As a significant note, I would like to share more about this beautiful song.
In 9th grade at junior high school, my classmate, Linda Creed was the center of attention for her buoyant spirit, her out-going nature, and ability to lead. At lunchtime, she would go to the middle of the gym floor and invite us all to dance and sing to the latest music. I always thought it odd how completely immersed in the music she seemed to be, and her insistence for us to come together to dance in the gym after lunch at school. She made it happen just about everyday, if I recall correctly, breaking racial barriers and other irritating issues we faced in school.
Our school was in a neighborhood comprised of predominately Jewish people. So the school was a reflection of the neighborhood and was populated of 50% Jewish and 50% everyone else. I make these facts known as they indicate how all encompassing Linda’s influence actually was. Linda insisted we all come together to have fun dancing, and we did. She was infectious, beaming and so happy being able to create with music and dancing, a moment that would bring us together like nothing else could.
Linda was Jewish so at first one might wonder how and what part of her felt so compelled to rouse us all to dance to rhythm and blues at lunchtime. We could feel that she was special somehow.
Years later, I learned that Linda had became a standout songwriter, creating some of the best lyrics and music of our era and in collaboration with Gamble & Huff, a significant part of what would come to be known as “The Philly Sound” of the 1970s.
Linda is the composer of this amazing song. Not long after writing this song, Linda would die of cancer in 1986.
RIP dear Linda, you “crazy diamond”!
Thank you for bringing us together in junior high school.
And a bigger thanks for all of the incredible lyrics and music.
Hatred is beneath the problems that we are facing and to some degree, in every negative experience.
Choose Love.
God is Love.
Someone once said that there are only two emotions…love and everything else.
All other emotion weaken the spirit.
A level of hatred lies within all of them, as the “little bit” in something as seemingly innocuous as self-doubt for falling short of one’s own expectations, to the extreme level that energizes feelings of rage for atrocities suffered by the masses that have become part of the history of mankind…and everything in between.
It is actually very simple and not the confusion that clouds the mind.
Could this be the grand design of The Creator?
He has given us a way to live our lives. He has given us His Ten Commandments.
Do we know what they are? Not knowing is leading the world to destruction.
Hatred for atrocities formed against us is a natural first response for a human being.
Remember that He and only He is to judge. Assuming this role for ourselves leads us in the wrong direction, away from Him.
Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.
Romans 12:19
We want to see judgement come to those who cause harm. And when it doesn’t seem to come when we expect it should, when we are so effected, maybe to extent of suffering physical pain, it seems by things that feel out of our control, we may feel justified with hatred for those people or organizations for all of the damage and feelings of hopelessness. This is a trap, a set-up by evil; evil hoping that you do not know the word of God.
Allowing ourselves to be influenced enough to hate is the work of the evil one.
Jesus is love. After being nailed to the cross, He recognized His enemies’ spirits were weakened by hate. He spoke to God:
Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.
Luke 23:34
The way of life is the way of Love…The Grand Design.
Sometime in the 1970s, there was a tv commercial by The United Negro College Fund which ended with this line. It was a commercial promoting the significance of education. Not sure if I’ve used the correct article; it could have declared “A” mind, etc. None the less the message remains the same.
What/who do we rely upon to inform us? Have we actually given thought to this question? I will guess many people have never. We are provided unsolicited information, answers to questions never asked. We live in a fast-paced environment leaving little space and time for our minds to ponder, to reach the place from where questions arise. We need not put in the effort, ultimately accepting data bombarding our senses. What is wrong here? Everything goes along smoothly so what could be wrong with this?
Well, in the presence of overwhelming information and distractions, we may have completely lost connection with what could be our own thoughts. But would we notice this phenomenon at all?
Observing trending ideologies, I am amazed with how easily they take root and grow; how readily accepted, that questions asked by a person who pauses to think before accepting information seems to be an irritant to others who accept without question whatever is presented. People can even become violent in their beliefs which I contend are not actually their own. The worst of this is that most likely, they won’t realize this. In so many areas of their lives, they haven’t had to actually think things through, so they don’t know that they have this natural ability. They don’t know the valuable resource within themselves. And the thinking person is a fright, a danger to their stability and safety. They put up defenses. They will argue a point, not realizing the genesis of which is not of themselves. They are not accustomed to being present with themselves.
We are feeling, experiencing how detrimental this has become for our society.
Ha! I actually had a client, a young woman, who once remarked that she doesn’t like to think!
Take time. Put in the work. Go within. Ask questions!
