Tag: United States

Young and Free

So I am in a state several thousands of miles away from my home state of Florida. We did what many other giddy, “throw caution to the wind”, newly created empty nesters do. For the holiday weekend, we bought last minute plane tickets, arranged for a rental car, and we decided to just “wing” the rest of the trip. And so far, it has been exhilarating! I feel young and adventurous – two of my favorite feelings.

I probably won’t be writing much this weekend. I want to saturate in the experience. What has already become abundantly clear to me, just a day into this adventure, is that the United States’ greatest strength is the diversity of its people, all coming from so many varied cultures and heritages. It is our freedom which has allowed us to keep these traditions alive and strong. You wouldn’t imagine that my state and this other state are even in the same country, as our foods, our architecture, our festivals, our traditions and our landscapes are so vastly different. Yet we are fellow Americans, and we can celebrate our differences and our unity, all at once, and be awestruck and so immensely proud, all at the same time.

“This, I believe, is one of the most important sources of America’s greatness. We lead the world because, unique among nations, we draw our people — our strength — from every country and every corner of the world. And by doing so we continuously renew and enrich our nation.” – Ronald Reagan

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

Lots of Light

I recently read that the United States has more lighthouses than any other country – more than 700. (Michigan has the most lighthouses, at 129). Figuratively, I suspect that the United States has more “lighthouses” than we could possibly count. I believe that the whole world is filled with “lighthouses.” I have benefited from so many examples of light in my own life, in my own little corner of the world. Who hasn’t?

My horoscope from Holiday Mathis the other day said this: “You’ve been influenced by memorable people. If not for the lasting impression they made, you wouldn’t be following their advice and examples. You’ll now consider how you can create such memories for others.”

It’s so true, isn’t it? In our own lives, so many other lives have served as beacons of light and love and hope, to us. These impressions and examples have only added to our own inner light, which hopefully, in turn, serves as a tall, shining lighthouse to help and to serve others, who may be feeling a little lost at sea. And even our mistakes don’t go to waste. Even our own worst examples of our own darkest selves, can inspire others to desire to be, and to act, nothing like us. That, too, is a good thing, in the long run. Everything that we do, and that we say can be turned into some form of good and light, in the end.

Another thing that I read recently suggested that we spend a lot of time trying to turn the darkness around us into light. This is a waste of time and energy. Our job is to become the light, and thus the lighthouses, that helps to lead others out of the darkness and murkiness, and into the safety of the solid shores, where we can all stand tall and share the light. We just need to shine light on the darkness around us and when we do this, we see that the darkness was mostly a mistake, made of our own whirling fears and uncertainty, which made us turn away from the light that is always there.

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

Monday Fun-Day

In case you missed it, this was one of the funnier commercials that ran during the Super Bowl. There were a lot of things that I liked about this year’s Super Bowl, including Tampa Bay’s win, but I did notice something kind of obscure, at the beginning of the game, that got me to thinking. When the sign language translator was translating “America the Beautiful”, the symbol for “America” seemed to be the loving, cradling of a baby. In a historical sense, the United States of America is very much a baby country. Our country is 245 years old. China, Japan, Iran and Greece are thousands of years old, each. We have an exceptional, gifted, healthy baby country with an excellent foundation, and yet also, so much growing to do. Like all babies, in order to reach its highest potential, our baby country needs to be guided, and cradled in Love.

This is from an article entitled “How To Raise a Happy Baby and Child”, published on the babycenter website:

We are all helping to raise our baby country, whose potential is phenomenal. The steps above, give us good guidelines to use, in order to help America become all that it is meant to be, in the thousands of years ahead, in “his” long-lived journey of Life. What a beautiful gift and responsibility, our baby is to us! How blessed we are to cradle our America, in our arms, nourishing America into “her” greatest potential!

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