerful chemical that lets us do seemingly superhuman feats, including the blessing of clarity of thinking.

But adrenalin and noradrenalin are made inside the adrenal gland, in what's called the adrenal medulla.

There's another part of the adrenal gland that makes an equally powerful chemical. The part of the adrenal gland is known as the adrenal cortex. It's kind of like a bark that surrounds the outside of the adrenal gland. The chemicals made in the adrenal bark are called corticoids.The corticoids do a lot of things that are helpful to the body like developing sex hormones, regulating the salt balance in our bodies, and adjusting to stress. And somewhere in this chemical soup, maybe in the reaction to stress, is a mechanism that triggers anger.

But before you get the idea that the fault with anger lies in the chemical nature of its beginning, just keep in mind that anger is not the culprit. What you do about it can be harmful to you. It can make you seethe. Might make you feel discomfort with the jealousy you feel when others get ahead with seeming ease while you work your you know what off and don't seem to get anywhere. When that happens, it's easy to fall victim to sins against the 9th and 10th Commandments. You know the ones about coveting what your neighbors have.

We don't fully understand the triggering mechanism. We don't understand why someone might be bothered about one thing, yet others may adopt a live and let live attitude.

For instance, I can get really upset when I hear about children being sold into prostitution in Calcutta. Or child pornography and prostitution in Thailand. Yet there is a culture of acceptance of these horrible exploitation of children in some places in the world.

And coming closer to home, we live next door to Mr. Grumpy. But I don't spend a moment fretting about him. In fact, Quint and I pray for his peace and well being each and every morning in our prayers. We have no idea why he's so unhappy that we bought this house. It probably has to do with our moving here from the Chicago area and his fear that the neighborhood would change. He didn't like it one bit when we cut down three spruce trees that had rotten trunks. He'll probably like it even less when the tree guy comes back at the end of the month to take down a huge more than mature maple tree that someone planted right on top of the sewer line in the front yard. We're more concerned about the tree getting blown over on our house instead of the sewer problems. A power rodder comes out every year to clean the roots out of the line. That seems to take care of that problem.

But we won't be angry with him just because he's angry with us.

Anger is like electricity. Can be good or it can be bad. I say it can be good because it gives a lot of energy. What we do with that energy is a choice we make. Some people, for instance, use that energy when a drunk driver mows down someone they love. The anger keeps them focused on changing laws and starting organizations that put stronger bites in laws against drunk driving.

It isn't the anger that's the problem. It's the inability to manage the powerful energy that seems to come out of nowhere. We absolutely need to grow a strong "cool down cycle;" otherwise, we're at the mercy of the chemical surges in our body that could get the better of us.

We need to have some pretty good brakes around our psyches. These brakes will put a stop to the urge to engage in road rage or allow anger's first cousin, jealousy, have its way with us.

Part 2 is next.

October 10, 2009 -- Quote for the Day: Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass. It's about learning to dance in the rain.

Living Saturday Adventures

Today's quote brings a reminder that we have been under siege from Mother Nature's Raindrops for the past couple of days. And for those of you who live anywhere east of the Mississippi, you probably know what I'm talking about. When I went to weather.com and Quint asked me how long I thought it was going to rain, I said, "I don't know. The storm line goes all the way back to Arizona."

So it rained. And it rained. And then it rained some more. All total, we probably had close to ten inches.

Good day to snuggle in, hunker down with a good video and stay out of the weather. And that's exactly what we did. We're watching a BBC series called The House of Elliott. It's about a couple of young women who've been left high and dry by a doctor father who apparently spent more money on his mistress than he did on his daughters' education. And then he died and left them penniless. At least that's what they were told by their crooked lawyer cousin who was entrusted with their financial care. Seems that they were to have a stipend of about 400 pounds a month, which was pretty good coinage back in the 30s. But the cousin's mother, their aunt, thought better of giving the two women all that money. They ought to be able to manage just fine on 100 pounds a month, auntie thought. In the last episode that we watched, the cousin was a guest of the City of London for 28 days for something he did. And when he got out of the hoosegow, he decided he ought to take off for America and join up with a friend of his in Boston.

We were delighted when we got home this afternoon and checked the mail to find the last two discs of the series was waiting in the mailbox. We love Netflix. Thanks to a tip from my cousin Butch, we have been very happy with this mail-in service. We get to watch some wonderful movies and TV series as well. We're both pretty sick of the trash coming out of Hollywood. No story plots. Gratuitous sex and violence. So we turn our attention across the pond where the BBC never fails to entertain us with good stories and strong character development.

I'm working on (composing) a little series on anger for next week, so until then, have a wonderful weekend.

October 9, 2009 -- Quote for the Day: We don't change the message; the message changes us. -- Unknown

I just finished a remarkable book titled The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch. Would recommend it for everyone. It's written in first person by Dr. Pausch, a doctoral guru in the computer/imagineering department at Carnegie Mellon University. I say that because he fulfilled his lifelong dream of becoming an imagineer at Walt Disney's kingdoms. When he wrote the book, he was 46 years old. Had three children with wife Jai (pronounced Jay) under the age of six and was living on the edge with the diagnosis of pancreatic cancer. He lost his battle to cancer on July 25, 2008.

His book The Last Lecture is a bit of philosophy, lots of practical advice, and a humorous memory of a life snuffed out too soon. My very good friend Becky said to me as I was coming out of church, "I've just finished a book that you need to read." I love it when my friends tell me that. To me it means that she knows me so well that she would know what I would enjoy. And Becky was so right. I enjoyed the book enormously. It's a library book that's due next week. But before I turn it in, Quint wants to read it.

I don't know what Pausch was like before he learned he had a terminal illness, but I do know first hand that cancer changes you. It deepens your spiritual concept of the everlasting. A cancer diagnosis draws you into the arms of the Holy Trinity in ways that make your life richer forever. I survived. I was only 29 when I learned of my own cancer. My life changed forever. And I'm richer because of it. And now that I'm in my sixties, I can safely think the word remission is no longer foreign to me.

If you have a chance to get your hands on this less-than-200-word-book, your life will be deeper for the experience of reading it. I read the entire book in a couple of days. If I had done nothing else, I could have read it in one day.

But then, I don't know how you would get your hands on the book. Actually, to my amazement, there are more readers of this blog who live in places other than the United States. I'm humbled that so many of you from faraway places would click me into your life. Just out of curiosity, today I clicked on the "country codes" of readers and learned that, in descending order, the most readers so far today are from Sweden, Portugal, France, Indian, Morocco, Great Britain, the Russian Federal, and last -- the United States.

Thank you. Each and every one of you. I will continue to write the blogs every day for as long as I can afford it. I don't get any money from anybody for writing this. It's more a sharing thing.

I remember when I started the blog, a friend asked me if I thought I could keep it up. To which I responded, "No problem. I have an opinion about everything."

And there you have it.

Ta dah!

October 8, 2009 -- Quote for the Day: People are like stained glass windows. They sparkle when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed on if there is a light from within. -- Elizabeth Kubler Ross

BUILDING YOUR SELF-ESTEEM

The person who lives inside me who is a counting, figuring-out person was mystified with this notion of measuring self-esteem.

In the first place, it's not something you get from other people. If that were true, they that other person would "own" what you think of yourself. And if they owned that, then somehow they'd be able to control you, wouldn't they?

So when I showed up to begin my internship in grad school at a crisis center for battered women, I had the mistaken, naive notion that I was the original Hoorah Hannah who was going to help everybody building better self-esteem.

The truism is that as self-esteem improves, tolerance for abuse decreases. Instead of believing the abuse they get is deserved, victims will put up with less and less abuse as they begin to feel better about themselves.

Makes sense. That same theory also works for the abuser because as he feels better and better about himself, he is less abusive. (Since 95% of abuse victims are female, I'm safe in referring to abusers as males.)

