It Will Get Better. I Promise

 

Hello,

It has been a very weird nine months hasn’t it. Most likely you haven’t been quite as stuck in the house as I have. It has given a lot of us a chance to reboot and look at, re-evaluate our lives.

Are we content? Do we want to change things in our lives, or the lives of others? Are we at peace as we stretch into the Holiday season? Have we taken the time to enjoy new habits, improve those old talents? Learn new ones? Or have we watched anger swirl into our souls?

Here are some things to think about on the cold dark days of winter. Happy Thanksgiving and Peace to all.

Inner Peace Quotes:

• “Do not let the behavior of others destroy your inner peace.” —Dalai Lama
• “Nobody can bring you peace but yourself.” —Ralph Waldo Emerson
• “If you are depressed you are living in the past if you are anxious you are living in the future, if you are at peace, you are living in the present.” —Lao Tzu
• "Peace can become a lens through which you see the world. Be it. Live it. Radiate it out. Peace is an inside job." —Wayne Dyer

Calming Peace Quotes:

•  “Every breath we take, every step we make, can be filled with peace, joy and serenity.” —Thich Nhat Hanh
•  “Sometimes you can find peace of mind by transferring yourself to different situations. They're just reminders to stay ... calm.” —Yves Behar
• “Peace begins with a smile.” —Mother Teresa

Inspirational Peace Quotes:

•  “You will find peace not by trying to escape your problems, but by confronting them courageously. You will find peace not in denial, but in victory.” —J. Donald Walters
•  “No person, no place, and no thing has any power over us, for 'we' are the only thinkers in our mind. When we create peace and harmony and balance in our minds, we will find it in our lives.” —Louise L. Hay
• "Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding." —Albert Einstein

World Peace Quotes:

• “When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace.” —Jimi Hendrix
• “Peace comes from being able to contribute the best that we have, and all that we are, toward creating a world that supports everyone. But it is also securing the space for others to contribute the best that they have and all that they are.” —Hafsat Abiola
•  “Not one of us can rest, be happy, be at home, be at peace with ourselves, until we end hatred and division.” —John Lewis
• "When you make peace with yourself, you make peace with the world." —Maha Ghosananda
• “Do your little bit of good where you are; it’s those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world.” —Desmond Tutu
•  
• Stay healthy and happy.

Peace Like a River

 

The year is ending, Let it go 

2020’s been full of woe

What has been done with this year

I don’t know,

I don’t remember.

A train wreck going at warp speed through months of fear and trepidation.

I don’t remember anything from January to March because I’ m feeling old.

Nor do I remember anything from March till October for it was filled with fear and angst.

November, standing on my threshold, barefooted and with trembling lip, wonders….will it be worth it?

Does this sound familiar? Does your life feel like your life has been turned upside down. I guess we could just turn off our    media and stop reading newspapers. I think I have turned into a news junkie. I have discovered CNN

First thing in the morning, even before breakfast I have the computer on to see what has happened over night. But oh how I miss the olden days when I could lie in the grass , listen to the birds, and watch the clouds float by. I had no cares in the world, well, except getting my homework done. Why can’t everyone just behave like I want them too?

But, Oh, the responsibility!

I need to turn over responsibility, act with faith, and as Michael McLean wrote in his song, “Which Part is Mine,”

      Which part is mine? And God, which part is yours?
Could you tell me one more time, cause I'm never quite sure
And I won't cross the line like I have before.
But it gets so confusing sometimes.
Should I do more or trust the divine.
Could you please tell me which part is mine and which part is yours?

Trusting in God is my goal that I might find Peace.

   Peace
Peace, flowing
Like a river through the canyons
Of my existence
Reaches up
Catches my attention—

Willing me to flee
Tension.
Fear.
Pain.
Bringing me
Home
To God
Again.

Welcome To My Neighborhood

At Relief Society this month we have begun a getting to know you better program. Since some of us haven’t been able to attend church for three months we are to tell the people we minister too something about ourselves, with the hope that you will tell us something back about you. The prompt today was to tell you a childhood memory. Here is one of mine.

Welcome To My Neighborhood

 

Wendy Hauer

I never really liked bears, but my Dad did.

He loved to take us to the zoo, and sure enough we always gravitated to

the bear exhibits first. His favorite was the sun bear, a tall lanky brown bear with a

yellow patch on his stomach.  At 5 feet at least it looked tall to us when we were

younger and shorter.

He has an extremely long narrow tongue for getting into bee hives and is sometimes called a honey bear.

They would stand on either side of the fence and stare at each other. Daring,

who would be the first to flinch? My dad always won.

