If you're happy and you know it clap your hands....If you're happy and you know it clap your hands.....
Just can't get this song out of my head this morning and started wondering why.
My next thought was about tasks. I have so many tasks to accomplish. I seem to be so focused on what I need to do next. The next big project at work to get the next pat on the back, the next pile of laundry that I have to do, the next day's traffic that I'll be sitting in, the next meal I have to cook, the weight I need to lose.........................................................................................................................................................
...............................................................................................................and on and on. Where is happiness in these thoughts?
Wait a minute, why am I thinking about those things? Happiness for me generally bubbles up when I live in the now and not in the next moment. I need to take the time to sink into my feelings and into the moment and to allow happiness and not block it.
What is happiness? For me it is watching the birds in my yard, it is sitting on the back porch with my husband having a beer, it is talking with my children, it is going to Mass, it is walking on the beach without shoes, it is swimming (or really floating) in the pool after an afternoon of working in the yard, it is having a party and cooking until I can't stand up anymore, it is my time in prayer when I truly listen to what the Lord is saying to me, it is ACTS retreat, it is knowing that I have such a strong network of family and friends that love and think about me, it is the hope that I can experience all these things again tomorow. It is the understanding that I can have any and all of these things in every day if I remember to.
I'm clapping my hands right now!!!!!!! If you're happy and you know it clap your hands.............
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Today
Life and death and war and peace. How do these connect in my mind? Does the order that these came into my mind have any meaning?. Is it that life is war and death is peace? I have this so in front of my thoughts today as the realization that my pastor is nearing the gates of heaven and nearing the end of his life on earth. What does it mean to live? What does it mean to die?
How many days I've felt at war with such simple things and these things feel so big to me when I let them consume me. The times I've struggled with not knowing what will come next. Like when I had the ultrasound to see if the lump in my breast was more than just another lump. Like the time when I saw the car trying to brake behind me that was going 70 miles per hour. I knew it would hit me hard, but would it ram me into the car in front of me and injure me or just hit me and cause another inconvenience. Does it matter what will come next? Won't I just deal with it as it comes? Does knowing make it any different?
Can I really change something because I know it will happen? Can I really prepare myself for something better because I know it will happen? I think of this in terms of a tragedy. Won't I just have the same reaction as I would have once it really happens? Is it that I want to feel in control of the situation? Is it the control that makes it better? I don't think so now that I think about it. Control comes with responsibility and can I accept the responsibility of controlling things as strong as the things that I don't know?
Do I want to control when people will die? Do I want to control when people will be at war? Do I want to control when people will have life and death and war and peace? The peace one seems like one I would want to control, but do I really? How is that I can control peace? Is it that I could somehow line everyone up and state that it is time for peace and it would be so? I don't think so. I would have to allow all the people that have free will to exercise that will and come to peace on their own. So I haven't really controlled anything.
So does it mean to live when I really accept life and death when it comes without trying to control it or trying to know what will happen in the next breath? Does it mean anything to worry or is it just another distraction to acceptance of what comes to me as the minutes of my life unfold?
Life and death and war and peace. All of these are parts of my time on earth. Life can be both war and peace and death can be both war and peace. I can worry through these moments or live and pray through these moments. I must live my life using the free will God granted me with the best intentions, and accept life and death and war and peace, but can't really control any of these things.
P.S. My family loves Fr. Hubert Kealy.
Talk to you again soon,
Eileen
How many days I've felt at war with such simple things and these things feel so big to me when I let them consume me. The times I've struggled with not knowing what will come next. Like when I had the ultrasound to see if the lump in my breast was more than just another lump. Like the time when I saw the car trying to brake behind me that was going 70 miles per hour. I knew it would hit me hard, but would it ram me into the car in front of me and injure me or just hit me and cause another inconvenience. Does it matter what will come next? Won't I just deal with it as it comes? Does knowing make it any different?
