Category Archives: Uncategorized

Wheeling Christmases in the Fifties

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Trips to Downtown Wheeling at Christmas
to gawk, shop, cackle, and dream,
Back then we weren’t afraid
to laugh, shriek, and be amazed,
Storefront windows overstuffed
with dolls, dollhouses, train sets, and toy soldiers,
How could we not believe in magic–
things we can’t explain, and yet love,
Best at night when all was aglow,
but Saturday mornings were quite alright,
Stone and Thomas, LS Good, Cooey-Benz,
Stifel and Taylor, Reichart’s, and so many more,
We were there, saw it with our own believing eyes,
and best of all felt it deep in our hearts,
Santa reminds us it’s okay to dream,
look back, remember where we came from,
and what gave our hearts delight,
May this Christmas be filled
with our cherished childhood dreams.
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Overcoming darkness

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“If we hope to overcome the ocean of darkness in the world, we must first light a candle in our own hearts. . . . Committing oneself to the path of love can be the most revolutionary way to change the world.” — Robert Lawrence Smith

This hit home with me today

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“With spiritual awakening, ego recedes to the background and becomes a service vehicle to the divine Self, instead of a tyrannical driver. When our viewpoint shifts from ego dominance to soul awareness, we are ready to cooperate with the Infinite.” — Ellen Grace O’Brian, Daily Inspirations.

On breathing

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If I were much wiser, and much more patient, and had much greater concentration, I could sit in silence in my chair, look out my windows at a green tree and the blue sky, and know that breathing is a gift; that a breath is sufficient for the moment; and that breathing air is breathing God. ~ André Dubos

Power and Love

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Power properly understood is nothing but the ability to achieve purpose. And one of the great problems of history is that the concepts of love and power have usually been contrasted as opposites, polar opposites, so that love is identified with a resignation of power, and power with a denial of love. 

. . . What is needed is a realization that power without love is reckless and abusive, and that love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is love correcting everything that stands against love.
— Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.,
Speech to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, 1967

On the Eve of My 68th Birthday

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We reach a point in life, where
by the grace of God, we are spared
from ourselves and all self-judgment.

And by the miracle of life itself,
we discover that all we experience is
but a tiny example of our potential.

And in the midst of our wandering,
the desert and mountains come together, and
at sunset, the god of self-understanding appears.

On gratitude

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Gratitude is not dependent on what you have, it depends on your heart. You can even find gratitude for your measure of sorrows, the hand you’ve been dealt.  . . . Sometimes it’s through the hardest things that your heart learns its most important lessons.
— Jack Kornfield