AREN'T THEY ALL OUR CHILDREN FOR LIFE?

Obama the dog on guard duty - “It is wrong to think that misfortunes come from the east or from the west; they originate within one's own mind. Therefore, it is foolish to guard against misfortunes from the external world and leave the inner mind uncontrolled.”

There are few things in this life more difficult to experience than
the loss of one's child. Jim Wallis, in WHO SPEAKS FOR GOD tells about
a sad and terrifying incident that occurred during the tragic war in
Sarajevo not too many years back. A reporter who was covering the
violence in the middle of the city saw a little girl fatally shot by a
sniper.

The reporter threw down his pad and pencil and rushed to the aid of a
man who was now holding the child. He helped them both into his car
and sped off to a hospital.

"Hurry, my friend," the man urged, "my child is still alive." A moment
or two later he pleaded, "Hurry, my friend, my child is still
breathing." A little later he said, "Hurry, my friend, my child is
still warm."

When they got to the hospital, the young girl was gone. "This is a
terrible task for me," the distraught man said to the reporter. "I
must go tell her father that his child is dead. He will be
heartbroken. "

The reporter was amazed. He looked at the grieving man and said, "I
thought she was YOUR child."

The man replied, "No, but aren't they all our children?"

I think that is one of the great questions of our age. Aren't they all
our children? It is a question that deserves an answer.

Aren't they all our children? Those who live under our roof and those
who reside with another family? Those to whom we are related as well
as those whom we have never known?

Aren't they all our children? Those on our side of the border as well
as those on the other side? Those of our nation no more or less than
those of another?

Aren't they all our children? Those who worship like us and those who
worship differently? Those who look like us and those who do not?

Aren't they all our children? The well-educated and the
under-educated? The well-fed and the under-fed? Those who are secure
and those who are at risk?

Aren't they all our children? The highly valued and highly esteemed as
well as the castaways and the lost?

Aren't they all our children? Aren't they all our responsibility? ALL
of them? Ours to nurture? Ours to protect? Ours to love?

I don't think it is an exaggeration to say that the survival of our
world hinges on the answer to that question.

To say they are NOT all our children is to condemn the world to more
struggle – family against family, group against group, nation against
nation.

Aren't they all our children? If we say yes, can we ever again pit
them against each other? "If we have no peace," said Mother Teresa,
"it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other."

Aren't they all our children?

There may be no greater question for our generation. And how we answer
that question will determine the shape of our world for years to come.

From Lifesupport

Lifesigns Life Quotes

TURTLES CAN'T FLY IN LIFE

Mix vegetables and sausages with rice for lunch - “An onion can make people cry but there's never been a vegetable that can make people laugh.”

A determined little turtle once climbed a tree. He somehow made it to
the first branch. Then he jumped into the air waving his front legs
and crashed to the ground.

After a while he slowly climbed the tree again. And again he jumped.
This time he flapped all four of his limbs, but still plummeted to the
hard ground.

The persistent turtle tried again and again with the same results. A
couple of birds perched on a branch nearby watched his futile efforts.
One of them turned to her mate and said, "Dear, don't you think it's
time to tell him he's adopted?"

There are simply some things we cannot do. Turtles can't fly.

Comedian Bob Hope once thought of pursuing a career in boxing. Later
in life he quipped about it: "I ruined my hands in the ring" he said.
"The referee kept stepping on them."

Fighting is something he could not do well. But he became a great
comedian.

Lots of people have ability and talent. And most people have an idea
about what they think they can do. So why do some excel but many do
not?

The famous American caricaturist Al Hirschfield explained it like
this: "I believe everybody is creative and everybody is talented," he
said. "I just don't think that everybody is disciplined. I think that's a rare commodity."

The secret seems to be discipline. Whatever ability we are born with
is not enough. Even raw talent requires discipline to be nurtured and
developed. And enough hard work and discipline can turn the most
meager skill or ability into a great strength.

A man jumped into a taxi cab in New York and asked the driver, "How do
I get to Yankee stadium?"

The cabbie replied, "Practice! Practice! Practice!"

He's right. And although discipline and practice may never get a
turtle to actually fly, it will probably get you and me just about
wherever we want to go.

From Lifesupport

Lifesigns Life Quotes

TRUE LOVE FOR LIFE

Participants seated waiting for lunch to be served - “May the love hidden deep inside your heart find the love waiting in your dreams. May the laughter that you find in your tomorrow wipe away the pain you find in your yesterdays.”

I'm not sure I can always tell love from passion. One father said of
his teenaged son, "I don't know if he's in love or in heat!" What
teenager would know? Besides, feelings of attraction can change more
quickly than a pouty expression.

But love, in its truest form, is greater than feelings. It is as much
a decision as it is a feeling.

Love is what Mr. and Mrs. Strauss shared. Mrs. Isadore Strauss was one
of the few first class women passengers to go down with the Titanic in
1912, and she drowned because she could not bear to leave her husband.

They remained calm throughout the excitement of the sinking vessel.
They both aided frightened women and children to find places aboard
lifeboats. Finally, Mr. Strauss, who had repeatedly urged his wife to
claim a spot safely aboard a lifeboat, forced her to enter one.

She was seated but a moment, however, when she sprang up and climbed
back on deck before he could stop her. There, she caught his arm,
snuggling it familiarly against her side, and exclaimed, "We have been
long together for a great many years. We are old now. Where you go, I
will go."

Where you go, I will go. It is a decision to be together, come what
may. I suspect she said something like that to him many times before.
Maybe the words she used were different, but the meaning was the same.
I want to be with you. Let's do this together.

Where you go, I will go. It's a decision to love. It is deciding to be
there, wherever "there" may be. It is a decision to sacrifice, if
sacrifice is needed. And it is choosing to re-decide it all over again
tomorrow and the next day and the next.

As the ship sank beneath icy water on that cold and dark, April night,
the Strausses merely re-made a decision they had made many times
before throughout their life together. They decided on each other.

Where you go, I will go. At the heart of true love is often a
decision, made again and again, to face the next day together … hand
in hand.

From Lifesupport

Lifesigns Life Quotes

ARE YOU HAVING FUN YET FOR LIFE?

Business broadband products and services promotional booth - “The art of winning in business is in working hard - not taking things too seriously”

Plato said that work should be play. Some airline employees have taken his injunction seriously. After landing, one flight attendant announced, "Thank you for flying Delta Business Express. We hope you enjoyed giving us the business as much as we enjoyed taking you for a ride." There's a flight attendant who knows how to turn her work into play.

She may have been the same one who, as the passengers disembarked from the aircraft, announced, "Last one off the plane must clean it."

A British insurance agent has fun with the accident reports he reads from some of his clients. Like the one who wrote: "I started to slow down but the traffic was more stationary than I thought." You know, stationary traffic can be like that.

Another client reported, "Windscreen broken. Cause unknown. Probably Voodoo." Voodoo would be a worry.

Before he became an actor, Ray Liotta worked in a cemetery. "I had a hundred people under me, and it was quiet," he fondly remembers. Actually, that doesn't sound half bad.

I have friends in the medical industry. She is a pharmacist and he is a sales rep for a pharmaceutical company. When I first met them I asked what they did for a living. He said, "She make drugs and I sell them."

I like the idea of injecting some play into work. And one of the great benefits is this: when our work is more fun, we like it better. And when we like it better, we do it better.

Are you having fun yet?

From Lifesupport

Lifesigns Life Quotes

CAN YOU SAY, "AWE" IN LIFE?

Office in a box service promotion booth - “It is high time that the ideal of success should be replaced by the ideal of service”

Albert Einstein said that wonder is the source of all true art and all
science. "He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer
pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead; his eyes
are closed."

I remember standing in rapt awe when I gazed upon the wonders of the
ancient Incan city of Machu Picchu in Peru. That amazing city was
built above the clouds, and it was more than the high altitude that
took my breath away. Can you say, "Awe"?

I'm reminded of the little girl who rode a train with her mother.
Looking out the window, she exclaimed, "Look! A horse!" And a moment
later, "Look! Houses!"

She gave every indication of keeping this up, so her embarrassed
mother apologized to the man next to her. "I'm sorry my daughter is
going on like this," she said. "She still thinks everything is
wonderful."

When do we stop thinking everything is wonderful? When we grow up?
When do we stop saying, "Awe"? Does growing older mean growing jaded?

And must we travel to faraway places to marvel once again? Can't we
experience wonder and awe today - this moment?

The slice of raisin toast I ate this morning was no less marvelous
today than when I first tasted it. But I did not notice how good it
really was. I think that few things are commonplace in themselves –
it's our reaction to them that grows dull over the years.

A man on his way to lunch happened to notice a visitor in Venice's
Piazza San Marco standing among the pigeons and gazing in apparent
rhapsody at the Doge's Palace. After his meal he noticed the same man
still studying the magnificent structure. Curious as to whether he'd
been standing there all morning, he asked the man, "How long have you
been here?"

"Twenty six years," came the reply, "and I never grow tired of it."

As Einstein observed, those who will "pause to wonder and stand rapt
in awe" will TRULY LIVE. They will see what others miss. They will
feel what others cannot. Life will be for them both exquisite and
mysterious when they learn to say, "Awe."

From Lifesupport

Lifesigns Life Quotes