A Passionate Plea

Life can be hard. Not only that, but we can often imagine it is as horrible as it can get. We also imagine that it will never get any better. Unfortunately, what we imagine often isn't always exactly what happens. But for our own sake, we should imagine that life can always get better, that there is always a brighter day coming tomorrow, and that we will continue to become wonderful people, a wonderful human race, and a wonderful planet. In the end though, we often despair of a strange loneliness we can not fully understand. I believe this loneliness is a longing to rejoin the rest of the universe and the full consciousness of all life around us. Here's the basic idea:
We are never alone. Never. We should never feel alone.
Every quark, every photon of light, every atom, molecule, and inanimate object is full of consciousness. However minute, however different it is from ours, life is energy and consciousness and everything is made of energy and consciousness. Therefore everything is full of life! What often escapes us, and perhaps what we have as a race of people forgotten, is how to interact with all this life around us. Not only is there the life within what we see, like cars, computers, desks, trees and etcetra, but also in what we don't see. There are countless realms of consciousness and energy that can all overlap invisible, and all of it is open to us, if we are open to it. The question is how to open up to all of these realms, how to communicate with the consciousness and energy that flows through our 'inanimate' objects and through the ones that are 'animate' but whose languages we don't understand at all.
Here's my passionate plea. To every broken and battered soul and heart, don't give up. Don't stop living, every time you consider it, remind yourself that you are surrounded by invisible help. Here's the next part. Start learning. Search the world for every piece of the puzzle you can find. Learn to communicate with this invisible help. Learn to listen and talk to anything you can, learn to see anything you can, feel and smell anything there is to feel and smell. It will be worth it. Last but not least, reach out to others for help. If you want, send me a letter, or a small postcard, here's my p.o. box:
StatisticBox 71Laurel Hill, FL 32567
It may take a while for me to reply, especially if I get swamped with letters... but part of the reason I give you a p. o. box is because I promise to write you back, and there's something for you to wait for that much longer. By the time I reply, you may find far more help than I could offer with a few more friendly words...
Don't give up. Send a letter, read a book, search all of heaven and earth for ways to contact those who can help you both seen and unseen, and those you can help, they are out there, and they need you too.

Darkest night, Brightest Day

I'm considering shorter blogs on eternal hope. But I might get chatty. Every little step I take lately seems to be filled with thousands of little things. Most of them seem designed to test me. Make me mad, angry, resentful for having to go through this swampy time of life. Many seem designed to push my nerve, to see just how determined I am to keep going, to gain and lose everything time and again for the sake of learning something valuable in the end. I admit, there are times when I just want to lay in bed all day, and wish for the house to explode. I am working on building a hedge of protection around me, a shimmering glow of magical energy that will turn all things to golden hope when I look at them, when I persevere through whatever life hurls at me. So I come to this thought today.

The darkest night will test us more than any other night, but will often be followed by the brightest day we have yet lived.

I'm not going to say that this is always the case, but indeed, when you are left in utter darkness long enough, even the ordinary light seems brilliant. Which in the end, means that maybe our darkest nights are not always the darkest night that anyone will have to go through, just the darkest night we know of, or dare imagine. Our perspective counts for a lot. I've picked up a neat book, Norman Vincent Peale's Treasury of Joy and Enthusiasm. It's full of quotes and comments on joy, and enthusiasm, and how much living a life full of joy and enthusiasm helps those around you live lives of joy and enthusiasm. Even at the worst time in my life, I don't just pretend to put on a fake smile, I try to smile like the people I smile toward are worth smiling about. It may not make a difference to them, but I think it helps pull me out of my bad moods.

I've learned that life is probably going to be full of challenges, and countless moments of unspeakable troubles. But it allows us to show that we are children of God. Capable of using all the energy we can draw to ourselves to overcome any obstacle, any problem. Capable of changing our minds, then changing the world around us forever. Maybe the darkest night will be the one when you learn to shine, and the next day will dawn to find you rising triumphantly over the horizon casting light and hope to all who look in your direction, and blinding them with the brilliance of your soul.

Every Penny Counts

You are probably aware that one dollar is a hundred pennies. Ever imagined how many pennies that actually is? Or seen it? Now imagine ten dollars. That would be a thousand pennies. Whoa. But wait, a hundred dollars is ten thousand pennies. Where would you store ten thousand pennies? I think that would be enough to fill a small closet or something. A thousand dollars though, is a million pennies. A million pennies. Imagine, if you saved a penny every second, you would have sixty every minute, every hour you would save three thousand and six hundred pennies. By the end of one day, you would have saved 86,400 pennies. That is eight hundred and sixty four dollars you saved in one day. In 365 days, a.k.a. one year, you would have saved 315, 360 dollars. In just three years you have 946, 080 dollars in the bank, and should be able to live off a 1% interest dividend every three months. After all, that breaks down to a monthly dividend of 3,153 dollars, and sixty cents. That's twice what I ever made in the military. But what's the point of talking about saving 864 dollars each day, when most of us don't make that much in a month? Because it can be a reminder that each and every penny we drop onto the sidewalk, is another piece of your future retirement. Just think about how many pennies people let fall to the ground. "Oh it is just a penny, no real loss" they think. But if you drop a penny every second, it adds up to 864 dollars you 'dropped' in one day. Nobody would drop that many pennies in one day, I hope, it would be hard to have that many in your pocket to begin with, but the point is the same. You don't have to toss your change to the ground hoping it'll be found by those who need it. You can save it up until you can give it away in such large amounts that it changes lives overnight. Sometimes change is good, especially if provided in large amounts. Sometimes it is good for change to slowly build up until it is no longer needed and can slowly be used up. By the way, I'm not just talking about pennies or quarters when I mention change. Changes in our lives is a lot like the change in our pockets. We can use a few cents a day to change a life slowly, or save it up and pay for a book that will change someone's life overnight. There are so many ways to help others, whether with small change from our pockets, or just a change in our hearts. People can be compared to pennies. One person can change someone else's life, but may not be able to change the world instantly. Instead sometimes change will happen one person after another, like small donations over months that add up until the organization you donate to has enough to keep saving lives for another twelve months. Sometimes whole communities, whole nations will change drastically, within weeks or months, so suddenly the rest of the planet is shaken and has to adjust, or change, over years afterwards. Like a big donation that pays for hundreds of books sent into a foreign country to inspire hope and goodwill in people lost in despair and loneliness.

In the end, save your pennies, or give them to someone else who you know can use them to help others, or send them to me! But don't forget to accept the way your life can change for the better, and the ways you can change lives all around you. Even the smallest stone knocked loose can start an avalanche.