My big brother John was an enigmatic sort. He was 4 1/2 years older and next in line with me. He was a risk taker, a little dark, unapproachable, impenetrable, and brilliant. He enjoyed his own company most times so I looked forward to when I was allowed access to his inner-sanctum.
His bedroom was collection of unusual and mysterious things. My recollection of his room always included a skull and crossbones upon entering, just above the door.
The events of one particular day best reveal his character. He might have been 14 years old then and I would have been 9 or 10. We were alone in his bedroom. His mischievous expression, always prelude to something unexpected, commanded my full attention as he opened his sock drawer and reached to the back for a little brown bottle. It was filled to only 1/4 capacity. John told me to be very careful and still as he placed the bottle in my hand. The weight was extraordinary. Grinning, he took it back, unscrewed the top and spilled the contents of the bottle onto the floor. It dispersed to all directions into the tiniest of little silver balls. Using a piece of cardboard John scrapped the floor coaxing one ball toward another. When the two made contact they instantly became one which he pushed toward the next until they formed one silver puddle. There was no trace left behind. John used the torn edge of another piece of cardboard to push the silver ball onto the first one. Then he curved the board with the mercury into a funnel shape and artfully poured it back into the little brown bottle and screwed the lid onto it. John beamed triumphant. I was speechless.
It’s been said that each of us has one book inside, a story to tell. I wrote this one.
While struggling through a convergence of life-changing events and making little progress, I was suddenly presented with the most amazing gift. A childhood memory suddenly emerged. It seemed to have an urgency, pleasantly so, not at all like matters before me. I began to write. With every detail that I could recall, I was gifted another, until all of the shapes and colors were there within a my 50-page novelette.
It is a story from my childhood which took place in 1950’s on a farm in Virginia. As I wrote the words I felt warm and comforting support for a time that I spent with my grandparents, so very dear to me now. Until the time of writing, I was unaware of how much meaning that summer with my grandparent’s had brought to my life. And how impossible that it remained safe in my heart all along It was written with love and a deep and ever-growing appreciation for my family. It might well have been entitled , “The Gift”.
Here is an excerpt.
Two Little Girls
Chapter 1
As far as I was concerned, summer began with the day my father installed the screens in the windows. Early that morning, Mother would have taken the summer sheers from storage to the clothesline in our backyard. By the afternoon, she swooped up the freshened bundle and brought them back indoors to hang on the rods at the tops of the windows. When the transformation was complete, I’d run from room to room to see the curtains flying on the breeze that raced in through the windows of our big old house. Like a magical invitation to adventures possible only with summer, when one day melted into the next and no one asked about the time, I felt that I could fly too and that anything could happen.
There were 5 children in my family. My brother Lionel was the oldest; my sister Cecilia was next, followed by my sister Rose, then my brother Isaac, and me. We spent summertime totally absorbed in keeping pace with our friends as was our Mother in keeping up with us. She mended our scraped knees, our bruised egos, and the holes in my brothers’ dungarees. I remember lemonade and tuna sandwiches, cotton sun dresses and hair ribbons; the pennies I collected for the corner candy store, and my ankle socks that never stayed up. Summers seemed much longer then when hopscotch and jump rope, hide-and-seek and tag, dress-up and make believe, with my bicycle, my dolls and friends filled the days until supper time. When August finally came around, among the five of us someone would be chosen to vacation with our grandparents in the country. It was in the year 1957 that I was to spend my first summer there.
I’d thought so often about my first trip to the farm. But like the landing of a cascading boulder, my mother’s cheerful delivery of this summer’s plan completely shattered my vision of it. Leaving little room for the way that reality alters things but similar to most events concerning “the children”, I was quite certain of my unvarying reverie. It was always the same. My brothers and sisters are running through a country field with me, very happily and as usual, following close behind. But everything had been arranged and I alone would spend two weeks on the farm that year.
My family had gathered in the living room when Mother made the announcement. But my frustrating lack of enthusiasm was like a call to dinner in emptying the room of everyone and I found myself alone, save for the dog. While I struggled with the concept of being on my own, Spiky jumped onto the couch next to me. Placing his head upon my foot he kept a concerned and watchful eye over my disposition until we both fell asleep.
Later that day, I listened to Dad’s recollections of farm life adventures while Mother prepared supper. As she filled in with the finer points and particulars she’d taken note of my mixed feelings with her knowing smile that always took the sharp edges off of things. “Don’t forget that your cousin Joanna is just about your age and lives close to Grandpa‘s”, she nearly whispered. Then I thought of the pocket inside the little green suitcase as the place where my Jacks would find a perfect fit.