Someone wiser than I taught me years ago that if you can identify something, you can measure it. And if you can measure it, you can manage it.

Simply stated, what I needed to do was help abuse victims identify the elements of their identities.

Easy for me to say. But as I got to know the victims, it was astonishing that they were only able to identify three or four roles they had. Like wife, mother, daughter.

With time, and very slowly, they were able to expand their world view of themselves. Some it all the way up to 20 roles they played.

Questions like, "How did you get here?"

"I drove."

"Oh, so you're a driver. Write that down."

Some taught Sunday School. Some had jobs. All were able to keep secrets. After all, many kept the biggest secret -- their victimhood -- for way too long. All were good at covering up for their abuser. In that instance, I helped them see that the hoped-for goal was a "person who doesn't protect abuser." (I'll explain the wording for that in a minute.)

I always added "person who has fun" because I suspected that even when the victims did enjoy lighthearted moments, they lived in fear of it never lasting. They needed to foster a fun-loving spirit again. Somehow.

And then came the measuring part. That was equally challenging because the victims evaluated themselves very low on a scale of one to five.

For instance, one wife rated herself as a 0. As a mother, she thought she was only a "1."

This was going to be a lot harder than I thought.

I used a Likert Scale for the measuring. It allows you to measure on a scale of one to five, with one being the lowest possible score and five being the highest.

So the reason I said that the victim was a person who "did not protect" or cover up for her abuser was so that we could get the evaluation number closer to reality. Most victims do cover up for their abusers. So if I had said "person who covers up for abuser," the victims would have been able to give themselves a 5 because they were all darned good at it. Truth is, we wanted the victims to grow toward not covering up. In order to measure that, we had to start where they really were when it came to not covering up for the abuser. Given that, most measured themselves as either 0 or 1 at the outset.

The managing came in a bit more easily. For the most part, the evaluations were down around 0s, 1s, and sometimes a 2 because they thought they were okay sisters, or good daughters and would rate themselves up at a lofty 2.

For the "0" housekeeper, it brought a question of "what would you have to do to raise that "0" to a "1?" Clean the refrigerator more often? Make the bed every day? What are you not doing that you believe you should be doing that would bring your score up a notch or two? That's managing the measuring part. That's making the numbers improve. And when that happens, self-esteem improves.

I was so proud of the clients who came to see me at the crisis center. I watched them get stronger in their resolve. Most wanted desperately to make their marriage work. Very few ended up getting a divorce.

But I never forgot the plight of the abusive male. The places where they could go for help were few and far between. When I opened my own practice, I worked with male abusers when one would cross my path. Some came from domestic violence court. Some were referred from someone who had seen me. Word gets around. I was equally proud of them when they made some corrective life experiences that helped them control their anger.

So, in a nutshell, here it is:

If you identify it, you can measure it.
If you can measure it, you can manage it.

October 7, 2009 -- Quote of the Day: Take chances, make mistakes. That's how you grow. Pain nourishes your courage. You have to fail in order to practice being brave. -- Mary Tyler Moore

Love Isn't Worth Anything Until You Give It Away

I have never understood what people mean when they rationalize a decision to get a divorce with, "I still love you, I'm just not in love with you."

"I have no idea what that means," I'd say. Can you tell me what you mean?

There never has been an answer. It's one of those trite little sayings, I suspect, that got inserted into a soap opera dialogue somewhere and it sounded descriptive.

To me, it sounds like the mortar that holds brick walls togehter. Those pesty little walls that can signal the death ring of a once starry-eyed relationship.

Truth is, people build walls to keep threats over there. But walls can also be an obstacle just to see how another person wants to get near you. They can be walls you put up to see how badly you want what's on the other side, too.

Rather than welcoming the love of the person you have engaged in a relationship with, instead this wall has become an obstacle course of bargaining power.

And like an employment contract between management and employee representatives, the wall can represent not bargaining in good faith.

Oh, for sure, there are times when the safety of a boundary is warranted. That's certainly true when there's abuse involved. Or addictions. Or adultery.

But in the ordinary course, the walls are generally nowhere to be seen when you are introduced to someone new. As you get to know this new person, feelings of safety gradually come into a relationship.

Then there's the give and take and friendship starts to bloom. Liking someone special turns to loving someone special.

Loving is sharing ourselves with someone who, in turn, loves us. The wall is not there. Both persons in the relationship enjoy the freedom of going back and forth, in and out of each other's heart.

So what happens when you close your heart and put up a "Do Not Enter" sign? And how did you quietly build a wall when no one was looking?

What happens to those fulfilling days of courtship when you promised each other to always be open to solving problems together no matter what?

Relationships require several things from each partner.

One is to give your love freely to your partner. Love isn't supposed to be locked up in a safe treasure chest. It isn't love unless you're sharing it.

Each and every day brings a new challenge to find something new to love about your partner. It is this love going back and forth between you that will keep love alive in your relationship. And this love fosters feelings of forgiveness. Then you can live in a life without borders (walls).

What I have come to conclude over the years is that when someone says, "I'm just not in love with someone" probably means they they have given up on the relationship. For whatever the reason is, that person has quit the relationship and locked up the love.

But the brick walls? If you want your relationship to last, get rid of them. There are no tests that can prove love exists. Walls have no place in a loving, meaningful relationship. It interferes with sharing love.

Walls cheapen the beauty of love which is a sharing, participating event. Love isn't a spectator sport to see if someone can tear down your wall. If you built the wall, it's your responsibility to bring it down.

Brick walls are for demo kits for children.

Love is for sharing.

Loving relationships are for mature grownups, not children.

October 5, 2009 -- Quote for the Day: If you can dream it, you can do it. -- Walt Disney

Forgiveness -- What It Is; What It Isn't

Every once in while I like to bring up the subject of forgiveness again. It's always good to have this thought refreshed from time to time.

We had quite a discussion about forgiveness in our Adult Discussion Group during the Sundy School hour at church yesterday.

One of the things we do know about the willingness to forgive is tht people who feel loved find it easier to choose to be forgiving. Perhaps that's why Jesus says to love others as we love ourselves. This thought is the forerunning of his compelling us to forgive others, as God has forgiven us.

In fact, for those of us who practice our Christian faith, we find very clear instructions from Jesus Christ himself in Matthew 6:15: If you do not forgive men their sin, your Father will not forgive your sins.

That fifteen word verse from Matthew takes care of any "yes, buts..." that you can throw on your heart if it's inflamed by the pains of old hurts.

There are no exceptions to any reason you could possibly come up with as to why you might even think of indulging yourself with thoughts of revenge or nursing a grudge.

It's like burying the hatchet but leaving the handle sticking up out of the dirt, as Pastor Renser said yesterday.

Clients would often tell me that they couldn't forgive and forget. Or they never had learned to forgive.

No, you don't learn to forgive.

Forgiveness is something you choose to do. It's not something you learn to do. After all, God chooses to forgive you. So what makes you think you might have the right to withhold forgiveness from others?

Paul says in Ephesians 4:32: Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ, God forgave you.

Besides, the person you may have ill will against is also a child of God. Aren't you going to be surprised when you meet this person in heaven?

And since God is watching all of us down here on Earth, we'd better be making good choices in how we live our lives.

Odd that we wouldn't dare contaminate our bodies by smoking. We make all sorts of good choices to keep toxic stuff our of our physical bodies. Likewise, take great care to keep toxic stuff away from your soul.

Choosing not to forgive is toxic. It's far worse than lighting a cigarette. It's tampering with the very part of you that's going to carry you into your next life after your leave this one behind.

Forgiving doesn't mean you have to invite someone over for dinner or add that person to your Christmas card list. It doesn't mean you have to subject yourself to being the victim of a bully's abuse either.

