Filed under: God, love, music, nature, politics, spirituality, weather | Tags: America, Beauty, Thought
We sang this song in Church Sunday to celebrate Memorial Day. Is America still beautiful? How is it beautiful? What do you think?
O beautiful for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!
Filed under: God, friendship, love, mind, music, politics, spirituality | Tags: afterlife, God, spirituality
The noted 16th century biblical scholar, Matthew Henry (author of the “Exposition of the Old and New Testaments”), wrote ‘It ought to be the business of every day to prepare for your final day.” According to Henry, our life on earth is a passage between birth and the eternal after life. How we live on earth determines our eternal after life with God. So Henry contends we should live each day as as if preparing to descend into Heaven.
What a wonderful thought. If we each lived our lives that way, would the world have less violence, less strife, less prejudice . . . more love, more peace, more calmness?
Is Henry’s view different from the old saying “Today is the first day of the rest of your life.” I think so. That way of living suggests you should live as if you have a lot of time on earth . . .have fun, worry about your eternal life later. In Henry’s view your time here on earth, in your earthly body, is nothing more than a blink of the eye of your total existence. And your time on earth should be devoted to preparation for your eternal life. How do you live your days – as the last day or the first day?
Filed under: Friends, God, animals, books, cats, friendship, hello, mind, music, politics, spirituality | Tags: books, God, life, spirituality
I started reading Rick Warren’s bestseller “The Purpose Driven Life”. This is the second time for my reading this book; I had read it previously in 2005. The point of the book is you must have a to drive your life. Drive is defined as “to guide, to control, or to direct.” According to the author life without purpose is meaningless. And life driven by something other than purpose (i.e., guilt, resentment, anger, fear, materialism, need for approval) is a life in motion without meaning, activity without direction, and events without reason. Trivial, petty and pointless — life without purpose. I’m only to Chapter 3 of the book. (You read a chapter a day over a 40 day period. Do you know the significance of 40? A topic for another “Thought”.) But I am already thinking about my purpose. Given that I only read the book and became a subscriber to it’s philosophy a short three years ago, why do I need to think about my purpose? Why do I want/need to read the book again? Do I need to discover my purpose again? Renew it? Change it? Maybe I do; maybe I don’t. We’ll see as I progress over the next 37 chapters and days. Regardless, I do believe that purpose provides a purpose. Huh? That is clear to me. Does purpose drive you? Does purpose direct you? What do you think? More later from me as I progress through “The Purpose Driven Life.”
Filed under: God, mind, music, spirituality | Tags: Faith, God, Religion, spirituality
“Many people go to their graves with their music still in them.” –
Oliver Wendall Holmes
This quote from the great Supreme Court jurist Oliver Wendall Holmes has been the subject of many discussions both written and spoken. (It is a favorite of many school commencement speakers over the years.) At its heart, it has caused much debate. What did Justice Holmes mean? Was it a positive or negative statement about mankind?
It could be interpreted negatively. Did Justice Holmes mean that many people don’t find their true calling in life and thus go to their graves unfulfilled?
If so, how sad. Pray with me to God: don’t let that happen to me!
Though I think Justice Holmes statement is a positive view.
First, Justice Holmes didn’t literally mean music. I think he meant by “music”, a gift, a calling, an achievement, a mission, a passion that drives us throughout our lives from birth until death. We all have this internal music and it plays out of in many different ways. We find our passions (I say passions because we can have more than one and it can change throughout our life), and then we work each and every day to achieve, to deliver, to succeed.
I have faith in myself and in mankind! Some days are better than others, but then we are just humans.
And at the end, we still will have our music in us. To lose it, is death. So we must and do keep it out entire lives. We never want to be without it. That drive, that passion, that calling is always with us. We can always do a little more despite our age, our aliments, our problems.
So as far as I am concerned, Justice Holmes was making a very positive statement. The drive never ends regardless of when you go to your grave, old or young or somewhere in-between. We want to keep that passion throughout our lives. We never want to give up! Only those who leave in despair might go to their graves with their music gone.
I don’t want my internal music to ever go out. Let the flame burn in me forever. God, please keep life filled with internal music until I descend to be withyou.
What do you think? Do you agree?
from Walking With the Savior:
. . . Do what is right this week, whatever it is, whatever comes down the path, whatever problems and dilemmas you face — just do what’s right. Maybe no one else is doing what’s right, but you do what’s right. You be honest. You take a stand. You be true. . . .
Right on. I try to live my life by this though it is hard and I admit I doesn’t always live up to this expectation–Do the right thing. With our declining morals, ethics and values, this standard is hard to live up to. But we must! We should and must demand this as an absolute from our children, our family, our friends, our leaders, etc.. Otherwise we are on path of destruction. Or maybe we are on that path. . . just look at our three presidential candidates. Look at the performers, musicians, actors we idolize. Look at our press and what they publicize as important. Look at our music, our movies. I hope it is not too late.
What do you think?
from the Applause of Heaven:
Antonio Stradivari was a seventeenth-century violin maker whose name in its Latin form, Stradivarius, has become synonymous with excellence. He once said that to make a violin less than his best would be to rob God, who could not make Antonio Stradivari’s violins without Antonio.
He was right. God could not make Stradivarius violins without Antonio Stradivari. Certain gifts were given to that craftsman that no other violin maker possessed.
In the same vein, there are certain things you can do that no one else can. Perhaps it is parenting, or constructing houses, or encouraging the discouraged. There are things that only you can do, and you are alive to do them. In the great orchestra we call life, you have an instrument and a song, and you owe to God (and to yourself) to play them both sublimely.
Huh? What do you think? My thoughts soon!
Have you ever heard of musicophilia? It is the study of the science and history of music. I stopped at Starbucks yesterday for a latte. The cup had a quote from Oliver Sacks. It was: “Music can lift us out of depression or move us to tears — it is a remedy, a tonic, orange juice for the ear. But for many of my neurological patients, music is even more — it can provide access, even when no mediation can, to movements, to speech, to life. For them, music is not a luxury, but a necessity.” Oliver Sacks is a psychologist and author of many books including “Awakenings” (was made into a movie with Robin Williams); and “Musicophilia — Tales of Music and the Brian”. Has anyone read Musicophilia? I want to buy and read it. You know how I agree with his quote; see What’s on Your Mind Day 5. Maybe my friend is a musicophiliaist and doesn’t know it. Music can bring so much interpeace and joy. We need to take advantage of the gifts God had given us. Today music gets a rap for the violence and images some think it causes. I don’t what to debate that today…but only what us all to look at our inter-self consciousness and utilize music for interpeace. We need that in the world of turmoil we live in. What do you think — Day 9. P.S. — Starbucks had great, educational, inspirational and informative quotes on their cups. Don’t miss them.
I was thinking yesterday how much my iPod has changed the variety of music we listen too. My kids got me an iPod for Christmas in 2006. To day I have loaded in 4700 songs. And number of genres is far more than I have on CD’s and records. I now listen to types of music than I never knew even existed before like Zydeco/Cajun. My iPod has certainly expanded my taste of music. The same can be said for my kids. They are in their early 20’s and listen to such a variety on music. Our iPods and our music are regular topics of discussion. The iPod had expanded our music horizons and brought us closer together as a family–What do you think? Tomorrow the soothing impact of music.