~~~~~~~ Truth is Beauty is Love ~~~~~~
You are amazing. Create something beautiful today!
It is probably not a good idea to anticipate approval from other people.
They will resent you for this.
Harsh but true, they may even have contempt for you.
If it exists at all, your value is a self-determination. If people are drawn to you, they have the assumption that you are self-assured, just as they are self-assured. Otherwise, with the feeling that they may not be able to trust their instincts, they will loathe having taken notice of you.
If you are a mature adult, why would you look toward others to inform you of your value?
Respect that this is self-work and part of what people notice about you, especially when it is missing.
I’m writing this after finding a note to myself written a long time ago about a friend, a beautiful woman. She was never pleased with herself, no matter what she wore or how she styled her hair. I didn’t understand the problem until I noticed her interaction with a man that she wanted to know.
We were out together with another girlfriend. There was an attractive man walking toward where we were sitting. It was clear that he was focused on her. Though she already had his attention, she proceeded with swinging her hair from side to side, and sitting provocatively, more animated, etc.. She was embarrassing and so obvious that I looked toward the guy to see his response to her. He actually looked disappointed as his wide smile softened by the time he reached us. He probably expected a different response, perhaps just a little more reserved. He was polite and generous, ordering drinks all around. He stayed long enough to finish his drink and make a graceful exit back to his friends.
She was one of my best friends. And I remember that she had a terrible relationship with her father. He was never pleased with anything that she did. He was cold and critical.
Finding and reading this note to myself from so long ago, I think of how my dad was with me. He has been gone for a long time now. Though I have never given any thought about our relationship in comparison to my friend’s with her father, I think of it now.
May dad was a quiet man, so it is easy to remember the things that he said, and the consistent and reliable support that he was for me. Being the last of six children, it seems to me now that my father was aware of how I could get lost in the crowd of our family. He let me know that he could see me. One of my favorite memories is that at the end of the week on Friday evenings, so that I wouldn’t miss his arrival, I colored in my coloring book on the living room floor, waiting for him to return home from work. He’d walk in and without stopping or saying a word, he’d toss a Clark bar onto my coloring book. This was the rare thing as there were no extras in our family of 9.
My father was a busy and hard-working man with a lot of responsibilities to our family. And he also made time to let me know that noticed me. Just between the two of us, that Clark bar was a powerful gesture. It is an amazing thing that thinking about those times, I can still feel how I felt then, when I was 6 years old. My father always reminded me of how I could become whatever I could imagine. He said that often.
I don’t think my girlfriend got that message about herself.
My wish is that those of us who feel empty or unseen by the world could realize that we are amazing, every one of us is an amazing human being.
Parents provide this awareness through their love for us, but sometimes they themselves are also injured in the same way, by their parents. They don’t know how even if they want to be a better parent for their children. Unfortunately, feeling inadequate to give what the child is so needing, a parent’s reaction to this may be criticism and ridicule, for what they didn’t realize was missing in themselves. It is a desperate and harmful reaction for sure. Both the child and the parent are at a loss for understanding and both experience pain and longing.
But the truth is that we are made in His image, in the image of God, The Creator. If we believe this, then we can heal ourselves and we can forgive others. With this knowing, we can repair our hearts and love ourselves and those that have hurt us.
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
Genesis 1:27
Everyone of us is beautiful and amazing, every one.
We may think we know ourselves, but unless and until we determine and identify the various aspects of our personality, I wonder how can we truly know.
I may not be describing this as well as I might, but this is how it seems to me.
We should have an awareness of what is important to us, what we keep within us; such as:.
What we believe.
What we will not tolerate.
We we must always do in every situation.
What we will never allow ourselves to do in any situation, and so on.
And what are the things that we expect of other people who enter our lives, etc. etc..
Each person brings a pre-determined standard along with every encounter, otherwise we are vulnerable to any well-phrased opinion, especially by someone we admire.
Speaking of this, you may give credibility to someone, an eloquent speaker with a well spring of knowledge, very convincing, charismatic and engaging. But what if something that is said comes against a standard that you have for yourself…a standard that you actually have, but have not determined or recognized as such?