But choosing to forgive is good for your soul. It will help your spiritual life grow and deepen with new meanings because the voice act of forgiving will draw you closer to a smiling God who whispers to you, "Very good. I knew you could do it. I'm so proud of you."

Choose life. Choose love. Choose to forgive. It's your sould that's a terrible thing to waste.

October 2, 2009 -- Quote for the Day: Success can make you go one of two ways. It can make you a prima donna -- or if can smooth the edges, take away the insecurities, let the nice things come out. -- Barbara Walters

I got this from my friend Bill in Paducah. Perhaps you've seen it, or something like it. But it's a light funny way to end the week.

A DC airport ticket agent offers some examples of "why" our country may be in trouble.

1. I had a New Hampshire congresswoman ask for an aisle seat so that her hair wouldn't get messed up by being near the window. (On an airplane!)

2. I got a call from a Kansas congressman's staffer, who wanted to go to Capetown. I started to explain the flight and passport information, and then he interrupted me with, "I'm not trying to make you look stupid, but Capetown is in Massachusetts."

Without trying to make him look stupid, I calmly explained, "Cape Cod is in Massachusetts. Capetown is in Africa."

His response? Click.

3. A senior Vermont congressman called, furious about a Florida package we did. I asked what was wrong with the vacation in Orlando. He said he was expecting an ocean-view room. I tried to explain that's not possible since Orlando is in the middle of the state.

He replied, "Don't lie to me. I looked on the map and Florida is a very thin state!"

4. I got a call from a lawmaker's wife who asked, "Is it possible to see England from Canada?"

I said, "No."

She said, "But they look so close on the map."

5. An aide for a cabinet member once called and asked if he could rent a car in Dallas. I pulled up the reservation and noticed he had only a 1hour layover in Dallas. When I asked him why he wanted to rent a car, he said, "I heard Dallas was a big airport, and we will need a car to drive between gates to save time."

6. An Illinois congresswoman called last week. She needed to know how it was possible that her flight from Detroit left at 8:30 a.m. and got to Chicago at 8:33 a.m.

I explained that Michigan was an hour ahead of Illinois, but she couldn't understand the concept of time zones. Finally, I told her the plane went fast, and she bought that.

7. A New York lawmaker called and asked, "Do airlines put your physical description on your bag so they know whose luggage belongs to whom?" I said, "No, why do you ask?"

He replied, "Well, when I checked in with the airline, they put a tag on my luggage that said (FAT), and I'm overweight. I thing that's very rude."

After putting him on hold for a minute, while I looked into it. (I was dying laughing.) I came back and explained the city code for Fresno, CA is FAT for Fresno Air Terminal, and the airline was just putting a destination tag on his luggage.

8. A senator's aide called to inquire about a trip package to Hawaii. After going over all the cost info, she asked, "Would it be cheaper to fly to California and then take the train to Hawaii?"

9. I just got off the phone with a freshman congressman from Alabama who asked, "How do I know which plane to gt on?"

I asked him what exactly he meant, to which he replied, "I was told my flight number is 823, but none of these planes have numbers on them."

10. A senator from California called and said, "I need to fly to Pepsi-Cola, Florida. Do I have to get on one of those little computer planes?"
I asked if she meant that she was flying to Pensacola on a commuter plane."

She said, "Yeah, whatever, smarty."

11. A Louisiana senator called and had a question about the documents she needed in order to fly to China. After a lengthy discussion about passports, I reminded her that she needed a visa. "Oh, no I don't. I've been to China many times and never had to have one of those."

I double-checked and sure enough, stay required a visa. When I told her this she said, "Look, I've been to China four times and every time they have accepted my American Express."

12. A New Jersey congressman called to make reservations, "I want to go from Chicago to Rhino, New York."

I was at a loss for words. Finally, I said, "Are you sure that's the name of the town?"

"Yes, what flights do you have?" replied the man.

After some searching, I came back with, "I'm sorry, sir, I've looked up every airport code in the country and can't find a rhino anywhere."

The man retorted, "Oh, don't be silly. Everyone knows where it is. Check your map!"

So I scoured a map of the state of New York and finally offered, "You don't mean Buffalo, do you?"

The reply? "Whatever. I knew it was a big animal."

Now you know why the government is in the shape that it's in.

And these adorable retorts from youngsters that will make you smile, thanks to Antoinette, also from Paducah.

Teacher: Maria, go to the map and find North America.
Maria: Here it is.
Teacher: Correct. Now class, who discovered America?
Class: Maria.

Teacher: John, why are you doing your math multiplication on the floor.
John: You told me to use it without using tables.

Teacher: Glenn, how do you spell "crocodile?"
Glenn: K-R-O-K-O-D-I-A-L
Teacher: No, that's wrong.
Glenn: Maybe it is wrong, but you asked me how I spell it.

Teacher: Donald, what is the chemical formula for water?
Donald: H I J K L M N O
Teacher: What are you talking about?
Donald: Yesterday you said it was H to O.

Teacher: Winnie, name one important thing we have today that we didn't have ten years ago.
Winnie: Me!

Teacher: Glen, why do you always get so dirty?
Glen: Well, I'm a lot closer to the ground than you are.

Teacher: Millie, give me a sentence starting with "I."
Miller: I is ...
Teacher: No, Millie. Always say, "I am."
Millie: All right. "I am the ninth letter of the alphabet."

Teacher: George Washington not only chopped down his father's cherry tree, but also admitted it. Now, Louis, do you know why his father didn't punish him?
Louis: Because George still have the axe in his hand.

Teacher: Now, Simon, tell me frankly, do you say prayers before eating?
Simon: No sir. I don't have to. My Mom is a good cook.

Teacher: Clyde, your composition on "My Dog" is exactly the same as your brother's. Did you copy his?
Clyde: No. It's the same dog.

Teacher: Harold, what do you call a person who keeps on talking when people are no longer interested?
Harold: A teacher?

October 1, 2009 -- Quote for the Day: Whether you think you can, or you think you can't, you're right. -- Henry Ford

Wrapping Up The Mind -- Part 3 (This 3-part series will be archived in The Listener/Counseling Page in a few days)

Quint and I have had many an interesting discussion about whether thoughts have physical properties. Quint bring a chemist's hard science perspective to my psychology discipline. For instance, we pretty much can all agree that the province of the mind is mental processing. You know -- thinking. Psychologists like to call these events cognitions.

Some fairly new research tells us the different areas of the brain do different things. That's the left bring - right brain story.

But here's my quandary: The left brain asks a question. It's the problem-solving right brain that supplies the answer. Now how in the world did a couple of fat-celled neurons manage to do that? You see, when that happens we have given birth to what cognitive psychologists call an insight.

Getting more and more insights is the real goal of counseling therapy. When new insights are developed, new neural pathways are added, along which neurotransmitters can go zipping along at lightning rate speeds. That's how counseling actually changes brain chemistry. Because it's cognitive psychology that most often helps clients develop these insights, you can easily understand why cognitive therapy is the treatment of choice for the mood disorders.

There is a tremendous interplay between the brain and the mind. It would seem that they must co-exist in harmony. If that is true, then it is when this harmony is upset that our thought processes get out of order.

But physical properties? It doesn't appear to be the case. At least not at this point in our discoveries. If thoughts were physical things, then they would have some mass, however nano-tiny that would produce a drag on them.

Then there would be no accounting for the mom sitting in an empty chair in Iowa suddenly becoming frightened for her soldier son getting ambushed in a desert war on the other side of the world. The thought transfer from the battle incident to the mom happens instantly. No phone needed. Not even the lightning speed of the internet. It's a mental connection between two human minds and it happens instantly.

