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We are all the same size inside
We are all more
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Thankful for people
Children do grow up
No power tonight
The leaf is proud


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today 		"The things we want are really the times we share."

"The most important things we bring with us are within us."

"If I had only one thing I would take a smile over an iPod."

~ Rob Hueniken

From the category archives:

Being kind

Thumbnail image for Doing our part to help things work out

Doing our part to help things work out

October 21, 2009

At the core of our lives are two powerful traits: responsibility and compassion. While they sound like lofty ideals, responsibility and compassion are actually life’s calls to action, built into each of us. We know there are things we should do, and we know when we should be helpful and sensitive to others.  Knowing these things doesn’t make us responsible and compassionate — it is acting on these feelings by participating. When we are young, most things are done for us. Mothers, fathers and caregivers watch over us, and try to give us what we need — both physically and [...]

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Celebrating our father’s confidence that things will work out

September 30, 2009

Celebrating a father’s birthday can bring out many emotions and thoughts, especially for adult children. Most of us get to experience our father for a long period of our lives, from being Daddy’s little one through to Dad seeming somehow smaller. For each of us, those days in between say a lot about how both we and our fathers matured and learned along the way, and what has stayed at our core. Every family has tough times and good times, and each person has moments of weakness and excellence. Birthdays are a natural moment in time to reflect, maybe forgive, [...]

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We are all connected

September 28, 2009

“Alone, on my own, no-one’s there, and I’m scared” – these thoughts should only happen to each of us once. Our first moment of feeling that we are doing life on our own should be our last. When our parent hugs us that first time should be the start of a lifetime of knowing “I am part of more.” People need people. People love people. People love being with people and it shouldn’t be a peep-hole but a full view, with laughter and singing and hands helping — together. That is what people love. That is what people crave. That [...]

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Guess who’s not coming to dinner

September 27, 2009

Having dinner with friends at a nice restaurant is a wonderful event. You are with people you love, being served excellent food that arrives without any effort by you in the kitchen. The air is filled with laughter and storytelling, and time rolls backward as you reconnect with friends with youthful exuberance. I joined five friends recently for just such a marvelous evening that had all of these great things and more. Arriving at the restaurant we found the place  buzzing and busy, with hostesses taking names of eager diners and every table taken. But two of our group had [...]

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We are all the same size inside

September 26, 2009

Humans come in all sizes, shapes and styles, and just when you think you’ve seen every possibility you see someone who looks different yet again. I think we all find people to be interesting — they are variations on ourselves and the world-wide human community. Height is one of the greatest sources of differences with people. People can look different and act differently in many ways, but height is a unique and obvious trait that we can all agree on. Height is tied into the process of human growth: we all start very small, as babies, and then grow taller. [...]

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Not on the outside

September 24, 2009

One of the worst feelings is being left out. Something is going on and you aren’t included, whether it was intentionally, or you were forgotten, or they never imagined you might want to be included . While some people prefer being on their own, that is different from actually being left out. Being left out means that you wanted to be there, if only you knew about it or were able to be there. There are always lots of reasons available for not including more people in a gathering or event, and most of them make sense — there wasn’t [...]

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Being the gears instead of giving them

September 7, 2009

We all know what it is like to be part of our society: lots of things on the go, and ever-more things to buy. Threaded through most of the things we do are the people in our lives — our family, friends, work mates, service people and those driving by us. As a former computer programmer I know how busy life can be — full of details and endless tasks. I actually lost a few years of my life to work, before I had this simple but important revelation: People are more important than things and tasks. While I still [...]

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Celebrating endless love

September 1, 2009

Today we celebrated the truly endless love of family and friendships — the love that each of us can be part of. I had the honor of helping to celebrate the life of my daughter-in-law’s grandfather. Bruce lived to be 91, and he and Ida had been married for 70 years. That is a long life of love. My daughter-in-law’s sister, Laura, is a wonderful photo archivist, and put together four big photo boards, showing Bruce’s life in hundreds of moments.  It was fascinating to see the history and younger days of the wonderful family my son has married me [...]

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A Later Perspective with More Compassion

August 27, 2009

It’s amazing how unchanging our perspectives can be over time. I had a chance yesterday to see how revisiting some details from my past could give me a new perspective and understanding of a situation. Yesterday I got to reminisce at a party with a classmate from my childhood days, who I hadn’t seen in 30 years. This person was not a close friend of mine at that time, but a neighbor who lived just up the street from me. It was great to see her, and as we talked, the evening slipped away and back to grades 3 to [...]

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