Community Chat

[gloriajean]

Hi all!!! Well today our temp only reached 72 degrees, nice and cool! Got a text from Lori saying they are off the ferry, and were in the State of Washington driving curvy roads in the mountains, so I haven't heard from her since that text. They are on their way to my nephew's house in Montana and from there, here. Wishing for a phone call, much easier than texting. Know that all of you are always in my prayers.

It is laughter that helps us cope with the upsets and chaos of everyday
living. Lord, lighten my spirit so that I will not take myself so seriously

and be able to find more moments to laugh.

Scripture for the day:

"Everyone then who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be
like a wise man who built his house on rock. The rain fell, the
floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not
fall, because it had been founded on rock." ~Matthew 7:24-25

Meditation for the day:

"Everyone then who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be
like a wise man who built his house on rock. The rain fell, the
floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not
fall, because it had been founded on rock." When our lives are built
upon obedience to God and upon doing God's will as we understand it,
we can be steadfast and unmovable even in the midst of storms. The
serene, steadfast, unmovable life--the rock home--is laid stone by
stone--foundations, walls and roof--by acts of obedience to the
heavenly vision. The daily following of God's guidance and the daily
doing of God's will builds our house upon rock.

Prayer for the day:

I pray that my life may be founded upon the rock of faith. I pray
that I may be obedient to the heavenly vision.

A THOUSAND MARBLES
Author Unknown
Jun 12, 2009

The older I get, the more I enjoy Saturday mornings. Perhaps it's the
quiet solitude that comes with being the first to rise, or maybe it's
the unbounded joy of not having to be at work. Either way, the first
few hours of a Saturday morning are most enjoyable. A few weeks ago, I
was shuffling toward the kitchen with a steaming cup of coffee in one
hand and the morning paper in the other. What began as atypical
Saturday morning turned into one of those lessons that life seems to
hand you from time to time.

Let me tell you about it. I turned the volume up on my radio in order
to listen to a Saturday morning talk show. I heard an older sounding
chap with a golden voice. You know the kind, he sounded like he should
be in the broadcasting business himself. He was talking about "a
thousand marbles" to someone named "Tom". I was intrigued and sat down
to listen to what he had to say.

"Well, Tom, it sure sounds like you're busy with your job. I'm sure
they pay you well but it's a shame you have to be away from home and
your family so much. Hard to believe a young fellow should have to
work sixty or seventy hours a week to make ends meet. Too bad you
missed your daughter's dance recital." He continued, "Let me tell you
something Tom, something that has
helped me keep a good perspective on my own priorities." And that's
when he began to explain his theory of a "thousand marbles."

"You see, I sat down one day and did a little arithmetic. The average
person lives about seventy-five years. know, some live more and some
live less, but on average, folks live about seventy-five years."

"Now then, I multiplied 75 times 52 and I came up with 3900 which is
the number of Saturdays that the average person has in their entire
lifetime. Now stick with me Tom, I'm getting to the important part."
"It took me until I was fifty-five years old to think about all this
in any detail", he
went on, "and by that time I had lived through over twenty-eight
hundred Saturdays. I got to thinking that if I lived to be seventy-
five, I only had about a thousand of them left to enjoy." "So I went
to a toy store and bought every single marble they had. I ended up
having to visit three toy
stores to round-up 1000 marbles. I took them home and put them inside
of a large, clear plastic container right here in my workshop next to
the radio. Every Saturday since then, I have taken one marble out and
thrown it away." "I found that by watching the marbles diminish, I
focused more on the really important things in life. There is nothing
like watching your time here on this earth run out to help get your
priorities straight."

"Now let me tell you one last thing before I sign-off with you and
take my lovely wife out for breakfast. This morning, I took the very
last marble out of the container. I figure if I make it until next
Saturday then I have been given a little extra time. And the one thing
we can all use is a little
more time."

"It was nice to talk to you Tom, I hope you spend more time with your
loved ones, and I hope to meet you again someday. Have a good
morning!" You could have heard a pin drop when he finished. Even the
show's moderator didn't have anything to say for a few moments. I
guess he gave us all a lot to think about. I had planned to do some
work that morning, then go to the
gym. Instead, I went upstairs and woke my wife up with a kiss.