I remember when my brother, James, died. I was sitting in a meeting when I felt a cold, damp fog pass through me from one side to the other. The idea of its import caused me to write the time -- 9:58 a.m. -- on my pad of paper. Later, when I got home, Quint told me my brother had passed away about ten o'clock that morning. He died in a hospital five hundred miles away from me.

In the final analysis, I believe that our minds are the very seat of our spiritual being. Our spirit is something separated from our soul. God clearly differentiates this in 1 Thessalonians 5:23: ...may your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless...

September 30, 2009 -- Quote for the Day: Within each of us lies the power of our consent to health and sickness, to riches and poverty, to freedom and to slavery. It is we who control these, and not another. -- Richard Bach (Illusions)

More About This Thing We Call The Mind -- Part 2

To pick up from where we left off yesterday, creative processes that lead to composing efforts beg the question of where exactly does the mind live.

Some philosophers claim that the brain creates the mind. Wouldn't that be a convenient package of a thought if it turned out to be true?

The brain, however, is made up of about 100 billion neurons that pass electrical energy back and forth at the rate of some 200 miles per hour. In actuality, the brain is a mass of about three pounds of fatty tissues that pass electricity back and forth.

So how in the world do you suppose this collection of fat and electricity make what we call thoughts?

As if we really know. Truth is, we're still trying to figure that one out.

Maybe we don't have anything to do with making the mind. Perhaps we have to recognize that the mind just is.

I believe that from the beginning of time God created man with a mind. He gave man this intellectual energy. It was God who gave man dominion over all the living beings because of this design of God's for man's intellectual nature.

It is man's intellectual nature that defines the mind.

So why is that even important, you may ask.

Simple. Because the mind is higher in nature than the fat little neurons in the brain. The mind gets to tell the brain what to do. It's not the other way around.

This concept is probably the most important thing to learn about the brain-mind connection. It is the mind that develops ideas and what you believe. Because you invented the messages that you believe, you can change them. This is especially true if you find yourself believing negative self-messaging.

Erase your negative messages and replace them with kind, positive thoughts about yourself.

For instance, if you continue to tell yourself that you can't do something, say instead, "I can do this."

Just remember that your mind is in charge of your brain. And your brain does everything that your mind tells it to. That's the way it works. That's the way God made it to work.

This thought will continue with more about this messaging that the mind develops, and how important it is for you to be in charge of what's going on in your mind.

September 29, 2009 -- Quote for the Day: When asked into how many pieces he wanted his pizza cut, he said, "Four. I don't think I can eat eight." -- Yogi Berra

Sitting and Just Breathing Can Be Work -- Part 1

Odd, don't you think, that doing what appears to be nothing can actually be work. This is especially true if you have an idea that you want to bear fruit. It's also true if you're planning to write a term paper for school.

Especially in the latter case, it's always a good idea to give yourself "melding time." That's the period of time when you've done all your looking up research but before you actually attack your keyboard with clickety-clicks.

This in-between time is important for composing. Composing works especially well when you're actually concentrating on something else. Your mind is always on your unfinished projects. It's the mother thought of all multi-tasking.

I like to paint when I'm thinking about writing something. Or maybe gardening. Or cleaning house. Or baking. Anything that's a physical activity that isn't physically complicated will work just fine.

On the other hand, if I sit down and try to force the task, it ends up lacking a fluid smoothness to it. The writing will have little jagged edges around it, as if the words were forced into grammatically correct sentences.

I'm a great encourager for others to take time to do the work of composing, even if it looks like daydreaming.

Composing isn't time wasted. And composing our thoughts is certainly busy work even though it looks like we're idle.

Parents and teachers alike would get a better work product if they understood the creative process of composing.

I've often wondered how many artists have stared at a blank canvass trying to envision a painting that would rise up out of the paints.

Or how many writers get to work right away tripping over the stream of consciousness before they finally settle down to composing what they really want to say.

Composing is a creative process. You hurry it to your detriment. Composing brings harmony to your work. It's like a symphony you create in your head first. Then you put it down on paper. In that order.

September 25, 2009 -- Quote for the Day: If you don't read the newspapers, you are uninformed; if you do read the newspapers, you are misinformed. -- Mark Twain

GIVE YOUR SELF A MORATORIUM!

We've all had those times in our lives when we need to take a time out from the bone-crushing schedules that infect the well-being of our daily lives. These schedules of things to do and places to go could make us weary unless we allow ourselves the necessity of a moratorium once in a while.

Can you tell the difference between needing a moratorium and being self-indulgent? Does it really matter?

I'm thinking it doesn't.

We live our lives in a rush. Too rushed, if you ask me.

We rush through a schedule of time pockets. After I do this, then I need to that, we tell ourselves.

And all the while, we feel the hurry.

Vacations used to be times for these moratoriums.

Vacations were times when things didn't get scheduled. We could just laze back in an easy chair and soak up the refreshment of daydreaming. We could just sit and be. How soothing that is.

It's been raining all day here. Not the soaking, drenching downpour of a heavy rain. Just a gentle half-inch drizzle in four hours. It's what the folks in Scotland call a soft day. That is, a misty slow gentle "soft" rain.

It reminds me of the time Quint and I spent in Lucerne, Switzerland. How excited we were to be in that place in the middle of our tour of Germany, Bavaria and Switzerland.

The gentle rain started about the time we checked into our hotel. After dinner, the gentle, soft pitter patter lulled us into a pleasant sleep on big, puffy pillows and nestled in feather beds.

After breakfast the next morning, we walked under umbrellas to a nearly museum. Then lunch. Then back to our room for the most pleasant of naps.

God knew what he was doing. We need to rest and he provided this delicious opportunity. "Be still and know that I am God," I could hear him whisper. "Spend some time with me and be quiet."

To this day, when the weather is warmish and there's the gentle patter of a summer rain, Quint and I look at each other and smile our way back through memories of Lucerne.

It was a wonderful moratorium in the middle of a rather hectic tour.

We don't go on tours anymore. We much prefer vacations that let us start our days later than a 7:00 A.M. bus call. And we like our moratoriums, even if it's just having a glass of iced tea and a long, lazy conversation saturated with laughter.

September 22, 2009 -- Quote for the Day: My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government. -- Thomas Jefferson

I am amazed at the stunned look I get when asking people who their heroes are. The response is usually a surprised look, then a question about why heroes are even important.

Heroes do matter. Having heroes helps us shape our ideal selves. It's how we form our identities. And it's even how we revise the picture of ourselves from time to time as we go through our lives.

"Who's your hero?" was one of the early questions I'd ask my psychology students at the beginning of the semester. And since these were PSY 101 students, they were generally freshmen.

They somehow managed to get all the way through their secondary education without giving much thought to having heroes.

"Heroes don't have to be living persons," I'd explain. "They could be people who represent some trait you want to incorporate into your own sense of self."

Like George Washington for instance. Or Abraham Lincoln. What do people about about these two people? That they were known for their honesty? So you can pluck that particular trait out of the memory book and paste it on the sleeve of the identity coat you're making.

Then there was the pastor of the church I grew up in. He helped instill a sense of values and encouraged religious inquiry. He is a good hero and gets a big patch on my identify coat. I want to inspire others to have strong values just like he inspired me. And I also hope to encourage others to keep on learning. He gets a big patch.

An all-time favorite hero is Jesus Christ. Who could not have the Son of God for a hero? He still teaches me valuable lessons every day. He was most insightful and a lot more compassionate than I am. Those are traits I continue to cultivate with his assistance. And when I want to hear him speak to me, all I have to do is open the big collection of his teachers -- the Bible. He gets a huge patch in my identity coat right over my heart.

I have at least a dozen more heroes who have helped me galvinize who I am over the years. They include people whose love has comforted me with just the right words during my times of trial when my heart hurt so much, like at the death of my mother. That would certainly be my wonderful friend Antoinette.

