Tag: children

Prayers for Peace

My prayers are for the Ukrainian people, particularly the children. May their fears be snuffed out by the peace of a strong faith and the perseverance of endless hope. My prayers are for our world leaders. May these leaders only hear and react to the quiet wisdom and guidance that is imparted to all of us by the Divine, for the highest good of us all. May peace reign.

Gandhi quote "The day the power of love overrules the love of power, the world will know peace"

“You can’t separate peace from freedom because no one can be at peace unless he has his freedom.” – Malcom X

“The first peace, which is the most important, is that which comes within the souls of people when they realize their relationship, their oneness with the universe and all its powers, and when they realize at the center of the universe dwells the Great Spirit, and that its center is really everywhere, it is within each of us.” – Black Elk

“I do not want the peace which passeth understanding, I want the understanding which bringeth peace.” – Helen Keller

“Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations… entangling alliances with none.” – Thomas Jefferson

“Mankind must remember that peace is not God’s gift to his creatures, it is our gift to each other.” – Elie Wiesel

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Epilepsy Awareness Month

Credit: Epilepsy Foundation

My regular readers know that our youngest son suffers from a seizure disorder called epilepsy. I won’t be writing much today, because we are headed to yet another appointment with his neurologist, where my son will be getting yet another EEG test (his third EEG in just the last two months). This experience is the hardest situation that our son (and our family) has to live with, and to manage day in and day out, with the knowledge and empathy for the many other people and families, who also have to live with, and manage this devastating disorder. Here are some truths about epilepsy taken from the Epilepsy Foundation’s website:

1 in 10 people will have a seizure and 1 in 26 will develop epilepsy during their lifetime. We need more people to learn seizure first aid to help save a life.

There are 470,000 children in the U.S. living with epilepsy. Kids can change the world by educating those around them.

Epilepsy receives 10 times less funding than other brain disorders. We need to raise funds for care, advocacy, research and education.

This is a link to an excellent resource to best understand how to help a person who is having a seizure:

https://www.epilepsy.com/living-epilepsy/seizure-first-aid-and-safety

The Epilepsy Foundation and CURE Epilepsy are two outstanding organizations working to find cures, and treatments, and funding research, so that people who have epilepsy, have a better chance at living normal, healthy lives. Please consider giving to these organizations when you are making your charity choices. Also please peruse their websites to learn more about, and to understand what people who live with epilepsy go through, while dealing with this deeply frustrating, and debilitating, and sometimes even deadly disorder. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Look For It

Almost everything in life is neutral. Almost everything in life falls in the gray areas. We don’t want to believe this because we like absolutes. We are attached to labeling everyone and everything, “good” or “bad” and then looking for all of the evidence to back our labels up. Maybe we should be like children and label everything as “magic” and look for the evidence to back it up. I think that we would be overwhelmed with the confirmation that children are right. Life is magical.

This morning I am surrounded by magic: I am drinking this wonderful, warm elixir called coffee, that is the perfect combination of comforting and stimulating. It tastes and smells divine. Surrounding me, sleeping peacefully, are three gorgeous creatures, basically the pure essence of love, covered in fur. (our dogs) My family is happily doing their favorite activities this morning (sleeping, biking, tennis) and their pleasant, peaceful energy wafts over me and melts into my own happiness, as I do my own favorite activity: writing and communing with you. I am reading my very own thoughts, conveyed on a screen, as quickly as I can type them out. How incredibly magical! There is a slight breeze causing a ripple current in the lake outside of my window, and my windchimes are tinkling softly, serving as background music for the swaying, dancing water. I only really hear the chimes, when I hone in on them. My hearing is magically selective like that, isn’t yours?

Let’s have a magical weekend, my friends. Let’s look for the magic (and not look for the dark, evil Voldemort variety of magic. Although, honestly, isn’t reading and getting lost in an excellent Harry Potter book, created out of J.K. Rowling’s incredible imagination, stunningly magical in itself?). It isn’t hard to find magic. Be like a child and look for it.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Soul Sunday

Good morning, soul mates. I hope that today finds you feeling centered and whole. I have been enjoying all sorts of fun experiences, with my entire family this weekend. Nothing makes me feel more centered than being with my family. Sundays, as my regular readers know, are devoted to poetry here at Adulting – Second Half. Why do so many people groan when someone utters the word “poetry”? I think that is an interesting thing to ponder. There is no other form of writing that is more personal, more emotional, nor more poignant than poetry. And yet so many people turn away from it, under the guise of calling it “boring”. Is that really the case? Or is the “dissing” of poetry more of an overall avoidance of facing, and then really feeling, our deepest, most soulful feelings?

