HaPpY New YEar 2007

Thank you for sharing the past with me
The future is in our hands
Let us make it into something beautiful
Let us move beyond fear

Got this in the mail this morning like I do everyday from my friend Judi titled Daily dose

If we think and act along these lines there is nothing to worry about in the future but each of us has to take responsibility for the internal world, and that will without doubt be reflected in the external world.

with oceans of joy as always
Birgitta

"Always remember that the Great Mystery is good; evil can come only from
ourselves!"

--Grandmother of Charles Eastman. SANTEE SIOUX

The Great Mystery is love, good and principle. He is a guiding Father. He
doesn't play games. He knows only how to love. Sometimes, when things go
wrong, we blame Him or others. Usually, if we are honest, we can see how
decisions or things done in the past put us in a position to be hurt. It
comes back to us. When this happens, it is not something the Creator caused,
but something we, ourselves caused. Most of our problems are of our own
making. When this happens, we should correct what we've done, ask the Great
Spirit for forgiveness and pray for guidance in the future.

My Creator, bless me with Your good.

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'THINK on THESE THINGS'
By Joyce Sequichie Hifler

Henry David Thoreau, whose cry was "Simplify! Simplify!" went to great
measures to prove to himself, and perhaps to society, that life could be
lived in the most simple manner and at the least expense. With only a few
dollars he managed to provide for himself the things of absolute necessity
for quite a long period of time.

Not many of us would care to exist on the absolute necessities. We have
become too much accustomed to easier living. Things that were once thought
of as luxuries are now considered necessities. And yet, with all of this,
life is anything but simple. We seem to have the ability to complicate the
best laid plans and find ourselves shadow boxing.

Like many of the trite old adages, "Life is what we make it," is so true. By
our own minds we accept or reject, by ignoring or by searching out the
causes of shadows and removing the cause. It is whatever we elect to do
about our individual lives that makes the difference. But we shall make
great strides when we recognize the supreme excellence in all things of
simplicity.

We don't need to worry about doing without the necessary things in life - if
we have a grateful heart. A grateful heart is not just remembering to write
a few words to someone who has done a kindness, or saying thank you
graciously and at the right moment. A grateful heart is the feeling of great
blessings which precedes that thank you note and that verbal expression.

A grateful heart is one that always knows the fullness of that rich feeling
of first being grateful without cause. And then, all other gratitude and its
expression comes naturally.

Perhaps true gratitude is a grateful though toward heaven that I should be
chosen to fill this spot, do this work, and have been given the strength to
do it.

It was Romaine, the English theologian, who said, "Gratitude to God makes
even a temporal blessing a taste of heaven." We can have so much more heaven
with a grateful heart.