My husband Quint has always been my hero as long as I've known him. Aside from the fact that he brings me great joy and has gifted me with his love, he is also a rock that anchors me to each. Otherwise, I fear that I'd be like a kite flying away on some silly breeze or off on some dangerous adventure, going nowhere. Quint is a safe harbor for my soul when the battles of the days sometimes wear on me. He brings a warm, safe invitation to come into the shelter of night with him.

Think about the people you know and admire. And think about the way these people shape your life. These are your heroes. Maybe you just haven't thought of them as heroes before.

But they most certainly are.

September 21, 2009 -- Quote for the Day: The will of God never takes you to where teh grace of God will not protect you.

The importance of boundaries

Children thrive when they have boundaries in their lives. It gives them a sense of security. It also brings them the message that there's an adult who's in charge. And if there's an adult, then it's safe to be a child. Children without boundaries flounder as they try to mature.

Rules are boundaries. In a way, these boundaries are like the floor beneath. Safe and secure and solid. But imagine what you'd feel like if the floor suddenly disappeared. What would happen if you were dropping through space without the boundary of a floor under you? It would most certainly be frightening. That's how frightening it is for children to grow up without a solid boundary to hold them in place.

Oh, for sure, the kiddos push against the boundaries. They rebel and resist, but all the while, reasonable boundaries are good for them. Let the children push, but just like airplane pilots fly through the air, when they go too close to the edge of the air, catastrophes can happen. Likewise, youngsters ought not to be allowed to push through the boundaries of the rules that govern their lives. These are the rules that have been put in place by loving parents who have their best interests at heart.

Boundaries allow people to anticipate expectations. And that's a secure feeling for all of us. It builds the framework of relationships.

September 16, 2009 -- Quote for the Day: If God is your co-pilot, swap seats!

(This article will be archived on The Listener page in a day or so.)

Always Look For Alternate Solutions and Teach The Kiddos How

There's no such thing as only one solution to a problem.

One of the most important life skills that adults can teach and model for the kiddos out there is that there's always more than one solution to a problem. If you really get good at thinking out of the box, you could probably find four or more solutions. Some not as good as the others, most likely. And certainly there's one solution that sticks out as the best, but if that one doesn't work, don't discard the others are useless.

It is powerfully dangerous to get stuck with the notion, "There was nothing else I could do."

That's a message that many a suicide attempter leaves in the note left behind.

Whether you're a parent, a Sunday School teacher, a school teacher, a scout leader, or a coach, teach all the kiddos you have a leadership relationship with to hunt those alternative solutions down.

The problem with using the "one-note-samba" type solution is that it leads to feelings of hopelessness if that one and only solution doesn't work out. And when hopelessness clouds the rational thinking, its cousin, helplessness can't be too far behind. Very dangerous!

Can you just imagine what a frightening predicament that is for someone?

Take the housewife, for instance, whose husband has just told her he wants a divorce because of another women. The wife is sitting in her half-a-million-dollar mega house, looking all the part of the well-healed suburban corporate wife.

She and her husband dates all through high school. Then he went off to college. She promised to wait forever. They got married as soon as he got his degree and landed his first job.

And then, after some eight years of marriage, he partnered up with a co-worker, a female executive whose office is just down the hall from his.

The housewife and mother of four was running a high octane anger one minute to despair the next.

"I wish I were dead," she said when she came in for her first session. "That would serve him right. He needs to know just how much he's hurt me."

It took some sorting out before she came to the conclusion that she'd have to move out of her big house.

And yes, the children would have to change school districts.

And yes, she'd have to go to work.

But first, she needed to go back to school. The thought of a career had never been too far forward in her mind.

And why should it? She already had a career. She was a full-time mom. She was a great entertainer. She was an excellent cook.

"So what?" she asked. "That doesn't pay much."

She ended up going to the community college to get an associates degree.

She opened up her own catering business. Accounting courses taught her how to manage the finances of a growing business. From a cost accounting course, she learned she wasn't charging enough for her food preparation.

A marketing course gave her the skills she needed to sell her business. "It used to seem like bragging about myself," she said. "Now, when I talk about my business to a prospective customer, I describe it as if my best friend were running it. If I got nothing else from the marketing course, that one point was worth the entire course."

"You're growing," I said. "I can almost hear you breaking out of the shells that don't fit you anymore."

"So what's next?" she asked.

"English. Grammar. Spelling."

"What's that got to do with my catering business?"

"It will give you a polished edge. Your clients aren't hiring a cook. They want a caterer. And they want someone who can communicate with them on their level."

"I get it," she said.

She was a different woman who finally ended up in divorce court.

Her judge applauded her educational pursuit and asked her how much help she thought she'd need for books and tuition while she was in the process of re-inventing herself.

"I think I will only need maintenance for two, maybe three years," she told the judge.

"Well, I'm going to make it four years, with the understanding that if you need more help after that, you just come on back in here and we'll take another look."

And yes, she moved her brood out of her big house just before it was foreclosed on.

And because she had not worked outside the home and had no independent credit, her husband had to guarantee the mortgage on her downsized home for the first five years.

And he had to pay her child support, plus maintenance for four years.

Life was much different for her, but she adjusted. So did her children.

There's always more than one solution to a problem. Contemplating suicide is never the "only thing" to do.

##

September 14, 2009 -- Quote for the Day: In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act. -- George Orwell

And for all your manly man readers out there, this comes from my cousin, Alice:

Subject: Tool Descriptions

DRILL PRESS -- a tall, upright machine useful for suddenly snatching flat metal bar stock out of your hands so that it smacks you in the chest and flings your beer across the room, denting the freshly painted vertical stabilizer which you had carefully set in the corner where nothing could get to it.

WIRE WHEEL -- cleans paint off bolts and then throws them somewhere under the workbench with the speed of light. Also removes fingerprints and hard-earned calluses from fingers in about the time it takes you to say, "Oh sh#t!"

ELECTRIC HAND DRILL -- Normally used for spinning pop rivets in their holes until you die of old age.

SKILL SAW -- A portable cutting tool used to make studs too short.

PLIERS -- Used to round off bolt heads. Sometimes used in the creation of blood blisters.

BELT SANDER -- An electric sanding tool commonly used to convert minor touch-up jobs into major refinishing jobs.

HACKSAW -- One of a family of cutting tools built on the Ouija board principle. It transforms human energy into a crooked, unpredictable motion, and the more you attempt to influence its course, the more dismal your future becomes.

VISE-GRIPS -- Generally used after pliers to completely round off bolt heads. If nothing else is available, they can also be used to transfer intense welding heat to the palm of your hand.

WELDING GLOVES -- Heavy duty leather gloves used to prolong the conduction of intense welding heat to the palm of your hand.

OXYACETYLENE TORCH -- Used almost entirely for lighting various flammable objects in your shop on fire. Also handy for igniting the grease inside the wheel hub out of which you want to remove a bearing race.

TABLE SAW -- A large stationary power tool commonly used to launch wood projectiles for testing wall integrity.

HYDRAULIC FLOOR JACK -- Used for lowering an automobile to the ground after you have installed your new brake shoes, trapping the hack handle firmly under the bumper.

EIGHT FOOT LONG YELLOW PINE 2X4 -- Used for levering an automobile upward off of a trapped hydraulic jack handle.

E-Z BOLT AND STUD EXTRACTOR -- A tool ten times harder than any known drill bit that snaps off neatly in bolt holes thereby ending any possible future use.

BAND SAW -- A large stationary power saw primarily used by most shops to cut good aluminum sheet into smaller pieces that more easily fit into the trash can after you cut on the inside of the line instead of the outside edge.

TWO TON ENGINE HOIST -- A tool for testing the maximum tensile strength of everything you forgot to disconnect.