Can I really change something because I know it will happen? Can I really prepare myself for something better because I know it will happen? I think of this in terms of a tragedy. Won't I just have the same reaction as I would have once it really happens? Is it that I want to feel in control of the situation? Is it the control that makes it better? I don't think so now that I think about it. Control comes with responsibility and can I accept the responsibility of controlling things as strong as the things that I don't know?
Do I want to control when people will die? Do I want to control when people will be at war? Do I want to control when people will have life and death and war and peace? The peace one seems like one I would want to control, but do I really? How is that I can control peace? Is it that I could somehow line everyone up and state that it is time for peace and it would be so? I don't think so. I would have to allow all the people that have free will to exercise that will and come to peace on their own. So I haven't really controlled anything.
So does it mean to live when I really accept life and death when it comes without trying to control it or trying to know what will happen in the next breath? Does it mean anything to worry or is it just another distraction to acceptance of what comes to me as the minutes of my life unfold?
Life and death and war and peace. All of these are parts of my time on earth. Life can be both war and peace and death can be both war and peace. I can worry through these moments or live and pray through these moments. I must live my life using the free will God granted me with the best intentions, and accept life and death and war and peace, but can't really control any of these things.
P.S. My family loves Fr. Hubert Kealy.
Talk to you again soon,
Eileen
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Liquid Love
The movement of water always intrigues me to want to be in it or to watch it flow past me. I always feel the coolness of the water in my mind as I watch it move by me. I am intrigued to always be near it. I want to drink it when I am thirsty. I want to be in it when I am hot. I want to pour it onto my plants to bring them back to life. I want to use it to cook a meal. I want to share it with someone else to make them feel comfortable. I want to run my finger through it when I walk past a stream. I want to skip a rock it in when I stand on the bank of a body of water. I always seem to want to interact with it when possible.
What makes me want to be so attached to the water? Is it the color or the lack of color? Is it the feel of it? Is it the comfort of it? It does feel so comfortable in so many ways. It feels so fresh to bath in it. It feels so nice to wash my hands in the warmth of it, and nothing feels better when I am thirsty than to drink a big glass of water. I don't even need it to be cool to be refreshed by it. I can drink it in hot tea on the warmest days and be comforted by it. I can let it wash up on my feet on the beach and be drawn into it and continue to walk in it for hours.
I can see through it and I can see myself in it. I can be in it, around it, near it or seeing a picture of it and I am always moved by it. It captures my thoughts even when I think of it without seeing it. I think of the days of summer when I can be close to it on the beach or in my swimming pool even as it freezes outside. I can be captured by its power when it comes down as hail. I can be stopped in my tracks when I see it blanketing the ground after a snow fall.
I can also be afraid of it during a hurricane, but I know it is not the water that brings the fear but the power of the storm that makes it fierce. The water is the center of the calm. It is what draws me in and what connects me to others. It is the waterway of life that allows me to move from season to season to grow and to know what it is that I am to do with the moments of my life. It draws me to prayers of thanksgiving. It quenches my thirst. It warms me and cools me. It makes me feel. Isn't that what love is? The chance to feel? The chance to sink into my thoughts and to share them as I move through the water before me and around me and in me? Isn't it the acceptance of the color or lack of color or life? Isn't that sharing of thoughts and moments and movements as reflected in my relationship with water the source of love? I need love, I need to be around it and in it. I need to be cooled by it and warmed by it. I need to feel it and see it. I need to be frozen by it and captured by its power. I need to be blanketed by it, and I need to let the love take the bumps of a rock skip and acknowledge the calm before and after the skip.
Talk to you again soon,
Eileen
What makes me want to be so attached to the water? Is it the color or the lack of color? Is it the feel of it? Is it the comfort of it? It does feel so comfortable in so many ways. It feels so fresh to bath in it. It feels so nice to wash my hands in the warmth of it, and nothing feels better when I am thirsty than to drink a big glass of water. I don't even need it to be cool to be refreshed by it. I can drink it in hot tea on the warmest days and be comforted by it. I can let it wash up on my feet on the beach and be drawn into it and continue to walk in it for hours.
