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LIVING HAPPY
UPLIFTING, THOUGHT-PROVOKING NEWS FOR OUR MIND, BODY,AND SPIRIT
From Carole Kane
Vol. I No. 14 May 8, 2011 ~~~~~~~~~~ |
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Dear Friends,
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Carole Kane
M.A., N.C.C. ret. |
Welcome to Living Happy, a nice way to feel and be our best! Rather than concentrating on all the "bad" news in today's media, Living Happy is about good, interesting, and fun things for everyone.
This week we have a new contributor, Joyce Magnavito, writing so beautifully about Juniper Hill in Oxfordshire, England.
Dr. Brad Holway is taking a well-earned "vacation" this week, but don't panic! Next week he's taking us to Timbuktu!
Reverend Victor Langhorne tells us of his missionary work in Liberia and Ghana several years ago, and as always, he has a bit of a twist in his concluding remarks.
This being Mothers Day, there are several little items about moms and kids, but I couldn't resist the dog cartoon!
And my article is short and sweet, but heartfelt, nonetheless.
Happy reading!
Love, Carole XXX OOO
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The Power of Family
Family - the most comforting establishment in the universe - where each of us is accepted for exactly who we are, and where we can go for solace and nurturing in times of trouble. It's a place where we can say whatever we feel, sometimes not so nicely, and the family will listen and forgive us anyway. And if they don't forgive us right away, we can tell them where to go, and they eventually will still forgive us! Because family loves each other, and wants the best for each other.
But what is a family? Is it only biologically related siblings and parents, cousins, aunts and uncles? What if we don't have that kind of family? Where then do we go?
Family is a concept more than only a biological phenomenon.
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Mother? or Neighbor? |
Friends, old and new, support each other and offer comfort and help, with no thought of getting anything in return except equal treatment. This is family, too.
The love given and received, the confidence of knowing someone cares about us, the comfort when we need it - the power of family is amazing. Let's always treat our family - biological or man-made - like the treasure it is.
- -Carole- -
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Juniper Hill by Joyce Magnavito
The ancient Roman road was a narrow, perfectly straight ribbon cleaving the Oxfordshire fields and pastures. The red poppies and yellow wildflowers bowed to one another from their respective sides of the road.
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The Road to Juniper Hill
Geograph.org.uk. |
Stillness has embraced these fields since the last sounds of Hadrian's legions marching, since the heavy wagons' rumbling, since the sound of horses' hooves stamping, the shouts of soldiers far from the warmth of their own sun, and since the thudding of heavy hearts had died away in this remote, mist-haunted landscape.
More than fifteen centuries have passed across this changeless land. Light and shadow, scents and murmurs of the summer countryside hold a peace so deep it seems eternal.
In the distance a cluster of old cottages huddle together. Long years of familiarity cause them to lean towards each other, comforting, reassuring, like good neighbors accepting one another's rain-darkened stone, and aging, filmy-eyed windows. Generations of birds have raised their young in the sturdy, warm thatch, like an old woman's bonnet protecting the life beneath.
Trees whispering and sighing together, and their tiny inhabitants' fluttering can be herd, if one truly listens. Fragile wings beat the air above a purple flower that bends its head acquiescently. A ladybug makes its slow, timeless march up an emerald blade of grass.
A farmer walks a footpath that has been in continuous use for five thousand years, deeply worn by the feet of Celts and Jutes, Saxons and barbarians, and of Oxfordshire farmers who, themselves, had traveled this path together with the rising sun and evening star. He pauses to contemplate his meadows and pastures; the same ones his grandfather and great-grandfather had worked before him.
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Juniper Hill Cottage
geograph.org.uk. |
Shapes of other Oxfordshire men who had yoked their horses in these fields, and of the women who had gleaned the last of the grain to fill wide aprons with, hover for a moment before turning back reluctantly to the land of shades.
Long silent fiddles and laughter echo briefly before they are hushed. Ghostly candles illuminate spectral dancers at a vanished harvest feast, then flicker for an instant and are again extinguished.
The seeding and harvests, the snows and springs have come and gone in an unbroken cycle. Nothing has disturbed the peace and continuity in all these centuries.
Joyce Magnavito wrote this article during the summer of 1984, when she llived in Oxford, England |
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The converter gets converted By Rev. Victor Langhorne
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Rev. Victor Langhorne |
When I first travelled to West Africa many years ago, my agenda was to convert non-Christian West Africans to Christianity, my own faith. I spent the semester leading up to the trip at Queens College taking a course in West African history. A small number of the students from the class, if selected, would be able to follow up the course with six weeks of field study in Liberia and Ghana. Somehow I made the cut. I had already been a bible school student and summer travelling evangelist for several years. From what I had learned from my research, West Africans really needed conversion from their indigenous "animism" and "pantheism." I thought that the harvest was ripe and plentiful; only the laborers were few.
The summer program began with a series of lectures by African professors at the University of Liberia. I was left nearly speechless from the contrast between the descriptions and explanations that I had encountered in class, and the sophistication and elucidation of the indigenous African philosophical and spiritual understanding.
My numerous queries were answered so definitively that I lost any opportunity to testify about my faith in response or rebuttal. Literally dazed, I trudged on to the University of Ghana, only to encounter more of the same. Afterwards, however, I finally got to preach the messages of my Christian faith to the African masses.
Despite significant responses to my appeal to come and embrace the faith I had proclaimed, I was emotionally overwhelmed. What I learned from the lectures and discussions about African religious thought had been framed far more rational, credible, and far-sighted than I had anticipated. For example, the lecturers related the animism of indigenous West African cultural beliefs to the dynamism of atoms in elements and molecular compounds, more than to purely superstitious concepts.
On the flight back home, I penned my reflections to the effect that I had gone to Africa with an agenda "to convert" Africans to Christianity, and found that I, too, had been converted to a new perception of the world and all that it contains.
Rev. Langhorne is Associate Minister at Providence Baptist Church, Newport News, VA |
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Think a little - laugh a little
A child's per ception...
While getting ready for a baby shower, I told my eight-year-old, Sean, to not touch the gift bag for the shower. He asked me "Mommy are presents going to fall on her head? I said "No, why?"
"I thought the presents were going to fall on her head like water does in a shower," he replied.
- - Contributed by Grace Calabrese McGrory
Give your mother a phone call! Researchers report that hearing your mother's voice is a powerful stress-reliever. And the benefits last for hours after the call is over.
- - Women's World Magazine May 16, 2011
A mother understands what a child does not say.
- - Jewish Proverb
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Receptionist at the incontinence hot line:
"Can you hold?"
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The light of stars that were extinguished centuries ago still reaches us. So it is with the great, who died centuries ago, but still reach us with the radiations of their personalities.
- - Kahlil Gibran
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Your Space - For Guest Writers, Ghost Writers, and Commentators
THANK YOU! to Joyce Magnavito, Rev. Victor Langhorne, and Grace Calabrese McGrory for their great contributions this week!
Would you like to contribute an article?
- Do you have a little "slice of life" to share?
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This Could be YOU! |
- A review of your favorite book or movie?
- Maybe a poem you wrote that you'd like to share?
Do you have comments about Living Happy?
What would you like to see more/less of?
For Comments and to Contact Living Happy click this link.
I'd love to hear from you! And thanks!!!
Carole XXX
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