Mistakes

All My Love Always, Keith

Some Days

All My Love Always, Keith

Life Is a Journey

It's not about the destination because the destination is the journey.

All My Love Always, Keith

We Are All Inventors

All My Love Always, Keith

Giving Thanks 11.26.15

Giving Thanks

11.26.15

Thanksgiving is a time of year we often get together with family and friends.

We celebrate that American tradition of the first Thanksgiving.

This account of the first Thanksgiving is from the National Geographic website:

It all started in 1621 the Wampanoag Indians

had lived in that area of Massachusetts for over 12,000 years.

An Indian leader and Squanto visited the settlers.

Squanto had visited many times and knew English.

They had forged an alliance to protect each other from the other tribes in the area.  

One day that fall, four settlers were sent to hunt for food for a harvest celebration.

The Wampanoag heard gunshots and alerted their leader, Massasoit,

who thought the English might be preparing for war.

Massasoit visited the English settlement with 90 of his men

to see if the war rumor was true.

Soon after their visit, the Native Americans realized

that the English were only hunting for the harvest celebration.

Massasoit sent some of his men to hunt deer for the feast.

For three days, the English and native men, women, and children ate together.

The meal consisted of deer, corn, shellfish, and roasted meat,

far from today's traditional Thanksgiving feast.

Although prayers and thanks

were probably offered at the 1621 harvest gathering,

the first recorded religious Thanksgiving Day in Plymouth

happened two years later in 1623.

Each of us has our Thanksgiving history.
As we head into this Thanksgiving, I give thanks.
I give thanks for all the good times, and not so good times.
Most of all I give thanks for those truly trying times in my life,
those very trying times of loss where my emotions
were molten by the fires of grief,
where my faith was forged into what it is today.

I believe it is important to remember the good times
and especially those trying times.
We are composites of what we have experienced,
and that is what makes us who we are today.
How we have met challenges and endured.
How we have found the stuff we are made of
and realized the strength, we have within.

In the end I believe

we are all here

to experience love,

to grow in love,

to share in love,

and to be love.

God blesses you and yours this day and every day.

All My Love Always, Keith

I am grateful for what I am and have.

My thanksgiving is perpetual.

Henry David Thoreau

We Are Here

All My Love Always, Keith

You Receive

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Cultivate the Habit

In Everything Give Thanks

All My Love Always, Keith

I Would Maintain

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Acknowledging the Good

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A Moment of Gratitude

All My Love Always, Keith

It Doesn't Matter

All My Love Always, Keith

Gratitude

All My Love Always, Keith

Love is the Only Reality

Prayer for Peace

If You Can Grow

All My Love Always, Keith

Shine

We are all here
to experience love,

to grow in love,

to share in love,

and to be love.

All My Love Always, Keith

Walk Your Talk

The Most Useful Asset

However many holy words you read,

however many you speak,

what good will they do you

if you do not act on upon them?

Buddha

We are Eagels

The God who existed before any religion

counts on you

to make the oneness of the human family

known and celebrated.

Desmond Tutu

Remembering Jack McKenna 11.09.11

Remembering

Jack McKenna

11.09.11

1922-2011

I heard of a man who gave golf lessons.

A task master I was told.

So I met and took lessons from the man.

Admonish me he does with “No, No, No!”

Always instructing me “knuckles down”

he said so very often.

Ever teaching me

for I had a lot to learn but learn I did

and become a better golfer

and a better man.

For Jack became like a father to me.

He cared so, he always did.

And so with the fondness

of a son I will remember him.

For though he’s gone

I’ll forever remember him

Though “No, No, No!”

and  “knuckles down!”

still rings in my head.

I’ll remember him,

not as a golf instructor

but as a man

who loved me like a son.

For I never knew him when he was young

but always felt he treated me like a son.

So now I remember a man who

I considered a father even though he was just

a dear, dear friend.

All My Love Always, Keith

Now Is The Time

It's difficult to believe in yourself

because the idea of self is an artificial construction.

You are, in fact, part of the glorious oneness of the universe.

Everything beautiful in the world is within you.

Russell Brand

At Some Point

Acceptance doesn't mean resignation;

it means understanding that something is what it is

and that there's got to be a way through it.

Michael J. Fox

Too Easy 12.21.11

Too Easy   12.21.11

That’s how I feel a lot these days, too Easy.

Where’s my drive?

I take everything too easy.

Just gliding along no sense of urgency,

the furnace fails, my tire fails, upset I’m not.

Lackadaisical I am,

muddling through day after day.

Should be ready for Christmas but I’m not.

Should care that I’m not but I don’t.

So where do I go from here?

Where’s the spark?

To put me back on course, where’s the drive?

Lost, not really, but it’s just the human stuff that used to fire me up.

Like falling behind at work, really doesn’t fire me up anymore.

I just figure I’ll get it done when I get it done.

Maybe that’s the point.

I’ve seen a different side of life.

I realize there’s a lot more to life than before.

But here I sit at the end of the day.

When I began this post, I had a dead furnace and a flat tire.

At the end, I have new tires on my car and a new furnace on the way.

I never got upset; I never went nuts over what happened.

I just dealt with it and moved past it.

So maybe it’s not too easy or no drive.

Maybe it’s just a new way of dealing with issues,

without making mountains out of them.

The ego loves making mountains out of things.

The spirit loves making peace with things.

Ponder that I will.

All My Love Always, Keith 

There's going to be stress in life,

but it's your choice whether to let it affect you or not.

Valerie Bertinelli

Nobody can bring you peace but yourself.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Whatever Comes

For years I tried to put myself in a box,

and it frustrated me,

so I had to let go

and let the universe take its course.

Billy Porter

"Let it GO!" 12.22.11

"Let It GO!"    12.22.11

"Let it GO!"

A friend of mine reminded me of that Sunday,

as we stood by my failed furnace.

He related a story of a fellow who’s wife failed

to do their Christmas cards.

That was his advice, "Let It GO!"

He said he had issues with crazy drivers,

wishing he had "Let It GO!"  tattooed on the back of his hand.

So all he would have to do when someone cuts him off

and that feeling rises in him is to look at the back of his hand

and read "Let It GO!"

That’s not such a bad idea he pointed out.

There are far more important things in life.

We sometimes latch onto trivial things

and let them truly upset us,

when we should just "Let It GO!"

So the next time you get upset.

Give it a try.

Ask yourself what if I just

"Let It GO!"

All My Love Always, Keith

Learn from the past and let it go. Live in today.

Louise L. Hay

Behind Every Problem

Separate 12.19.11

SEPARATE  12.19.11

We spend our lives as individuals.  

We are raised to think we are unique.

We are told we live in a country 

and there are other countries.

It’s all about separateness, us and them.

The good and bad. 

Opposites everywhere and to everything.

But as I seek, as I learn, as I realize where I’m headed.

It’s not about separateness. 

I’m trying to find someone who can relate

to my experience or feel what I feel.

To connect not separate.

Then realize it’s not just one or someone or a group.

It’s all of us, ALL of us.

To connect to realize the Oneness that we are.

All My Love Always, Keith

“We are born to inquire after Truth”  - Michel Eyquem de Montaigne

Praise and Blame