I can see through it and I can see myself in it. I can be in it, around it, near it or seeing a picture of it and I am always moved by it. It captures my thoughts even when I think of it without seeing it. I think of the days of summer when I can be close to it on the beach or in my swimming pool even as it freezes outside. I can be captured by its power when it comes down as hail. I can be stopped in my tracks when I see it blanketing the ground after a snow fall.
I can also be afraid of it during a hurricane, but I know it is not the water that brings the fear but the power of the storm that makes it fierce. The water is the center of the calm. It is what draws me in and what connects me to others. It is the waterway of life that allows me to move from season to season to grow and to know what it is that I am to do with the moments of my life. It draws me to prayers of thanksgiving. It quenches my thirst. It warms me and cools me. It makes me feel. Isn't that what love is? The chance to feel? The chance to sink into my thoughts and to share them as I move through the water before me and around me and in me? Isn't it the acceptance of the color or lack of color or life? Isn't that sharing of thoughts and moments and movements as reflected in my relationship with water the source of love? I need love, I need to be around it and in it. I need to be cooled by it and warmed by it. I need to feel it and see it. I need to be frozen by it and captured by its power. I need to be blanketed by it, and I need to let the love take the bumps of a rock skip and acknowledge the calm before and after the skip.
Talk to you again soon,
Eileen
Thursday, February 4, 2010
The Morning
Oh how I love the morning. All is new again. The dew is on the ground refreshing the stress of the day before. The birds are singing and capture the happiness of the moment in the cords of their voice. The various sounds draw me in every day. I so want to listen to every detail of every note that comes from the new beginning of the morning.
The bird’s voice draws me in most especially. The tone and the tune are always perfect. Each chirp is filled with perfection and filled the perfect note. I listen to the note and consider what the note means. Is it a message to me or a message to God or probably both? I need to hear the tune and the bird needs to send the tune to God. Both are important and one without the other is lacking something. God wants me to fill my heart with the sounds of the earth so that I may fall more deeply in love with Him, but he never wants me to think His love is defined by the earth.
It is greater than and complete without the earth, but definitely shines through the gifts of the earth. Through the food that is cultivated on the earth and the animals that live off of the earth. I think of the lamb’s ear and its softness in the animal and in the plant. God shows me the connection to softness in many forms and guides me to understand that I too can be who I am in different forms. I can always bring myself to the world in softness and also accept the world in softness. I can bring fruit to the world in the plant of my life and bring blood to the world in the animal in my life.
Isn’t that what I need to learn that there are so many differences in me that are reflected in the world and so many commonalities in my life that are reflected in nature? Doesn’t it unveil itself to the world in the healing power of the morning and in the closure of the evening? Both morning and evening aren’t complete without the other just as nature and man aren’t complete without the other with God’s love for us laying a blanket over both like dew in the morning.
Talk to you again soon,
Eileen
The bird’s voice draws me in most especially. The tone and the tune are always perfect. Each chirp is filled with perfection and filled the perfect note. I listen to the note and consider what the note means. Is it a message to me or a message to God or probably both? I need to hear the tune and the bird needs to send the tune to God. Both are important and one without the other is lacking something. God wants me to fill my heart with the sounds of the earth so that I may fall more deeply in love with Him, but he never wants me to think His love is defined by the earth.
It is greater than and complete without the earth, but definitely shines through the gifts of the earth. Through the food that is cultivated on the earth and the animals that live off of the earth. I think of the lamb’s ear and its softness in the animal and in the plant. God shows me the connection to softness in many forms and guides me to understand that I too can be who I am in different forms. I can always bring myself to the world in softness and also accept the world in softness. I can bring fruit to the world in the plant of my life and bring blood to the world in the animal in my life.
