Life's Loving Memories

PURE JOY "State to yourself that you believe happiness to be a spiritual gift, and that this gift is already within you. It is there by right of your being alive. The more you affirm the spiritual side of your happiness and your spiritual right in having it, the sooner you will have results."                                                                     Raymond Charles Barker,     -- The Power of Decision Just recently my Joy was rejuvenated. I hadn't really noticed it was missing until it showed up in me quite unexpectedly. I was sitting at my patio table sipping a cup of coffee, when I looked up and saw several hummingbirds dancing around the feeder taking turns drinking of the nectar. A smile came to my face, and I vibrated with joy. I thought about all the ways I experience joy: laughing with friends and family; taking a morning walk; delving deep into inspirational reading; watching reruns of "I Love Lucy", to mention a few. So, I decided to include J

WAY TO WEIGH "Are there things about yourself that you feel are limitations? Could there be a few things about you that are magnified in your eyes that others could care less about? Be authentic. Be yourself." Sandra Lindsey Smith,                            Life's Garden Grows Did you think you had a problem with weight as you were growing up? I know my mother was always after me to watch what I ate, and so I saw myself as a little butterball. Looking back at my pictures from some sixty years ago, I realize that I was actually very fit as a child. Has this ever happened to you? Thinking back to my life as a child, my mother's wish for me was to be thinner than I was, and yet, ask me whether I wanted a second piece of cake at dinner.           My mother was a very nurturing mother, but it always seemed that her message to me was, "I                  would love you more if you weighed less." One of the things I find so pleasing as an older adult,            i

 IS  THERE SUCH A THING AS PERFECTION? "Treatment corrects the wrong use through its right knowing. Right knowing is an intelligent activity of mind which plunges beneath the surface and reveals Pure Spirit as the Invisible cause of creation."   Ernest Holmes,                    -Living the Science of Mind A friend in college invited me to her parent's home for Thanksgiving. We had a sumptuous meal and for dessert we had one of my favorites, blueberry pie. I took one bite and remarked, "This pie is the best I've ever had, it is absolutely perfect. There was an immediate hush and forks paused in mid-air. My friend said, after a beat, "I think you must mean ALMOST perfect. My mother said that if she ever made a perfect pie she would never make another one." I mumbled, "Yes, that's what I meant, almost perfect." Karen Drucker wrote a song called I Don't Have to Be Perfect. Some of the lyrics go, "I don't have to be perfect, I

LONELINESS  "To have a good friend, you must be one" --Emerson Deep loneliness can feel very painful, especially when you have convinced yourself that there is nothing you can do about it. In the 90's I went through a divorce, not a painful one, but still a divorce. I went back to live with my mother for a short time, and then I was joyous over the fact that I could qualify for a condo on my own with my teacher's salary. It was strange at first, living by myself for the first time in my life, and I was in my forties . It was about that same time that I found Rev Heather Clark (before she became Rev. Dr.) at the Center for Joyful Living, in Bonita, California. Sitting through the first service, I found a deep feeling of love, I cried through the next two services, and I felt like I was like had come home. I took classes and went to workshops, and gradually discovered that I had found many like-minded friends. In one of the classes I took, I heard the phrase "You a