Thursday, October 20, 2016

Joyfully


 





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I apologize that my letter this month is so late. It seems like October is running away with all of us. Some of it is fun like our annual Balloon fiesta. Some is sad with the loss of the husbands of two of my long time friends. Some of it is just hard with an overabundance of the delicious apples from our orchard. I wish each of you could come get a box full.  I would like to just put them all into production for a lot of canned applesauce and canned apples. As I am awaiting surgery on my hip I can only manage drying them. One problem is that my husband and daughter can eat a whole days work in a few hours. And then there is politics!
As I have been flying through my month I have reflected back about what brings joy into my life. What brings me up after a down week. My family comes first of course. But here are some thoughts that I found.

“Those who wish to sing always find a song.”
Swedish Proverb

“Expectation has brought me disappointment. Disappointment has brought me wisdom. Acceptance, gratitude and appreciation have brought me joy and fulfillment.”
Rasheed Ogunlaru

“Joy always follows on the heels of pain. If a person escapes a mindset that current events represent an ongoing tragedy, they will encounter and comprehend all the beauty that surrounds them. We find bliss by living alertly and unequivocally accepting whatever is occurring in the present moment. If a person realizes that the present moment is all that matters, they will gain an inner stillness and appreciate the beauty and joy of each day.”
Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls

 “Joy cannot be confused with the mere absence sorrow, misinterpreted as experiencing minimal despair, or misunderstood as living without crippling trepidation. Bliss necessarily encompasses uncompromising acceptance of life’s defining permutations. Emotional harmony necessitates beholding the pleasant and unpleasant exigencies of life while expressing unstinting appreciation for the ordinary and the extraordinary events in our lives. Joyfulness transcends the variations in physical and emotional demands exerted upon us. Elation for life allows us to rise above environmental determinates and associated stresses that might otherwise vex our souls including death and other sorrowful events.”
Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls

“Our most intense joy comes not from personal feats, but from helping other persons achieve their goals. We become suppler human beings when we find true joy in witnessing other people’s successes and unabashedly share in their joyful accomplishments.”
Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls
 “There is much more joy in being a survivor than been a quitter.”
Omoakhuana Anthonia

“A storm-filled life replete with piercing and unearthly sounds ravages the soul of any thoughtful person. In contrast, the genteel wind of restoration moves silently, invisibly. Renewal is a spiritual process, the communal melody that sustains us. Inexpressible braids of tenderness whispering reciprocating chords of love for family, friends, humankind, and nature plaits interweaved layers of blissful atmosphere, which copious heart song brings spiritual rejuvenation. For when we love in a charitable and bountiful manner without reservation, liberated from petty jealously, and free of the toxic blot of discrimination, we become the ineluctable wind that vivifies the lives of other people. The mellifluous changes in heaven, earth, and our journey through the travails of time, while worshiping the trove of fathomless joys of life, constitute the seeds of universal poetry.”
Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls

2 Nephi 25 Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy.