Back to my "thinking!" - When I can't get my mind to settle throughout the day I go to my bookshelf and pick out some of my favorite books, then I just flip through them to see what I had marked at different times of my life. This morning I just couldn't focus on any thought worth encouraging all of you with. I grabbed three different books & now don't know how to limit what I write!!! One incredible book that I pulled down is Helen and Teacher: The Story of Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan Macy. This is an incredible book full of letters and thoughts of these two inspirational women. One letter to Helen is from her mentor in Boston (Anagnos). He encourages her with the following:

October 12, 2006 Newsletter
Helen Keller
"Dear Annie, I am aware of the many difficulties of your position and of the thorns which are scattered in your pathway: but take as little notice of them as possible.
Remember always the following words of Horace, -- Tu ne cede malis, sed contra audiator ito, which may be interpreted in your case --
"Yield not to trials, but on the contrary, meet them with fortitude.' Do not allow yourself to be troubled by petty annoyances, or to remember them and
harbor ill feelings even temporarily against anyone, however ignorant or indiscreet he or she may be. Look steadily at the polar star of your work,and I have not the slightest doubt but that you will weather all storms and reach the port of success.
Perseverance, patience, tact, and charity will help you conquer the most formidable difficulties. Then the crown will be yours as the prize of victory.
Your strenuous efforts have been so far richly rewarded, and you have good reasons to be proud of your achievements."



* The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch
June 12, 2008 Newsletter
On speaking on his terminal cancer: I let the audience follow the arrows and count my tumors. All right...that is what it is. We can't change it. We just have to decide how we'll respond. We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand.

On knowing you're dealing with hopeless situations: Even if the scan results are bad tomorrow (dialogue with his wife), I just want you to know that it feels great to be alive, and to be here today, alive with you. Whatever news we get about the scans, I'm not going to die when we hear it. I won't die the next day, or the day after that, or the day after that. So today, right now, well this is a wonderful day. And I want you to know how much I'm enjoying it." That's the way the rest of my life would need to be lived. (and how he encouraged his wife to live after he died). I'm not living in denial of my situation ("his situation" being death - each of you have your own "situation" that is out of your control...) I am maintaining my clear-eyed sense of the inevitable. I'm living like I'm dying. But at the same time, I'm very much living like I'm still living.



* Mistaken Identity by Don & Susie VanRyn and Colleen, Whitney, Newell Cerak
June 12, 2008 Newsletter
Susie VanRyn, on the day that she found out the her daughter was not the one she had been nursing in the hospital, but had already been buried, wrote in her journal...
I do not know what to say!
God, you are my refuge - please protect me.
You are my strength - I am entirely weak.
You will give me peace and comfort - please see me through the days ahead.

On a day when she could barely cope with her grief. Getting out of bed had been enough of an accomplishment. She had to go through the motions of the day...face the day. She looked down at her Bible, but the letters on the page all ran together into one, long, incomprehensible word. She looked harder and could make out the words to one verse that seemed to jump off the page, "Each heart knows its own bitterness, and no one else can share its joy." (Proverbs 14:10). Bitterness and joy mixed together, that's what I feel. Oh, God, how? Oh, God, why? Why does life keep going on when I want it to stop? Why does it keep going forward when I can't move. She took a deep breath. Just keep moving, she said to herself, just keep moving. She knew she had to keep moving, but that didn't mean rushing back to life the way it had been before the accident...Oh, God, help me, she prayed. I am so weak...but you are my strength.


* Letters to Father: Suor Maria Celeste to Galileo, 1623-1633)
July 10, 2008 Newsletter
(when she didn't agree with a decision of her brother to flee the city because of the plague - this is kind of a funny line)...I let it go: I cling to the indubitable hope that blessed God will make up through His providence what men fail to do, if not for lack of feeling, then for want of intelligence and consideration.

(on tribulations in general)...tribulations are the touchstone where we test the quality of God's love. Thus, to whatever extent we can patiently bear the trials He doles out, then in that same measure do we promise ourselves possession of the treasure of His love, which comprises our every good. I beseech you...seeing and touching with your own hands the truth that neither the love of your children, nor pleasures, honors or riches can confer true contentment, being in themselves ephemeral; but that only in blessed God, as in our final destination, can we find real peace. Oh what joy will then be ours, when, rending this fragile veil that impedes us, we revel in the glory of God face to face! By all means let us struggle hard through these few days of life that we have left, so as to be deserving of a blessing so vast and everlasting.




Keep Going: The Art of Perseverance by Joseph Marshall
April 3, 2008 Newsletter
Difficult experiences, whether they are sadness, loss, hunger, poverty, illness, or death, rarely occur because you invited them into your life. But when life does place hardship in your path it always offers a chance to learn strength. That is the unseen gift. It is not easy, I know, to think of this time and this sadness as a gift. But you can make it so by living through it, one moment at a time, one day at a time. At the end of those moments and those days, you will be stronger. That will be your gift.

There are things other than death that can take away our will to go on...like despair, because nothing can cripple us more than the loss of hope. Weariness may, and does, attack our body and mind. But despair takes aim at the soul...the person who does not give in to despair will not long be deterred by defeat, nor weighed down by the memory of it...hope is most often the companion of the down-trodden. It dwells in the hearts and minds of those who have experienced loss or tragedy, or anyone whose road seems more uphill than level...

...it's important that you simply take the steps, one after another...that one more step will take us beyond where we were, somewhere, anywhere, ahead whether by a hairsbreadth or an arm's length does not matter...there will always be those of us who will succumb to hopelessness, and those who act on hope. I like to believe that most of the time hope will make a difference.