CRAFTSMAN 1/2 x 24-INCH SCREWDRIVER -- A very large pry bar that inexplicably has an accurately machined screwdriver tip on the end opposite the handle.

AVIATION METAL SNIPS -- See hacksaw.

PHILLIPS SCREWDRIVER -- Normally used to stab the vacuum seals under lids or for opening old-style paper-and-tin oil cans and splashing oil on your shirt; but can also be sued, as the name implies, to strip out Phillips screw heads.

STRAIGHT SCREWDRIVER -- A tool for opening paint cans. Sometimes used to convert common slotted screws into non-removable screws.

PRY BAR -- A tool used to crumple the metal surrounding that clip or bracket your needed to remove in order to replace a 50 cent part.

HOSE CUTTER -- A tool used to make hoses too short.

HAMMER -- Originally employed as a weapon of war, the hammer nowadays is used as a kind of divining rod to locate the most expensive parts adjacent the object we are trying to hit.

MECHANIC'S TOOL -- Used to open and slice through the contents of cardboard cartons delivered to your front door; works particularly well on contents such as seats, vinyl records, liquids in plastic bottles, collector magazines, refund checks, and rubber or plastic parts. Especially useful for slicing work clothes, but only while in use.

DAMMIT TOOL -- Any handy tool that you grab and throw across the garage while yelling, "Dammit!" at the top of your lungs. It is also, most often, the next tool that you will need.

---

September 12, 2009 -- Quote for the Day: To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical. -- Thomas Jefferson

Quint and I joined a few hundred of our fellow citizens who live here in Effingham. Talk about the joy of being with like-minded conservatives! There we were -- hundreds of us on the lawn of our beautiful court house that was built in 1872. The court house is on the National Historic Register. My point is this: the same values that were held as most honorable in 1872 were reiterated on the green grassy lawn of the courthouse square. This is not the astroturf that Nancy Pelosi thinks covers the Midwest!

We stood elbow to elbow with real patriots.

Then we came home. I couldn't wait to see what was happening in Washington, D.C.

Well, all I have to say is I have never been so proud to be an American. Remember that "million man march" that was attempted several years ago -- the one that turned out to be a puny 500,000 or so? Well, let me tell you this. Today trumped every anemic attempt that the liberals try to outflank the conservatives.

There were 450 buses from a group called Tea Party Patriots. These were people who spent their own money to get to Washington, D.C. from all over this country. They were people who were not provided buses and dinners and lodging. Oh no. These are people who believe in what they espouse. And they're willing to spend their own money. They don't have their hands out looking for a free ride from taxpayers.

There were others from an organization called Freedom Works. I listened to Dick Armey, former House Majority Whip telling the crowds that what Congress is doing now is not working.

The crowds are what police call "curb to curb." And it wasn't just down Pennsylvania Avenue either. The camera (probably from a helicopter) took a look down a number of streets. There were people as far as you could see.

ABC estimated the crowd at 2 million. Given that ABC is not a fan of conservatives at all, could that mean the crowd was really more like 5 million? (Note: 9/13/09 -- ABC News denies reporting this crowd size. Instead, it claims a much smaller number: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/protest-crowd-size-estimate-falsely-attributed-abc-news/story?id=8558055.)

The Cypress Times does a comparative view of several publications, including the Daily Mail in London which offers up the 2 million number again. There's also a photo of the huuuuuuuuuge crowd. See this: http://www.thecypresstimes.com/article/News/Opinion_Editorial/MEDIA_BIAS_THE_NEW_SCARY_SPIN_AND_THE_912_NUMBERS/24479

The conservatives have turned Washington, D.C. on its ear. Next comes Congress. If I were a congressman/woman, I'd be very very worried about the demands that American taxpayers are beginning to make.

Oh, and one other statistic that is most interesting. There are only 20% of the voters who identify themselves as liberals in this country.

So where did the liberals ever get the idea that they could hold the national agenda hostage? And where in the world did the liberals ever get the idea that they could speak for all of us conservatives?

And so I say to the liberals, since they presently hold the Congress majority and have since Bush's midterm elections, pass whatever you think you can get away with. It's all going to be undone during the election of 2010.

Just keep that in mind every time you hear Obama accuse George W. Bush of raping the national economy. The Democrats were the party in power for the last two years of Bush's second term. So just exactly who voted for those appropriations bills? Here's a clue: liberals and Democrats because they had the majority votes.

The President of the United States does not pass tax laws. Never did. The genesis of tax bills is in the House Ways and Means Committee. And that committee is chaired by Charlie Rangel who just remembered that he under-reported his income by some $250,000. Do you think there's going to be any kind of an ethics hearing at all? My bet is there won't be. His very best friend, Nancy Pelosi, will see to that. (Read this: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203946904574300013592601036.html, and http://www.narbosa.com/2009/08/charles-rangel-should-be-in-jail-right.html)

September 11, 2009 -- Quote for the Day: I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them. -- Thomas Jefferson

And who could forget where we were on that fateful September 11 eight years ago? It was one of those watershed days. A time when we define our lives in terms of before and after. Much like the day when President Kennedy was assassinated. Each watershed moment in our lives takes a little bit of our innocence away. I pray that all the survivors who lost loved ones on 9-11 are finding some sense of peace in their lives. I am grateful that our nation has devoted a time of remembrance for September 11. We must never forget, as individuals and as a nation.

(note: the following will be archived on The Listener page in a day or so.)

Liars Reinvent Reality -- Or At Least Their Perception of Reality

A psychiatrist I worked with a number of years ago made the observation that lying isn't really the question. Rather, he wondered why reality wasn't good enough.

Parents often bring errant children in for counseling and say, "She (or he) never tells the truth."

At that point I wonder, like their parents, why children start lying in the first place. Do they feel discounted or devalued as persons? After all, children aren't born liars. It's definitely learned behavior that has a history of being reinforced.

Could it be a coach who makes a youngster feel humiliated because the player doesn't run fast enough or make enough points or just plain old fumbles a ball?

Could it be a teacher who chides a youngster in front of a class for not "getting it."

It doesn't take too many times for kiddos to have their hurt feelings multiplied when parents tell them to try harder or study harder.

Sometimes that's when youngsters begin to develop a secret "thought life."

And if this secret thought life develops into a dishonest coping style, they can have difficulties with future relationships, especially intimately charged relationships like marriage where trust is important. Nobody wants to be married to a devious, dishonest partner.

Such was Brent, who arrived, he said, just minutes before his wife was going to see a divorce attorney. "I don't know why I lie," he explained. "I know it's wrong but I just can't stop myself."

"It's a bad habit, or in psychobabble terms, it's habituated behavior. Most likely, there's something way back when that motivated that first little fib. And the habit grew from there."

"I've been like this for as long as I can remember. Even when I don't have a reason to lie, I just do it."

"Interesting that you should put it that way."

"What way?"

"You used the word reason and lie in the same sentence. People have reasons for the lies they tell. You and I are going to figure out what your motivations are. They're probably the same now as they were when you were ten. Just bigger."

"There's definitely more at stake. I do not want to lose my marriage and kids and home."

"The good news is that habituated behavior can be extinguished fairly quickly once we figure out how it's being rewarded, or reinforced."

I continued, "Lying is a fascinating habit. It will become even more so as we start to unbundle the reasons why it's complicating your life so unnecessarily."

"Don't all people lie because they're just bad people?" he asked.

"No, not at all. Lying has a lot to do with how people cope with power differences. Almost always, it's the individual who has the least amount of power in a relationship who feels the urge to lie about something."

"But you said lying starts out in childhood."

"It often does. Do you remember the first time you were caught in a lie?"

"Sure."

"Was it the first time you actually lied?"

"No."

"As you look back on your memory, do you remember why you lied?"