For most of this year I have used this tagline on my blog: Are passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain, and pass on love. How do you heal your pain? You face it. You acknowledge it. You let yourself feel it. Your pain will dissipate. Your pain just wants to be acknowledged. Your pain just wants to be understood and to be explored and most importantly, to be felt, so that it can be healed. Again, once pain is faced with compassion and empathy, once pain is physically and emotionally felt, it is spent. Once it is felt, your pain will dissipate. Your pain has just been serving as a dark cloud, over the light of your beautiful, light-filled core of love. Your pain has just served as clouds over the sunshine of your timeless soul. Shine the light on your pain. Ironically, we tend to hold on to our pain, by ignoring it, and by trying to pretend that it isn’t there. And that exhausting act of avoidance just makes our pain grow, like a dark, fierce, quickly growing storm cloud, in a desperate plea to be seen, and to be felt. Pain that is ignored and pain that is unacknowledged, cannot be healed, and cannot be released. Love is greater than pain. Love is. Love your pain away. Clear the clouds.

This is my poem for the day:

My Children In the Other Room

I revel in the sound of your voices,

All together humming, occasionally interrupted by laughter,

A calming cadence of familiar tones.

I don’t listen for the words,

I listen to the harmony of your hearts,

As you share casual conversation.

There is no sound that is more beautiful to me,

Than the blending of your voices,

Sounding the tones of our common love.

Together, your voices, sing the rhythm of my heart.

The Key

This video has gone viral because everyone thinks that it is so cute that this little boy is just trying to put his schoolbook knowledge, into his head like osmosis. And we all know that isn’t how it works. We all have to put the work into things. We all have to expend our proverbial blood, sweat and tears, in order to get what we want. So, people laugh at this sweet little boy’s innocent, yet foolish actions. However, and quite frankly, I think that this little boy is on to something. I think that we are all making a lot of assumptions here. I think we are missing the boat. What if the little boy has already read the book, and studied his homework, and the class is quickly reviewing before the start of a test? What if his motions are an act of faith in himself, and in faith in the Universe, knowing that all knowledge and wisdom and goodness resides inside of himself, and his motions are just a reminder to himself, of this hallowed fact? What if this boy’s little ritual is a sacred motion that reminds himself that “all good things come to him” and that he deserves the abundance that life has to offer? Perhaps his motions are a more emphatic, dramatic prayer in motion? I love this little boy’s energy, and his serious, focused faith. I have found myself incorporating his precious ritual into my daily actions. Children are often the most enlightened, clearest people on this earth. Not everything that young children do and say, are just for the amusement of us elders, until we “teach” them to be “wise(?)” adults. We can learn a lot from children. They haven’t been indoctrinated yet. Their purity hasn’t been clouded. They inherently understand the natural flow and magic of Life, and this is why we always say that kids are so resilient. Children have not yet forgotten that we all are a needed and natural part of Life’s flow, and children reside in that simple knowingness and faith. How beautiful children are and what lovely gifts and reminders come from them! Let’s remember to treasure our children of the world, always. They are sacred.

“He called a little child to him, and placed the child among them. 3 And he said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. 4 Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.” -Matthew 18:2-4

“This is the key to life: To expect everything to be given to you from above, yet to be genuinely surprised and forever grateful, when they are. Expecting all good things to be yours, while not knowing how to take anything for granted. If there may be a key in life, this is the key.” –C. JoyBell C.

Other People’s Children

I have been enjoying some really fun, celebratory lunches and dinners this holiday season, celebrating birthdays and the overall holiday season with my family and with my friends. I am looking forward to a warm dinner tonight with some of my closest friends and I can’t wait for a very special lunch today. Today, I have a Christmas lunch with a very good friend, whom I just met this fall. We have lunch together every Wednesday. I enjoy her company so much. She makes me feel like a giddy little kid again. Often, our lunches together, are one my highlights for the week.