He had a way of taking chances that made my mom mad. One day, driving

through Yellowstone Park we saw a black bear on the side of the road.  My

dad pulled up, rolled down the window and threw jellybeans across the car

roof at the bear.

“Don’t Feed the Bears!” Don’t Feed the Bears!”  My mom screamed. The bear

was on her side and she was the one who would be attacked first.  The four of us in

the back seat begged him to quit too. We were too young to be afraid of the bears,

but we wanted the jellybeans.

I guess it was natural to be carefully comfortable living around bears. We

lived in a house in the mountains on the edge of the forest. Wild life was abundant

and we learned to live in their neighborhood as they live in ours. It seems that every

year we had visits from the bears, especially during the droughts.  The apple tree

was particularly vulnerable to their munching and it was outside my bedroom

window.

Other bears loved to break into the neighbor’s hot tubs for a warm drink.

Janet, who lived up the street a few houses made two apple pies one fall and

left them on the windowsill to cool while she went to town. Her daughter Mary came

home for a visit about the same time that the bear was ready for a snack. Hearing

the noise of the bear entering the house by the window, Mary quietly got up, shut

the door and left to call the forest service bear retrieval department from a safer

distance.

Another year a neighbor came to tell me that there was a bear sighting. A high school boy was doing his homework at the table in his kitchen two houses

down the road from us. Hearing a noise, he looked up and out into the back yard.

There, on the deck was a black bear trying to get into the house through the screen

door. Coolly keeping his head, Paul closed and locked the glass door. The forest

service arrived and the bear headed quickly to one of the taller Ponderosa pine trees

at the back of the property. Taking my two-month old daughter with me we walked

down to the house to watch. We sat on the deck as the forest service men shot a

tranquilizing dart into the bear’s side. The bear turned, looked at the dart, and

calmly picked it out of his rump, dumping it to the ground. Three darts later he was

still feisty and determined to stay in his tree.
“Give him a lethal dose Joe”, the boss shouted.

One more shot and the bear tumbled to the forest floor. We had been told to head

into the house the moment he landed in case he hadn’t been knocked out yet. So, we

hustled inside, the adventure over. When he was trussed and netted, we headed back

out of the house to make sure he was still alive and would be transported to another

mountain hundreds of miles away to continue his life pillaging another

neighborhood.

My daughter doesn’t remember this adventure, but has inherited her

grandfather’s appreciation for honey and bears; at the zoo.

Brutal Editing

 

I enjoy taking other people’s words and making poems out of them. This poem was using the words of a new friend when I first moved to Virginia

BRUTAL EDITING

 (Cathy’s words)

There is too much stuff
Cluttering my life—
Angry Thoughts,
Words I’ve yelled and wish I could
Take back
Deeds I’ve left undone.
I need to do some brutal editing
And leave some room for sunshine.

Cathy was very busy with church callings, work and family. Life can get stressful. From our talks and from her words I could feel that stress, and that she was looking for ways to edit it out of her life if she could. I go back to this poem a lot when I let myself get under stress to contemplate ways to edit it out of my life. It is good to have some stress in my life to help me get things done, like deadlines. But often I let things slide more than I should, and put myself into unnecessary stress.

I tend to get angry when someone tries to bully my husband and children into doing something they don’t have the equipment or capability to do. As we get older, I tend to get more protective. Anger is another emotion I need to edit from my life.

Apathy also is a word I wish I could edit. With this “Stay at Home” encouragement we are going through right now because of our pandemic, I just don’t have the energy or desire to do anything but read or watch TV. We have enjoyed watching old movies and call it our Saturday night date, which is fun. Sometimes we even make popcorn. And I’ve read a hundred books in the last three months! Some of them are educational, some are spiritual, some are puzzles to solve (aka mysteries). But I don’t really feel that I’m accomplishing anything.

My daughter tells me to add more music to my life to bring in some sunshine. I’ve started playing my piano every day and it feels wonderful. I can only play the melody line but then I only had eight weeks of lessons when I was eight. She bought a used accordion and is having a ball.

Service—now there is a word that is a good replacement for apathy, and anger, and stress.

So, I am off to make more masks and quilts!

One of my favorite hymns is

Have I Done Any Good?

1. Have I done any good in the world today?
Have I helped anyone in need?
Have I cheered up the sad and made someone feel glad?
If not, I have failed indeed.
Has anyone's burden been lighter today
Because I was willing to share?
Have the sick and the weary been helped on their way?
When they needed my help was I there?

Text and music: Will L. Thompson, 1847-1909, alt.

What words do you need to replace in your life?