"I'd have to think about that." He paused for a bit, then said, "It had something to do with my brother. I took something of his."

"Was he an older or a younger brother?"

"Older, but why would that matter?"

"Could be that you thought your older brother had more power than you did so you took something of his. That levelled the playing field, didn't it?"

"I see what you're saying. All this time I thought I lied to avoid being punished."

"That would be the second reason."

"So where do we go from here?" he asked.

"Well, recognizing habitual lying as a power grab makes it a lot easier than restructuring the personality of a pathological liar. From a cognitive perspective, I'd like you to keep track of each and every lie you tell between now and your next appointment. And what you thought you gained from the lie?"

"Do think I'm a pathological liar?"

"Not likely. Pathological lying usually co-exists with a mental health disorder. These liars appear to be self-centered, probably narcissists This goal is to manipulate people and situations so that they can gain favor. They don't usually come for counseling."

I added, "On the other hand, the habitual liar bends the truth for just about anything. And everything. Habitual liars are not trying to be manipulative. Rather, lying feels normal and telling the truth feels really uncomfortable."

"I've never heard it put that way. Most of the time I'm accused to lying to be manipulative."

"Are you?"

"Not really. I don't really care if I gain any influence or cause changes for others by my lying."

"Good. Believe it or not, this is better. Not necessarily easier, but better for you because if you're willing to work at making the changes, you'll get to the point where telling the truth feels normal, not the other way around."

Brent and I spend the best part of six months exploring childhood memories from which sprang his habituated behavior. As with any habit requiring change, he learned that if you can identify a problem, you can measure it. And if you can measure it, you can manage it.

##

September 9, 2009 -- Quote for the Day: No arsenal, or no weapon in the arsenals of the world, is as formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women. -- Ronald Reagan

Received this from my good friend from Paducah who now lives in southern California, Pat:

Q: What kind of man was Boaz before he married Ruth?
A: Ruthless

Q: What do they call pastors in Germany?
A: German Shepherds

Q: Who was the greatest financier in the Bible?
A: Noah. He was floating his stock while everyone else was in liquidation.

Q: Who was the greatest female financier in the Bible?
A: Pharaoh's daughter. She went down to the bank of the Nile and drew out a little prophet.

Q: What kind of cars are in the Bible?
A: Jehovah drove Adam and Eve out of the Garden in a Fury. David's Triumph was heard throughout the land. Also, probably a Honda because the apostles were all in one Accord.

Q: Who was the greatest comedian in the Bible?
A: Samson, because he brought down the house.

Q: What excuse did Adam give to his children as to why he no longer lived in Eden?
A: Your mother ate us out of house and home.

Q: Which servant of God was the most flagrant lawbreaker in the Bible?
A: Moses. He broke all 10 Commandments at once.

Q: Which area of Palestine was especially wealthy?
A: The area around Jordan. The banks were always overflowing.

Q: Who is the greatest babysitter mentioned in the Bible?
A: David. He rocked Goliath to a very deep sleep.

Q: Which Bible character had no parents?
A: Joshua, son of Nun.

Q: Why didn't they play cards on the Ark?
A: Because Noah was standing on the deck.

Q: Who was the first tennis player mentioned in the Bible?
A: Joseph. He served in Pharaoh's court

P.S. Did you know it's wrong for a woman to make coffee? Yup. It's in the Bible -- He-brews.

And this comes to us from our friend, John, in Wichita:

Sometime this year, we taxpayers may again receive an Economic Stimulus payment. This is a new program. I will explain it using the Q and A format.

Q: What is an Economic Stimulus payment?
A: It is money that the federal government will send to taxpayers.

Q: Where did the government get this money?
A: From taxpayers.

Q: So the government is giving me back my own money?
A: Only a smidgen.

Q: What is the purpose of this payment?
A: The plan is that you will use the money to purchase a high definition TV set, thus stimulating the economy.

Q: But isn't that stimulating the economy of China?
A: Shut up.

Below is some helpful advice on how to best help the US economy by spending your stimulus check wisely:

If you spend the stimulus money at Wal-Mart, the money will go to China.

If you spend it on gasoline, your money will go to the Arabs.

If you purchase a computer, it will go to India.

If you purchase fruit and vegetables, it will go to Mexico, Honduras and Guatemala.

If you buy a car, it will go to Japan.

If you guy useless stuff, it will go to Taiwan.

If you pay your credit cards off, or buy stock, it will go to management bonuses and they will hide it offshore.

Instead, keep the money in America by:

September 8, 2009 -- Quote for the Day: First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. -- Ghandi

Oh, am I proud of my Southern heritage. Everything I have learned about style and grace, I got from growing up in the south! Southerners are not as cranky. They'll cut you some slack -- that is, unless they suspect a malicious tone coming from you. And Southerners don't like bossy folks. Bossy folks are just too arrogant and demotivating to ever get into the good graces of a Southerner.

And then there's those things that fast food restaurants try to push off on you as scrambled eggs. My Lord, my mother must be turning over in her grave at those scrambled eggs that look like they've been ironed. She'd never let something like that in her house, I can assure you of that.

Anyway, my very dear friends from Paducah -- Antoinette and Pat -- have sent me a list of Southern traits.

For some of us, this is a place where we live, or have lived ... or it's just across the river ... of it's a place we've been to fer a while, but the manners and the politeness is something very basic to the original American culture. It's alive and well in the Midwest. It's sorely needed in Urbania (all metro areas, especially in the far (left) west coast. May it continue to survive and influence our better nature.

Southern women appreciate their natural assets:
Clean skin,
a winning smile,
that unforgettable Southern drawl.

Southern women know their manners:
"Yes, ma'am."
"Yes, sir."
"Why, no, Billy!"

Southern women have a distinct way with fond expressions:
"Y'all come back!"
"Well, bless your heart."
"Drop by when you can."
"How's your momma?"

Southern women know their summer weather report:
Humidity.
Humidity.
Humidity.

Southern women know their vacation spots:
The beach.
The rivuh.
The crick.

Southern women know the joys of June, July and August:
Colorful hi-heel sandals.
Strapless sun dresses.
Iced sweet tea with mint.

Southern women know everybody's first name:
Honey.
Dahlin'
Shugah.

Southern women know the movies that speak to their hearts:
Fried Green Tomatoes.
Driving Miss Daily.
Steel Magnolias.
Gone With The Wind.

Southern women know their religions:
Baptist.
Methodist
Football.

Southern women know their country breakfasts:
Red-eye gravy.
Grits.
Eggs.
Country ham.
Mouth-watering homemade biscuits with momma's homemade jelly.

Southern women know their cities dripping with Southern charm:
Chawl'stn
S'vanah
Foat Wuth
N'awlins
Addlanna

Suthern women know their elegant gentlemen:
Men in uniform
Men in tuxedos
Rhett Butler

Southern girls know their prime real estate:
The mall
The country club
The beauty salon

Southern girls know the three deadly sins:
Having bad hair and nails
Having bad manners
Cooking bad food

Only a Southerner knows the difference between a hissie fit and a conniption fit, and that you don't have them, you pitch them.

Only a Southerner knows how many fish, collard greens, turnip greens, peas, beans, etc., make up a "mess."

Only a Southerner can show or point out to you the general direction of "yonder."

Only a Southerner knows exactly how long "directly" is, as in: "Going to town, be back directly."

Even Southern babies know that "Gimme some sugar" is not a request for a white, granular sweet substance that sits in a pretty little bowl in the middle of the table.

All Southerns know exactly when "by and by" is. They might not use the term, but they know the concept well.

Only a Southerner knows instinctively that the best gesture for solace for a neighbor who's got troubles is a place of hot fried chicken and a big bowl of potato salad. If the neighbor's trouble is a real crisis, they also know to add a large banana puddin'.