Today, we are going to munch on McDonald’s Happy Meals, as a special treat. We’ll probably eat inside today because of the weather, which is a bummer, because my friend really prefers to eat outside. She wants to be an opera singer, but she’s too embarrassed to sing in front of big crowds. She sings and dances in front of me sometimes, on warm, sunny days. She’s very talented and animated. Sometimes, when we eat lunch, my friend and I wear brightly lit headbands, or headbands that have unicorn horns or kitty ears. My friend is very neat; much neater than I am. She brushes my crumbs off the table, right after I finish eating. She and I talk about important stuff, like the proper way to eat cupcakes. We both love fashion. We use our imaginations a lot. I love to hear stories about my friend’s dolls named Nuneia, Bonita, Rock, Paris and France. My friend is kind, funny, loving, thoughtful, smart and cute as a button. Her name means beautiful flower and she is in the third grade. My friend is my “lunch buddy”, which is a county-wide program, setting adult mentors up with kids who could use a little extra attention in life. (which is really just about every kid. Like they said at mentor training, being a mentor is just all about being a good listener, a good friend, and a believer and shower of all of the potential and abilities of their “buddies”. Like they kept repeating at mentor training, “Who couldn’t use a mentor?”)

Our county school system is the 8th largest in Florida and the 27th largest in the country. Our county has over 3500 homeless students and 54% of our students receive subsidized lunches. Our county wide graduation rate is 86% but it is rising, in part, because of an emphasis on programs like the mentoring program, which works to ensure that every child knows how special and vital they are, to this overall, interconnected Web of Life, which we all share. We were taught in mentor training that most kids have three major concerns: Am I normal? Am I liked? Do I fit in? (sadly, some things never change, right?)

They say when you volunteer, you get so much more out of it, than what you put into it. Honestly, that statement has rung hollow to me before. I have volunteered for things/programs/events that made me question why I was even there. There are cynical times in my volunteering life, when I have felt like I was just a warm body to fill a quota, in order to get some funding needed, or for a tax break, or to provide an “image” for a company or other entity, to show that this particular entity is “making a difference.” This is not one of those times. I have been mentoring a high school student and a “little flower” this fall semester, and this experience has changed my views and my outlooks and my patience and my compassion and my hopes for the future, PROFOUNDLY. Our school district can’t find enough mentors. Our already overtaxed teachers often mentor a few kids, on top of everything else that they do, because there are not enough volunteers. If you have a little extra time for some fascinating insights, and communication with today’s youths, please check out the mentoring programs in your local school district. You ARE qualified. You ARE needed. You WILL love it!

“Each of us must come to care about everyone else’s children. We must recognize that the welfare of our children and grandchildren is intimately linked to the welfare of all other people’s children. After all, when one of our children needs lifesaving surgery, someone else’s child will perform it. If one of our children is threatened or harmed by violence, someone else’s child will be responsible for the violent act. The good life for our own children can be secured only if good life is also secured for all other people’s children.” – Lillian Kate

It Truly Is

I’m really happy today. I am so happy that I’m actually kind of giddy. We finally got most of our things put away, that were all over our house due to a renovation, and it feels so cleansing and clearing. My younger sons picked up our eldest son at the airport last night, after midnight. I got up at 2:30 a.m. and I peeked in the doors of all of my babies. I haven’t done that in a long while. They were all four sound asleep in their beds. Then I went back to my bed and had some of the best sleep that I have slept in a long time. There is probably not a more nurturing, comforting feeling in a mama’s heart, than all of her children sleeping peacefully under one roof. We have a big day of activities planned to celebrate my youngest son’s high school graduation. There will be a lot of laughing and joking. I will be a brunt of a lot of those jokes and I will love it. Life is good.

“One thing I had learned from watching chimpanzees with their infants is that having a child should be fun.” – Jane Goodall

It is, Jane. It truly is.

No Grandchildren

“God has no grandchildren.” – Proverb

I read the above proverb yesterday in one of my meditations. I love it. I find it comforting. Currently the oldest person alive is a man in Germany who is 113 years old. Probably, as I sit here writing, there is at least one baby being born somewhere. So the Universe’s earth family has children in the age range of just being born to 113 years old. It would make for a beautiful family portrait.

I have four children who I love deeply with all of my heart. My oldest has eight years more experience in this world than my youngest child, but I am their Mom. Nothing has changed about me. I am not a different “Mom.” They are my children and I love them infinitely.

That’s how it goes with God/Creation/All-Loving Presence. Some of His/Her children are clergy. Some of His/Her children are outlaws. Some of the children of Earth are still learning to walk, and some are using walkers. The same God loves us all, infinitely. You cannot divide infinite love to see who is loved more. It is not possible. We are all God’s children and we are all loved infinitely.

The Same God loves us all. Clergy do not get a different, wiser, stronger God than the desperate, homeless, addict roaming the streets. The connection is there to all of us. The love is freely given in pure grace. We are all God’s children and we are all loved infinitely.