Maybe you paid to be in the audience of this person. You are enjoying what you are hearing. Then suddenly, the person says something that is a little irritating, just “a little bit” (channelling De Niro’s character from the movie Goodfellas, haha!). The person has captured your attention and has your trust and respect. But still, you find what has just been uttered to be slightly irritating. It doesn’t fit. Their narrative should resonate with you; you expected it to have. You are annoyed with yourself because of this intrusive and inconvenient feeling. You want it to go away. You wait to hear something that overrides this initial response within you, bringing the speaker back in line with what you expect to hear. You invested in this moment after all. Are you the only one who feels this way? It may seem to be only with you.
In a very real way it is only you. It is personal.
Whether you have actually given thought to this or not, you have a guidance system. And it may come as a surprise to find how unconsciousness you can be of it, and how it works with and for you.
I would like to suggest that you take a moment to identify what makes you who you are by getting to know your silent guidance system. What are your morals and standards for yourself, and for others? It may take a while because who can name every thing, and you have not thought In this way before, not like this? But it can be very enlightening. And the irritation that you felt with the person of many opinions, well, you will probably come to realize has something to do with your internal guidance system.
Discovering yourself by naming the things that make you who you are can be a lot of fun and a little surprising! But what is even more significant, is realizing there is a system at work all of the time. Trust that it is sorting things out for you. And, while identifying your guidance system, you may find that some things could be changed, in order to be your authentic self! If you are clearly and honestly identifying what guides you, you may want to actually make a change or two. With determined and thorough examination, you may have found by identifying all that is guiding you, that changes can be made! Each of us, we are evolving all of the time. So taking this look of what is guiding us can be thought of as maintenance; making sure that we are aligned with ourselves in the present time.
It is a hell of a thing! Residing within you may be a standard that has the ability to, and may have taken you in directions that you didn’t intend to go, and what a revelation this could be for you, more over how empowering that you control this! You have always been in control.
Well, now with this new-found consciousness of the control that you have always had, I think now as I write this, that there is also, and no less significant, the opportunity to forgive yourself for decisions you may have made, unconsciously!
Taking inventory of your guidance system and realizing the control you actually have in the creation of the life you live may be time very well spent.
Wow. Wee!!!
“Thoughts create things!” (this is a quote from in the movie, The Secret)
Get to know your guidance system. You may need an update!
“Jesus said unto him, If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.”
Mark 9:23
Now this one may take most of a lifetime to grasp.
We each have our own beliefs. They are based on life experiences, from the very beginning of awareness. When matters turn in our favor, we feel confirmation for the thing that guided us to act in a certain way. When we are not favored, that can lead to feelings of powerlessness. And we try again and again to prove that we are right. And we defend our position with every bit of our will. We may surrender friends and family members who don’t support our beliefs. We may even die with our inability to consider the possibility that we may be wrong. Yes, being right is that important to some people, because otherwise, there must be something else that has control then, right? Well this is the truly frightening concept for us. We fear the unknown, most terribly. So we stay vigilant, stalwart in our beliefs that we tirelessly defend. We may isolate ourselves from any challenging opposition to what we have come to “know” is true.
And after the earthquake a fire; but the LORD was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice.
1 Kings 19:12
How absolutely profound, “a still small voice“.
He is there…always.
This world of distractions keeps us from hearing Him. We are used to thinking about and responding to noise, as though significance must come with a bang. We miss the beauty of stillness, the knowledge that is there, the love.
Everything that happens is to bring you closer to the Creator…every, single, thing.
Realizing and accepting this truth…then everything makes sense and falls into place.
All is understood for how it was meant to be in your life. All is in harmony, with The Divine.
Change fears to prayers!
For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.
2 Timothy 1:7
...And I will do whatever you ask in My name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. / If you askMe for anything in My name, I will do it.
John was an enigmatic sort of person. He was 4 1/2 years older and next in line with me. He was a risk taker, a little dark, unapproachable, impenetrable, and brilliant. He enjoyed his own company most times so I looked forward to when I was allowed access to his inner-sanctum.
His bedroom was collection of unusual and mysterious things. My recollection of his room always included a skull and crossbones upon entering, just above the door.
The events of one particular day best reveal his character. He might have been 14 years old then and I would have been 9 or 10. We were alone in his bedroom. His mischievous expression, always prelude to something unexpected, commanded my full attention as he opened his sock drawer and reached to the back for a little brown bottle. It was filled to only 1/4 capacity. John told me to be very careful and still as he placed the bottle in my hand. The weight was extraordinary. Grinning, he took it back, unscrewed the top and spilled the contents of the bottle onto the floor. It dispersed to all directions into the tiniest of little silver balls. Using a piece of cardboard John scrapped the floor coaxing one ball toward another. When the two made contact they instantly became one which he pushed toward the next until they formed one silver puddle. There was no trace left behind. John used the torn edge of another piece of cardboard to push the silver ball onto the first one. Then he curved the board with the mercury into a funnel shape and artfully poured it back into the little brown bottle and screwed the lid onto it. John beamed triumphant. I was speechless.