Only Southerners grow up knowing the difference between "right near" and "a right far piece." They also know that "just down the road" can be 1 mile or 20.

Only a Southerner both knows and understands the difference between a redneck, a good ole boy and po' white trash.

No true Southern would ever assume that the car with the flashing turn signal is actually going to make a turn.

A Southerner knows that "fixin'" can be used as a noun, a verb, or an adverb.

Only Southerns make friends while standing in lines. And when we're "in line," we talk to everybody.

Put 100 Southerners in a room and half of them will discover they're related, even if only by marriage.

In the South, "y'all" is singular, "all y'all" is plural.

Southerns know that grits come from corn and how to eat them.

Every Southerner knows tomatoes with eggs, bacon, grits, and coffee are perfectly wonderful; that red eye gravy is also a breakfast food, and that fried green tomatoes are not a breakfast food.

When you hear someone say, "Well, I caught myself lookin'," you know you are in the presence of a genuine Southerner.

Only true Southerns say "sweet tea" and "sweet milk." Sweet tea indicates the need for sugar and lots of it. We do not like our tea unsweetened. "Sweet milk" means you don't want buttermilk.

And a true Southerner knows you don't scream obscenities at little old ladies who drive 30 MPH on the freeway. You just say "Bless her heart" and go on your way.

And to those of you who are still having a hard time understanding all this Southern stuff, bless your hearts, I hear they are fixin' to have classes on Southernness as a second language.

And for those who are not from the South but have lived here for a long time, all y'all need a sign to hang on y'alls front porch that reads "I ain't from the South, but I got here as fast as I could."

If you're a Northern transplant, bless your little heart, fake it. We know you got here as fast as you could!

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Give yourself permission to take a break, a kind of mental health day when you can just put your feet up and sit a tall glass of iced tea.

Forget about that "should do" list that might be nagging at you. Most things can wait at least one day.

It seems that in the course of our busy lives, we are the least kind to the one person who drags our tired, sometimes wounded psyches around. But even our inner selves will balk if we don't send little kindnesses in that direction.

I'm a big believer in meditation. It's a simple thing to do. However, it's not to be confused with doing inspirational things like reading those upbeat little books. If you're meditating, you ought to have your eyes closed.

Meditation is a wonderful time to sit and be quiet. It's a time when you can practice what I call "thought pushing." If you are not regularly doing this in your "me time," give it a try. It feels absolutely purifying!

Thought pushing simply means trying hard not to think of anything. Especially anything cranky. If these cranky thoughts try to be naughty, kind of like a little kid who sticks a tongue out at you, just say to yourself, "I'll think about that later."

Just keep in mind that it's virtually impossible to completely empty your mind of thoughts while you're awake. But keep pushing the thoughts to the side as they crop up.

To meditate, first thing you need to do is sit back in your favorite comfortable chair.

Then place both feet on the floor.

This grounds you. Crossed legs won't work.

Lying down won't work either. Oh, it's okay if you want to nod off for a bit, but if you want to take a five minute vacation, you need to be sitting comfortably.

And have your eyes closed.

Become aware of your breathing. Slow, deep breathing. In and out. Quiet and slow. Be aware of the rhythm of your breathing.

After a couple of minutes, you'll probably notice an itch. Most likely this will be somewhere on your face. Don't scratch. Instead, send some oxygen over to the itch on your next few inhales. The itch will go away. Isn't that amazing?

Sending oxygen to places of pain also works.

Doesn't it feel great to be able to have such an affect on our physical body just by exercising our breathing?

Just sit for a few moments longer. And enjoy the feeling of stress draining out of your body. Out through your feet that are planted on the floor.

One of these minutes when you want to, open your eyes slowly. Enjoy the refreshment of these past few minutes.

Yu can get to this point in a mere five minutes. You can enjoy meditation while you're commuting on the bus or train -- but definitely not while you're driving.

You can also enjoy meditation just about anywhere you can sit still. Even with your eyes open, although this takes more practice and extra effort. I've even meditated in meetings that are less than exciting. Except for closing my eyes, I start with the become aware of my breathing part. It's the same after that.

You can even get to a point where you feel weightless. Talk about relaxed!

And for those of you who think you can't do any "thought pushing," I want you to realize that your brain will believe anything you tell it. Maybe that's one of the reasons why perceptions are so powerful.

So if you tell your brain that you aren't going to engage those intrusive thoughts until later, they'll go away. True, they'll probably be replaced by other thoughts, but the new thoughts can be pushed aside too. It's interesting to me to see what kinds of thoughts surface from deep inside. When I'm meditating, I have lots of "where did that come from" moments.

Half the time they don't come back later. I think they must fall out of my ear or something. Maybe they just escape the confines of the insight of my head and are glad to be free to sail away on soft breezes.

To some thoughts I say, "Good riddance." The pleasant thoughts can come later.

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September 3, 2009 -- Quote for the Day: The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they're ignorant, it's just that they know so much that isn't so. -- Ronald Reagan

(This will be filed archived on the Cheer Up page in a day or so.)

I've often wondered if pessimistic people are persons who have lost hope or if they are held hostage by their negative thinking.

If you are one of those pessimists who is besieged by a constant barrage of negative chatter, or if someone you love is, what can you do about it?

Pessimists can change all that agonizing chatter. It starts with your decision to take your thoughts captive again -- not the other way around.

These are the thoughts that fly under the radar. They're just looking for one of your weak moments so that they can land on you. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, you feel the weight of their bossiness. They actually think they can order you about, make you feel the way they want you to feel.

And even if you've decided that you've had it, they're still going to try to hang on to your bad moods.

Feelings, after all, are the last things to change. So you can be as logical as you want to be, but those nagging negative feelings and thoughts are going to stick around until you bring out the heavy artillery. That would be your giant feeling blobber eraser. You do have one, you know. We all do.

You see, way back when, in the days of yore from your childhood, the not-so-nice feeling troll hid your eraser from you and put it under his bridge. Naughty, naughty! He thought you'd never find it down there and that you'd suffer the negativity of pessimistic thoughts all the days of your life.

Ah, but the troll thought you'd never figure that out. He thought you were going to his hostage and that you'd actually get attached to him. That happens sometimes. We call it the Stockholm Syndrome when victims attach emotionally to their abusers in hostage situations. But that's another story all until its own.

His little shenanigans started to mask those childhood anxieties that first showed up when you weren't treated with consistencies. Life was a pretty scary place to be and the troll knew it. That was his master plan!

So now here you are. Pretty sick and tired of being trolled. Ready to kick this little good news thief all the way back to the shadow of his of the tree where he's supposed to hang out. He's certainly not supposed to be anywhere near you.

If you're a pessimist, you need to know -- rather you need to believe -- that you can take back your mind from invading negative thoughts. These worrisome ideas didn't just show up by accident. Rather, at some level of your thinking they were invited in. That said, it's high time to disinvite them. Every time you hear a pessimism, just say, I'm not listening to you today.

But beware. These thoughts can be persistent. So can you though. As you practice your newly found abilities to be optimistic, you'll get better at it and feel stronger because of it.

Life can be fun when your thoughts are filled with hope and optimism. The first empowering thought is to decide if you want to stay married to these pessimistic thoughts that are self-defeating.

My question to you is why would yu want to? My guess is you don't but you probably didn't realize it was as easy as deciding not to. If, however, you are still obsessed with powerful, negative thoughts that just keep short-changing your well-being, you ought to consider counseling or get some life coaching.

If you would like, you can e-mail me for a brief consult at a 2-question charge of $50 through Pay Pal. Then e-mail me at jane@janereinheimer.com

Please allow two to three days for a response. I will e-mail your answer in the order your question is received.

Please include your real name, address and phone number.

My assurance to you is that I do not sell names to any list makers. Ever.

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