Isn’t that what I need to learn that there are so many differences in me that are reflected in the world and so many commonalities in my life that are reflected in nature? Doesn’t it unveil itself to the world in the healing power of the morning and in the closure of the evening? Both morning and evening aren’t complete without the other just as nature and man aren’t complete without the other with God’s love for us laying a blanket over both like dew in the morning.
Talk to you again soon,
Eileen
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Numbers
What is a number? What does it mean? Does it matter that I have numbers in my life or can I live without numbers? Does it matter that I have a dozen eggs, or 5 minutes of peace, or $10, or that I work 8 (or maybe 10) hours per day? Sometimes I think that numbers seem to determine the choices I make.
I make decisions about when I need to buy gasoline when I have less than 5 gallons. That seems like a good choice. I wouldn’t want to run out when I’m running errands or driving to work. I always fill up, because I don’t want to have to fill up again before I absolutely have to. Do I really need a full tank? Can I live with less than 5 gallons of gas in my tank? Probably!
So many people in the world live without any gasoline at all. Maybe I should just slow down and stay home today and not worry about filling my tank again today. Maybe God wants me to stop and spend some time with Him and refill my spiritual tank rather than filling my car tank.
Maybe the number zero is what I am supposed to focus on instead of 5, 10, 12 or 50. Maybe I need to empty myself of the numbers in my life and spend that time filling my mind and my heart instead of my bank account or my gas tank.
Shouldn’t I be counting the time I had in the day to say hello to my neighbor instead of counting the minutes I’m spending on the freeway on my way to some task I “need” to complete, or how old I am? Maybe I should be reflecting on the time I spend with and caring for my family and the time I spend reading scripture or the time I spend just enjoying a sunrise or an apple. It doesn’t matter what. I just need to remember to enjoy it rather than counting how long it takes to complete it and what time it will be when I’m finished.
Choices are valuable and there are a great number of them to make in life, and pray that I make the right number of choices today and everyday and that these choices bring me closer to bringing light into the world rather than feeling that I need to accomplish so much. If I do that I can accomplish so much more. Probably more things than I can count.
Talk to you again soon,
Eileen
I make decisions about when I need to buy gasoline when I have less than 5 gallons. That seems like a good choice. I wouldn’t want to run out when I’m running errands or driving to work. I always fill up, because I don’t want to have to fill up again before I absolutely have to. Do I really need a full tank? Can I live with less than 5 gallons of gas in my tank? Probably!
So many people in the world live without any gasoline at all. Maybe I should just slow down and stay home today and not worry about filling my tank again today. Maybe God wants me to stop and spend some time with Him and refill my spiritual tank rather than filling my car tank.
Maybe the number zero is what I am supposed to focus on instead of 5, 10, 12 or 50. Maybe I need to empty myself of the numbers in my life and spend that time filling my mind and my heart instead of my bank account or my gas tank.
Shouldn’t I be counting the time I had in the day to say hello to my neighbor instead of counting the minutes I’m spending on the freeway on my way to some task I “need” to complete, or how old I am? Maybe I should be reflecting on the time I spend with and caring for my family and the time I spend reading scripture or the time I spend just enjoying a sunrise or an apple. It doesn’t matter what. I just need to remember to enjoy it rather than counting how long it takes to complete it and what time it will be when I’m finished.
Choices are valuable and there are a great number of them to make in life, and pray that I make the right number of choices today and everyday and that these choices bring me closer to bringing light into the world rather than feeling that I need to accomplish so much. If I do that I can accomplish so much more. Probably more things than I can count.
Talk to you again soon,
Eileen
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
The List
So many people I meet have a list. I also have many lists. Lists of things I want to accomplish, a list of groceries that need to be picked up at the store, a list of items that need to be disposed of in life and the list goes on and on. I have a list, but it’s not a very long one, and I never know what is on it until the day ends.