Some People
They would that you never realize your brilliance.
They would that you never live a day knowing your truth, your strength, your creativity.
They would break you into bits and pieces.
They would absorb these parts of you to become one with them…mercurial.
A great gust would take away what’s left of you…perhaps as far as a desert!
Your bones could bleach there under the heat of the sun.
With the stolen pieces they attempt to realize how you are but they can’t. They can only express a gross misinterpretation of your intention.
And in failing they feel contempt and loathing for ever having taken notice of you.
What a colossal waste of precious time! Will they ever come to realize the beauty and wonder residing within themselves?
It’s been said that each of us has one book inside, a story to tell. I wrote this one.
While struggling through a convergence of life-changing events and making little progress, I was suddenly presented with the most amazing gift. A childhood memory suddenly emerged. It seemed to have an urgency, pleasantly so, not at all like matters before me. I began to write. With every detail that I could recall, I was gifted another, until all of the shapes and colors were there within a my 50-page novelette.
It is a story from my childhood which took place in 1950’s on a farm in Virginia. As I wrote the words I felt warm and comforting support for a time that I spent with my grandparents, so very dear to me now. Until the time of writing, I was unaware of how much meaning that summer with my grandparent’s had brought to my life, and how impossible that it remained safe in my heart all along It was written with love and a deep and ever-growing appreciation for my family. It might well have been entitled , “The Gift”.
Here is an excerpt.
Two Little Girls
Chapter 1
As far as I was concerned, summer began with the day my father installed the screens in the windows. Early that morning, Mother would have taken the summer sheers from storage to the clothesline in our backyard. By the afternoon, she swooped up the freshened bundle and brought them back indoors to hang on the rods at the tops of the windows. When the transformation was complete, I’d run from room to room to see the curtains flying on the breeze that raced in through the windows of our big old house. Like a magical invitation to adventures possible only with summer, when one day melted into the next and no one asked about the time, I felt that I could fly too and that anything could happen.
There were 5 children in my family. My brother Lionel was the oldest; my sister Cecilia was next, followed by my sister Rose, then my brother Isaac, and me. We spent summertime totally absorbed in keeping pace with our friends as was our Mother in keeping up with us. She mended our scraped knees, our bruised egos, and the holes in my brothers’ dungarees. I remember lemonade and tuna sandwiches, cotton sun dresses and hair ribbons; the pennies I collected for the corner candy store, and my ankle socks that never stayed up. Summers seemed much longer then when hopscotch and jump rope, hide-and-seek and tag, dress-up and make believe, with my bicycle, my dolls and friends filled the days until supper time. When August finally came around, among the five of us someone would be chosen to vacation with our grandparents in the country. It was in the year 1957 that I was to spend my first summer there.
I’d thought so often about my first trip to the farm. But like the landing of a cascading boulder, my mother’s cheerful delivery of this summer’s plan completely shattered my vision of it. Leaving little room for the way that reality alters things but similar to most events concerning “the children”, I was quite certain of my unvarying reverie. It was always the same. My brothers and sisters are running through a country field with me, very happily and as usual, following close behind. But everything had been arranged and I alone would spend two weeks on the farm that year.
My family had gathered in the living room when Mother made the announcement. But my frustrating lack of enthusiasm was like a call to dinner in emptying the room of everyone and I found myself alone, save for the dog. While I struggled with the concept of being on my own, Spiky jumped onto the couch next to me. Placing his head upon my foot he kept a concerned and watchful eye over my disposition until we both fell asleep.
Later that day, I listened to Dad’s recollections of farm life adventures while Mother prepared supper. As she filled in with the finer points and particulars she’d taken note of my mixed feelings with her knowing smile that always took the sharp edges off of things. “Don’t forget that your cousin Joanna is just about your age and lives close to Grandpa‘s”, she nearly whispered. Then I thought of the pocket inside the little green suitcase as the place where my Jacks would find a perfect fit.
~~~~~~~ Truth is Beauty is Love ~~~~~~
You are amazing. Create something beautiful today!
charondiane 
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