peace

Today’s Thought: Walk Away from the Drama

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Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

I sleep well. I get my seven to eight hours each night. I dream a lot. Most dreams I don’t recall. I rarely have a dream where I wake up and wonder how I’ll go back to sleep. I think one reason I sleep well is that I work at staying away from the drama. Drama comes in all shapes and sizes. The digital news pours it on non stop. People who have drama in their lives like to unload it on anyone who’s close by. Stay away from those folks. I was talking to a guy the other day and he wanted to talk about politics. He’s a nice guy when he’s not into the political thing. I told him I was leaving the conversation because I valued being at peace more than I valued continuing the political discussion with him. I’ve learned that it’s okay to walk away from drama-filled situations. If you can reduce the times and the types of people who fill the room with drama, you’ll find yourself much happier.

Today’s Poem: Beauty by Theodosia Garrison

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Beauty

Theodosia Garrison

Sometimes, slow moving through unlovely days,
The need to look on beauty falls on me
As on the blind the anguished wish to see,
As on the dumb the urge to rage or praise;
Beauty of marble where the eyes may gaze
Till soothed to peace by white serenity,
Or canvas where one master hand sets free
Great colours that like angels blend and blaze.

O, there be many starved in this strange wise—
For this diviner food their days deny,
Knowing beyond their vision beauty stands
With pitying eyes—with tender, outstretched hands,
Eager to give to every passer-by
The loveliness that feeds a soul’s demands.

Today’s Poem: Where the Mind is Without Fear by Rabindranath Tagore

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Where the Mind is Without Fear

Rabindranath Tagore

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high
Where knowledge is free
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
By narrow domestic walls
Where words come out from the depth of truth
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
Where the mind is led forward by thee
Into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

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Today’s Thought: Your Smile Carries a Beautiful Message

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“It was only a sunny smile, and little it cost in the giving, but like morning light it scattered the night and made the day worth living.” ― F. Scott Fitzgerald

I’m not sure if we’re losing the ability to smile. Maybe we’re so fearful and distrustful of each other that we think smiling is a sign of weakness. Most people I see are in a rush to get to somewhere, talking on their smart phones and gesturing with their free hand. They walk purposefully with a game face on that says “don’t mess with me.” Smiling is a simple gesture that sends a text message from the heart to a momentary encounter with another person. A warm smile lets someone know the world is a friendly place. It lets the other person know that someone (the person offering the smile) recognizes they (the person receiving the smile) exists. The person offering the smile receives as much benefit as the person receiving the smile.

Today’s Inspiring Photo: Be Peaceful

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Today’s Inspiring Photo: Think Peace

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Silence: A Poem by Hafiz

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Silence

Hafiz

A day of Silence

Can be a pilgrimage in itself.

A day of Silence

Can help you listen

To the Soul play

Its marvelous lute and drum.

Is not most talking

A crazed defense of a crumbling fort?

I thought we came here

To surrender in Silence,

To yield to Light and Happiness,

To Dance within

In celebration of Love’s Victory!

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Thinking Out Loud: Choose to ACT

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“Making a decision was only the beginning of things. When someone makes a decision, he is really diving into a strong current that will carry him to places he had never dreamed of when he first made the decision.” ~  Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

NOTE: The scariest part about making a decision is the fear of making a decision. Will it be a good decision? Will it be a decision I regret? When we think of things in that way we become paralyzed, unable to act. We will never have enough data to make the decision with certitude. Thinking about making a major decision? Choose to face fear head on. After you’ve collected the data, ACT. Choose to decide. Toss all the life boats over the side so there is no turning back. When the last life boat is tossed over the side something amazing will happen. You’ll have a deep sense of peace. You’ll focus on moving forward. You’ll make the decision you chose turn out to be the right decision.

I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud ~ A Poem by William Wordsworth

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I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud

William Wordsworth

I WANDERED lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed–and gazed–but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

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The House of Christmas, a Poem by G. K. Chesterton

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The House of Christmas by G. K. Chesterton

There fared a mother driven forth
Out of an inn to roam;
In the place where she was homeless
All men are at home.
The crazy stable close at hand,
With shaking timber and shifting sand,
Grew a stronger thing to abide and stand
Than the square stones of Rome.

For men are homesick in their homes,
And strangers under the sun,
And they lay on their heads in a foreign land
Whenever the day is done.
Here we have battle and blazing eyes,
And chance and honour and high surprise,
But our homes are under miraculous skies
Where the yule tale was begun.

A Child in a foul stable,
Where the beasts feed and foam;
Only where He was homeless
Are you and I at home;
We have hands that fashion and heads that know,
But our hearts we lost – how long ago!
In a place no chart nor ship can show
Under the sky’s dome.

This world is wild as an old wives’ tale,
And strange the plain things are,
The earth is enough and the air is enough
For our wonder and our war;
But our rest is as far as the fire-drake swings
And our peace is put in impossible things
Where clashed and thundered unthinkable wings
Round an incredible star.

To an open house in the evening
Home shall men come,
To an older place than Eden
And a taller town than Rome.
To the end of the way of the wandering star,
To the things that cannot be and that are,
To the place where God was homeless
And all men are at home.

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