What did my lists include today? I had to wake up this morning and conduct a conference all with someone in another part of the world, India. I had to look at a list to help someone find a doctor on their health plan. I had to make a list of all the things that I needed to do today at home and at work. I had to make a list of things that need to be done for upcoming events. I had to make a list in my head of what to cook for dinner. I also forgot to add something to my list, and writing this blog helped me remember. Thank God. It is amazing how the list goes on and on about what I need to list out to take care of my day.
The interesting thing is that the list at the beginning of each day only includes one thing, to live my life every day as a gift that won’t be repeated tomorrow. It doesn’t matter what things end up on my list only that I lived the day.
Talk to you again soon,
Eileen
What did my lists include today? I had to wake up this morning and conduct a conference all with someone in another part of the world, India. I had to look at a list to help someone find a doctor on their health plan. I had to make a list of all the things that I needed to do today at home and at work. I had to make a list of things that need to be done for upcoming events. I had to make a list in my head of what to cook for dinner. I also forgot to add something to my list, and writing this blog helped me remember. Thank God. It is amazing how the list goes on and on about what I need to list out to take care of my day.
The interesting thing is that the list at the beginning of each day only includes one thing, to live my life every day as a gift that won’t be repeated tomorrow. It doesn’t matter what things end up on my list only that I lived the day.
Talk to you again soon,
Eileen
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Today
I lived today and it felt so good. It always feels good to live my life. So many times I think I let the day go by without truly allowing myself to live it. I so many times am worried about what I am doing instead of just allowing myself to go through the minutes instead stalling and allowing that stall to stop me from being who I am supposed to be today.
What holds me back from living the day as I should? It seems it is the desire to control life instead of allowing it to just happen. I sometimes worry about things that might happen, but that never really happen. I try to interject my thoughts into the minute instead of letting the minute interject itself into me.
I so many times want to know the next minute instead of savoring the things that I never anticipated that have been so wonderful. So many times I never expect what is coming, and trying to control it would cause me to miss what has defined my life in such a positive way. It has defined my life in a way that I could have never imagined or anticipated.
What is it that makes me not want to allow the minutes to unfold as the minutes should? Isn’t it when control is absorbing me, that I don’t allow the real things in life to surprise me? I miss so many things when I don’t let the free will of life unfold.
The good things in life only happen when I allow myself to see the truth and gifts of other people’s lives to enter into mine. I so experience the best of life when the thoughts of yours enter into the thoughts of mine, when the moments of yours enter into the moments of mine, when the touch of your hand touches mine. I so need the interaction of people to have a good day, but so many times I try to control the actions of others through the actions I allow others to see and experience of me. Shouldn’t I really just allow myself to stop controlling and going through moments instead of around moments and enjoy the stops along the way?
Shouldn’t I allow myself to live the life that has been given to me today? I did today and it felt really good.
Talk to you again soon,
Eileen
What holds me back from living the day as I should? It seems it is the desire to control life instead of allowing it to just happen. I sometimes worry about things that might happen, but that never really happen. I try to interject my thoughts into the minute instead of letting the minute interject itself into me.
I so many times want to know the next minute instead of savoring the things that I never anticipated that have been so wonderful. So many times I never expect what is coming, and trying to control it would cause me to miss what has defined my life in such a positive way. It has defined my life in a way that I could have never imagined or anticipated.
What is it that makes me not want to allow the minutes to unfold as the minutes should? Isn’t it when control is absorbing me, that I don’t allow the real things in life to surprise me? I miss so many things when I don’t let the free will of life unfold.
The good things in life only happen when I allow myself to see the truth and gifts of other people’s lives to enter into mine. I so experience the best of life when the thoughts of yours enter into the thoughts of mine, when the moments of yours enter into the moments of mine, when the touch of your hand touches mine. I so need the interaction of people to have a good day, but so many times I try to control the actions of others through the actions I allow others to see and experience of me. Shouldn’t I really just allow myself to stop controlling and going through moments instead of around moments and enjoy the stops along the way?
Shouldn’t I allow myself to live the life that has been given to me today? I did today and it felt really good.
Talk to you again soon,
Eileen
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