"C'mon honey, I'm taking you and the kids to breakfast." "What brought
this on?" she asked with a smile. "Oh, nothing special, it's just been
a long time since we spent a Saturday together with the kids. Hey, can
we stop at a toy store while we're out? I need to buy some marbles."

Enjoy:

While journeying on horseback one day, St. Benedict met a farmer walking
along. "You've got an easy job," said the farmer. "Why don't I become a
man of prayer? Then I, too, would be traveling on horseback."

"You think praying is easy," replied the saint. "If you can say one 'Our
Father' without any distraction, you can have this horse."

"It's a bargain," said the surprised farmer. Closing his eyes and folding
his hands, he began to say the "Our Father" aloud: "Our Father, who art in
heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come..."

Suddenly he stopped and looked up, "Shall I get the saddle and bridle, too?

Tomatoes

An unemployed man is desperate to support his family of a wife and three kids. He applies for a janitor's
job at a large firm and easily passes an aptitude test.

The human resources manager tells him, "You will be hired at minimum wage of $5.15 an hour. Let me have
your e-mail address so that we can get you in the loop. Our system will automatically e-mail you all the
forms and advise you when to start and where to report on your first day."

Taken back, the man protests that he is poor and has neither a computer nor an e-mail address. To this the
manager replies, "You must understand that to a company like ours that means that you virtually do not
exist. Without an e-mail address you can hardly expect to be employed by a high-tech firm. Good day."

Stunned, the man leaves. Not knowing where to turn and having $10 in his wallet, he walks past a farmers'
market and sees a stand selling 25-lb crates of beautiful red tomatoes. He buys a crate, carries it
to a busy corner and displays the tomatoes. In less than 2 hours he sells all the tomatoes and makes 100%
profit. Repeating the process several times more that day, he ends up with almost $100 and arrives home that
night with several bags of groceries for his family.

During the night he decides to repeat the tomato business the next day. By the end of the week he is
getting up early every day and working into the night. He multiplies his profits quickly. Early in the second
week he acquires a cart to transport several boxes of tomatoes at a time, but before a month is up he sells
the cart to buy a broken-down pickup truck.

At the end of a year he owns three old trucks. His two sons have left their neighborhood gangs to help him
with the tomato business, his wife is buying the tomatoes, and his daughter is taking night courses at
the community college so she can keep books for him.

By the end of the second year he has a dozen very nice used trucks and employs fifteen previously unemployed
people, all selling tomatoes. He continues to work hard.

Time passes and at the end of the fifth year he owns a fleet of nice trucks and a warehouse that his wife
supervises, plus two tomato farms that the boys manage. The tomato company's payroll has put hundreds
of homeless and jobless people to work. His daughter reports that the business grossed a million dollars.

Planning for the future, he decides to buy some life insurance. Consulting with an insurance adviser, he
picks an insurance plan to fit his new circumstances. Then the adviser asks him for his e-mail address in
order to send the final documents electronically.

When the man replies that he doesn't have time to mess with a computer and has no e-mail address, the
insurance man is stunned, "What, you don't have e-mail? No computer? No Internet? Just think where you
would be today if you'd had all of that five years ago!"

" Ha!" snorts the man. "If I'd had e-mail five years ago I would still be sweeping floors at Microsoft and making
$5.15 an hour."

It's Mother Teresa Time!

Mother Teresa said...

The password of the early Christians was "joy," so let us still serve the Lord with joy. Joy is love, joy is prayer, joy is strength. God loves a person who gives joyfully, and if you give joyfully you always give more. A joyful heart is the result of a heart burning with love.

Love has no meaning if it isn't shared. Love has to be put into action. You have to love without expectation, to do something for love itself, not for what you may receive. If you expect something in return, then it isn't love, because true love is loving without conditions and expectations.

Yesterday is gone and tomorrow has not yet come; we must live each day as if it were our last so that when God calls us we are ready, and prepared, to die with a clean heart.

Anyone is capable of going to Heaven. Heaven is our home. Dying is not the end, it is just the beginning. Death is a continuation of life. This is the meaning of eternal life; it is where our soul goes to God, to be in the presence of God, to see God, to speak to God, to continue loving Him with greater love. We only surrender our body in death - our heart and our soul live forever.